Fibernations

Fibernations

By Tom Wachunas


Recently I was reminded of one of my most cherished memories of art studies at The Ohio State University, which transpired shortly after the invention of dirt. They are of the late, great Hoyt Sherman, who not only tolerated but nourished my efforts at making paintings. He didn’t teach me anything about how to paint as such, but rather something more profoundly lasting: how to SEE painting. At some point in the process he said something that became then – and still is now– a mantra of sorts: Painting is first and foremost drawing, and all drawing is configuration in space. I can’t begin to unpack here all the depth and applications contained in that observation, but I assure you that it gets at the heart of how I look at ALL the arts. Regardless of the forms and styles they employ – even temporal and audio forms – all artists are engaged in making decisions about how to draw, i.e., how to configure their chosen elements in space, two-dimensional and otherwise.

Marge May draws with cloth. Specifically, most of the 31 pieces in her exhibit - called “Marge’s Images” at Lynda Tuttle’s Art Center in downtown Canton – are portraits composed largely from pieces of authentic African-styled fabrics that she sometimes enhances with her own dye and paint treatments. These are intricate visual jewels that elevate the craft of cut-and-paste to a magnificent level of artful enchantment… patchwork portraits executed with all the decidedly precise finesse that a master draftsman would ‘draw’ upon in composing a solid picture in any medium.

Marge May understands faces. Not just their anatomy, but their ephemeral underpinnings, the physiognomy of essential human spirit. With one exception (a delightful likeness of gallery proprietor Tuttle), all the portraits are renderings of Black people (most of them anonymous), and usually presented so as to recapitulate their historically rich ethnicity through the colors, textures, and patterns of African culture. And invariably, the eyes of the faces that May constructs are indeed the proverbial windows of souls. This is not easy to achieve with her chosen medium.

The works I’ve seen by other artists making portraits in similar manner are very often just innocently decorative collages and related pleasantries we associate with folk art. May’s works certainly are decorative enough, with their spectacular variety of print patterns that seem to magically interlock. Yet each portrait is, in its own right and despite its smaller-than-life scale, inhabited by a muscular spirit more urgently compelling than simply charming. These faces don’t invite merely casual scrutiny. They command our undivided attention. As in the portrait, interestingly enough, called “You Have My Attention.” The face of the man is marvelously faceted in a sculptural sort of way, his eyes locked with ours in a steady, intense gaze. His hands have broken the picture plane and come between us as if to define a boundary, perhaps. Is he ready to impart a truth about himself, or fend off our inquiries about him? To give or take?

“Serenity,” like so many of the portraits here, presents a similar sense of engaging questions behind the gaze and posture, along with exquisitely rhythmic compositional structure. A mother looks intently past us, through us, far into a place where her sleeping child has yet to arrive. Her hair is electrified, on end, alert. Her hand, resting on her baby’s torso, is both a cradling comfort and a strong, ready shield.

What I find regrettable about this groundbreaking show (the first-ever solo exhibit in Stark County by a Black artist) is that I didn’t visit it sooner, and more than once. It’s up for only a few more weeks (through August 30), and viewing times are limited (see schedule and contact info at the end here). Fear not, though. Lynda Tuttle is willing to open up the gallery beyond her posted schedule if need be. And she’s a delightfully generous hostess with her time in that she’ll regale you with fascinating stories about many of the works.

Vulnerability, dignity, integrity, anxiety, desire, hope, pain, confidence, fear, joy – all woven together here like so many threads in the fabric of humanity. These riveting expressions, drawn so passionately from dazzling fibers, are not, in the end, unique to nameless individuals isolated in disconnected rooms, households, cities, or even nations, or the histories contained therein. Surely on one level, it seems to me, they symbolize the many-colored mantle that humans have donned, for better or worse, as a condition of being alive. And so it is that beyond their breathtaking, complex beauty of ethnic specificity, these transcendent visages speak to and about us all.


Photo, courtesy Lynda Tuttle’s Art Center, “Serenity,” mixed media, by Marge May, on view in “Marge’s Images” / 209 6th Street NW, downtown Canton. Gallery hours are WEDNESDAY 9a.m. to 5p.m., THURSDAY and FRIDAY 12noon to 5p.m., OR BY APPOINTMENT. Call (330) 452 – 8211. Email lt@LyndaTuttle.com

Info www.lyndatuttle.com

Purrfectly Pleasing (A Cautionary Tail)

Purrfectly Pleasing (A Cautionary Tail)

By Tom Wachunas


“On my way to you I did see a large, spotted cat,” Nyctea answered, “just over that hill, in the brush.”
Alarmed, Aegolius followed her gaze, which was something he seemed to be doing a lot of these days. “Just what we need, more predators,” he said with a snort. “You must have been very frightened.”
“Oh nooo, not at all,” she said. Measuring her words, in a soothing tone, she continued,
“There was something quite, quite…beautiful about it, in an odd sort of way.”
“Odd? How so?”
“Well, I mean to say it seemed so perfectly, so perfectly…”
Aegolius, knowing cats all too well, offered, “Pleased with itself?”
“Ahhh, yes,” Nyctea said, nodding vigorously. “Thank you! That’s it precisely. It was so perfectly pleased with itself.”

- June Godwit, from “Mournings of the Grebes”-



I wasn’t sure if I would comment any further about BZTAT’s downtown mural installation beyond what I offered in my June 29 post (“A Heap of City Kitties”). But now that it’s in place (on the side of the HEAP building at 201 Fifth Street NW), here’s a sequel, prompted in part by the above, intriguingly apropos excerpt from Godwit’s long out-of-print fantasy epic.

This is also prompted by recent comments from Judi Krew, in her August 7 blog post (snarkyart.blogspot.com). So I thank her for her thoughts. Not that I feel in the least bit compelled to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, but she alludes (through a refreshing cat’s-eye perspective) to some important considerations when assessing public art, the operative term here being PUBLIC.

The purview of public art works should never be regarded strictly as a free-for-all forum where artists – no matter how engaging or profound their work might be in a gallery or museum context - simply get to strut their stuff on a grand scale. Somehow there needs to be an accountability to, and acknowledgement of, relevance and appeal to viewers. This is not to say there’s no room for controversy. After all, we’re dealing with the ever volatile and subjective realm of balancing the artists’ personal tastes and esthetic languages with societal perspectives and trends. Sometimes they blend, sometimes they clash. The challenge will always be to present art we can hopefully and truly live with, talk about, and even be proud of at best, not just tolerate or ignore at worst.

You can’t ignore BZTAT’s Downtown Cats. In fact I’ve never seen her vibrant color sensibilities more thoughtfully balanced and alive amid bold, clear shapes, their edges more subtly softened, her brush work more facile. And while it’s gratifying to know of her deep passion for the welfare of domestic animals, the work stands on its own as a simple, innocent pleasure for the eyes (even if some poor souls among you can’t stand cats, in which case I’ll pray for you). Only time will tell if her materials and methods will withstand the ravages of local weather. As it stands now, though, these cats exude an air of (sometimes I just can’t help myself) purrfect permanence.


BZTAT’s mural comes to us on the heels of Canton’s ebullient annual rite of football brouhaha – the Hall of Fame Festival. So permit me a metaphor. In their much-publicized ambitions to present significant public art to both resident and visiting citizens, our civic and artistic “authorities” have yet to manifest a game plan of any really consistent quality. Their offense strategy has often been just plain offensive and otherwise indefensible, as it were. So while BZTAT’s mural may not be a touchdown for the record books, it is nonetheless an electrifying, sweetly and skillfully executed field goal.

The kick is up, and it’s good.

A Master Lensman's Legacy

A Master Lensman’s Legacy

By Tom Wachunas


Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
- Ambrose Bierce –


In his day (late 19th century) Ambrose Bierce (aka “Bitter Bierce”) was the journalistic king of sardonic commentary on…everything. Clearly he didn’t consider photography an artistically noble pursuit, and his view of painting seemed equally cynical, calling it “the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.” To a certain poetic extent, he got the “painted by the sun” part right for photography (particularly nature photography), and similarly in painting, the idea of exposed surfaces. Now, if we maintain our poetic sensibilities and combine the two, we might come up with something a little more illuminating as to process, like this: photographs from nature are flat surfaces painted by the sun after exposure to the artist’s decisions.

Enter Art Wolfe. He’s a world- class, award- winning conservation photographer who has, in the course of 30 years, left us a ravishing record of vanishing or threatened species and environments in far-flung reaches of the world. The current exhibit of his large format color prints at the Joseph Saxton Gallery of Photography, titled “Travels to the Edge,” is ample and sumptuous proof that Wolfe has honed his instruction in fine arts from long ago (meaning his artistic decision-making skills) to a point of stunning refinement.

The visual power of this exhibit is in Wolfe’s keen eye for organized color distribution in the forms we see, beautifully enhanced by fascinating textures. These are thoughtfully framed scenes, masterfully constructed in a way that an orchestral composer arranges a variety of instrumental colors, rhythms, and textures to support a main theme. Call them concertos for the eyes.

Eyes indeed. Hunkered down in a lush bed of warm-colored wildflowers, the baby birds in “Snowy Owlets” peer directly at us with a riveting, even threatening gaze. The startling brightness of their round orange eyes echoes analogous colors in the flower petals around them, and is an intense counterpoint to their fluffy, delicate gray down. That same facile employment of color rhythms to lead the eye through a composition is evident throughout this exhibit. In “King Penguins,” for example, the birds’ rounded white breasts, like high-relief punctuation marks on the dark earth of the shore, pick up the larger shape of the whitish sea water; the orange features of their heads act like staccato repetitions of the eerie glow of the sky at the distant horizon.

Even more compelling here are those photographs that, while certainly faithful records of real forms and moments in time, are nonetheless distinctly more abstract in appearance. In fact some of these are so imbued with a tactile lyricism that they look like modern paintings. “Flamingos” is an aerial view of liquidy land masses with amorphous edges, in various white tones amid undulating light tans and blues. The Flamingos are almost indistinguishable as birds but for the subtlest hints of pink, appearing as a flurry of very tiny dots clustered in the center, and rising up into a gorgeous patch of vibrant cerulean. The photograph is reminiscent of the poured color-field canvases by famed abstractionist Helen Frankenthaler. And “Cathedral of Ice” is a thrillingly sensual, mysterious Antarctica meditation that is unmistakably reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe’s haunting explorations of floral forms.

This show is very much a double-edged living legacy. On one hand, Wolfe continues to issue an urgent call to savor and protect our natural wonders. And on the other, his exquisitely crafted visions constitute truly great art.


Photo, courtesy Art Wolfe and Joseph Saxton Gallery: “Flamingos,” on view in “Travels to the Edge,” through October 1, 2010, at the Joseph Saxton Gallery of Photography, 520 Cleveland Avenue NW, downtown Canton, Ohio. Gallery Hours are 12p.m. to 5p.m. Wednesday – Saturday. (330) 438 – 0030.

www.josephsaxton.com

Women Eclectic

Women Eclectic

By Tom Wachunas


Someone (in his late 20s, I would guess) recently asked me about the new show at Gallery 6000 this way: “Is it modern or postmodern or what?” What, no room for good old traditional stuff? Maybe he was trying to be au courant. As it turned out he, like many people, equated ‘postmodernism’ in the visual arts with terms like ‘avant- garde’, and ‘edgy’, and the idea that ugly is the new beautiful (since, the thinking goes, there are no universally agreeable parameters for beauty, thereby rendering it a non- requirement for art). These days I personally regard ‘postmodern’ as an often confusing reference to all kinds of global hokum about sociocultural relativism, along with a rejection (or at least re-analysis) of modernist perspectives, as if modernism hadn’t already jettisoned much of what most reasonable people would consider worth keeping around. Suffice it to say here that all the art being done everywhere these days exists in “the postmodern era,” even though there are no definitive rules of postmodern formalism in painting, sculpture, drawing, etc. Anyone who tells you different is itchin’ for a fight.

Still, ‘postmodern’ as a descriptor applied to the visual arts seems to imply some sort of intrinsically powerful relevance. And with that there are, almost always, expectations of encountering profoundly strange and/or irreverent things that confound easy categorizing. This, I suppose, comes with the territory. In the big picture, a considerable amount of the ‘new’ art I encounter in the context of postmodernist critique, which I mean here to be commentaries on the avant- garde, is really just a lot of smoke and mirrors anyway. And the emperor’s new clothes, such as they may be, are really just the emperor’s old clothes, worse for wear in many cases, with new labels sewn in.

In any event, my latest curatorial offering at Gallery 6000, while certainly a fairly mixed-bag of formal approaches, makes no claim to being astoundingly experimental, remarkably new, or controversial in content. Let’s call it comfortably contemporary and leave further label haggling for another fight…er, uhm…conversation. The fact of the matter is that the work exhibited here in “Women Eclectic” is by four artists who speak in visual languages that, while dialectically separate, as it were, are distinctly accessible to the mind (with a healthy dose of intrigue in some cases), and a delight to the eye.

Judi Krew is widely known for her raucous, highly detailed acrylic paintings celebrating womanhood in all its situational challenges, frustrations, and riotous absurdities, all rendered in an illustrative, or comic book style. Here she presents a relatively more recent evolution in her body of work – pastel portraits. Certainly more conventional, or ‘academic’ in approach when compared to her paintings, these five pieces are nonetheless sensitive, airy, and bold in both color and their clear mastery of authentically good drawing based on careful observation. Krew’s technique with pastels is one of very refined, gestured spontaneity. But her portraits aren’t overwhelmed by stiff poses or overly-precious markings, and so she deftly captures a sense of real candidness and soul in her subjects.

‘Eclectic’ surely applies to the nine works by Sarah Winther Shumaker. She’s equally adept in watercolor, reverse collage, mixed media, and encaustic (pigmented hot beeswax). Here she has delivered a remarkable range of textures and forms that embrace intimately-scaled visions (some the result of what she calls “happy accidents”) that have an engaging folk-art sensibility - part simple whimsy, part mystery, and all visually fascinating.

The five acrylic paintings by Ronni Marcinkowey nearly jump off the walls with their unabashedly brilliant, saturated hues. There is an unfussy innocence about these paintings. The compositions are simple, solid, and loosely rendered, with almost child-like confidence – a refreshing embodiment of joie d’vivre.

Kathryn Ackerman is relatively new to the Canton-area exhibition circuit. Beyond showing her work at Second April Galerie once (just several months ago), she’s been a well-kept secret up to this point. Speaking of secrets, her paintings here (one acrylic, four oils) might be full of them. Or perhaps questions would be more accurate, though not the dark questions you might encounter in a mystery-suspense story. These paintings aren’t so much a whodunnit as they are a who (or what) is it. Despite their small size, they impart a vast amount of representational imagery, presented in sweeping panoramas suggestive of cinematic, epic-scale dream sequences. Ackerman’s painting technique is exquisitely tight, her color sensibilities elegant and lush – achingly so - bringing new depth to the notion of ‘hauntingly beautiful’. Distinctly feminine, though never merely pretty, these images tell a deeply personal story about, perhaps, the artist’s identity - her past, present, and future ‘being-ness’. This simultaneity of search and revelation, while steeped in rich visual intrigue and mystery, is nonetheless powerfully inviting – even inspiring. It’s the kind of art that renders our tired categorizing of styles or eras moot. It’s the stuff of timelessness.


THE EXHIBIT OPENS THIS EVENING, Tuesday, August 3, with a reception for the artists and public at 5:30p.m. Please RSVP to Becky DeHart at 330-244-3518 or
rdehart@kent.edu


Photo: “Beneath”/ oil, by Kathryn Ackerman, on view in the exhibition “Women Eclectic” at Gallery 6000, through October 28, 2010, located in the University Center, Kent State University at Stark, 6000 Frank Avenue NW, North Canton, Ohio.

Adventures in Wandaland

Adventures in Wandaland

By Tom Wachunas


“You have traveled so far,” said Aegolius. Nyctea nodded her agreement as her wide, very round eyes darted toward the horizon. Then Aegolius asked, “What will you build now?”
“Abstractions,” she replied, her voice unwavering after her arduous journey.
“Abstractions?”
“Yes,” she said. “To remind us of other things.”
Aegolius inched closer to her as he followed her gaze toward the sky. Nervous now, he asked, “W-w-what other things?”
“I won’t know until they show themselves,” she said, still looking into the distance. After a long while, she peered back at Aegolius, and whispered, “Then, we shall all know.”

- from “Mournings of the Grebes” by June Godwit –


In the brochure that accompanies the current exhibit of works by Wanda Montgomery at The Little Art Gallery, entitled “Art: a Never Ending Journey,” Montgomery writes of her non-objective mixed media paintings, “…Instead of recreating what I see, I create a painting from a deeper place, letting the painting tell me what it needs.” The statement points simply and essentially to the heart of making – and viewing - abstract painting. The artist sees with ‘other’ eyes, and discovers what only those eyes can see. As viewers we are asked to lay aside our ingrained expectations of ‘real world’ visual pleasantries, and be willing to embrace less familiar, even outright alien territories. Only then can the very process of perception - on both artist’s and viewer’s parts – be conjoined, allowing the art to speak its reality.

In this show, Montgomery presents the full spectrum of her artistic pursuits: watercolors, mixed media abstracts, sculpture, jewelry, art dolls, and altered books. Those books, by the way, are intriguing collage/assemblage affairs with an antique air. All of them are inaccessible as literature, since they’re under glass. So I assume that the text contents are unimportant. These are books that are indeed meant to be judged solely by their elaborate, often funky covers.

One of the more immediately noticeable characteristics of the paintings in this show is the predominantly subdued palette. This is, for the most part, not an electrifying romp through fields of bright, luminous color. Even the watercolors are moody - though truly elegant – renderings of recognizable objects and scenes executed with a distinct bias toward blue and a wondrous attention to light. But the washy paint applications that Montgomery employs are such that she achieves remarkably subtle variations in soft textures that seem to rise from deep within the paper surface. For all of their muted intensity, they’re nonetheless compelling for their meditative quality.

And it is that same sensibility that has crossed over into her abstract works, though with a ramped-up commitment to thrillingly visceral surfaces that fairly seethe with evidence of her ‘listening’ to what the painting ‘needs.’ Certainly that process is a deeply personal and challenging one, and not all the abstracts here are equally resolved ‘conversations.’

“Learning the Game,” for example, may be an ironic testament to that difficulty. The painting is a relatively confusing, soupy blend of marks and textures in an indeterminate pictorial structure. In contrast, the forms in “Ancient Cultures” seem to be breathed out of Montgomery’s gestural musings (often suggestive of handwriting in other paintings here) to produce a work highly evocative of archetypal magic, mysteries, and fossilized history. This sort of painterly, earthy exoticism is delightfully evident in several other works. It results from a facile balancing of non-specific fields of highly-worked color with solidified or (at least) suggested shapes and volumes. Texture, color, and form held in delicate suspension.

“Then, we shall all know” may well be, depending upon our predispositions to the unfamiliar, an overly optimistic leap of faith on Nyctea’s part as she waits for her abstractions to reveal their nature to us. On the other hand, she might mean that ultimately, all we can really ‘know’ of such things, like Wanda Montgomery’s paintings, is that they are not easy imitations of already known entities. They are, rather, soulful invitations to see “other things” with new eyes. To read painted poetry.



Photo: “Ancient Cultures” mixed media by Wanda Montgomery, on view in “Art: a Never Ending Journey,” THROUGH AUGUST 21, at The Little Art Gallery, located in the North Canton Public Library, 185 North Main Street, North Canton, Ohio.
Gallery hours: MWF 10am to 6pm / TR noon to 8pm / Sat. 9am to 5pm / Sun. 1pm to 5pm gallery@northcantonlibrary.org

A Sweet-n-Sour Thang

A Sweet- n- Sour Thang

By Tom Wachunas


After seeing the impressive scale of production (big ensemble, sets, costumes, sound) in the North Canton Playhouse presentation of “The Wedding Singer” at Canton’s Palace Theatre on July 25, I was left wondering: are the exaggerated superficialities of the material intended to be an outright parody of 1980s musical culture, or were the writers (music by Matthew Sklar, lyrics by Chad Beguelin, film written by Tim Herlihy) aiming for something more timeless in the way of truly original, memorable pop anthems? If the latter was the case, then they missed their mark by a hefty margin. And even as parody, the story line is – while sweet - fairly brainless, and most of the songs are melodically and lyrically anemic, despite the jarring employment of “adult language” in some of them (more on that in a bit).

So it is worth noting that for all of the mediocrity of the material at hand (Broadway track record notwithstanding), director Lisa Paynter managed to nonetheless elicit infectiously vibrant, often electrifying performances from her cast. She also co-directed the music with Brenton Cochran, who conducted the spirited and technically excellent five-piece band. The choreography by Kayla Hall was certainly energetic and competent enough, though unevenly executed. While some in the ensemble performed it with real pizzaz, others often looked lost in thought about their next move.

Mike Noble played Robbie Hart, a New Jersey wedding singer jilted at the altar by his fiancée, Linda. As both actor and singer, he was superbly facile, crisp, and often genuinely funny. Speaking of funny, some of the evening’s most endearing and hilarious moments came courtesy of Mary McManaway – founder of the North Canton Playhouse- in her role of Rosie (Robbie’s hip, rapper- grandmother). Elsewhere in the cast, Alexx Culbertson was thoroughly charming in her role as the gentle and trusting waitress who ultimately captures Robbie’s heart; Danielle Dorfmann, as Holly (Julia’s friend), commanded the stage with remarkable vocal power and earthy dramatic sensibility; A.J. Schumacher, playing Glen (Julia’s fiancée as the play opens) was devilishly slick in his portrayal of the greedy and conniving Wall Street wizard; and in her number, “Let Me Come Home,” Monica Young (playing Linda) was on fire as she schmoozed up to Robbie with all the slinky appeal of a feral cat in heat, complete with a viciously thick Joisey accent.

The song lyrics here are, for the most part, shallow exercises, occasionally enlivened with clever wordplay. And in terms of engaging translations of authentic emotion, they’re more superfluous than sublime. Additionally, the proceedings (spoken and sung) seemed noticeably peppered with raunchy confessional tidbits and vulgarities, including the f-bomb.

I realize that citing this aspect puts me squarely in old-school thinking about such issues, and the problem here wasn’t a wildly rampant one. But it was just present enough. All it takes is one or two expletives in a love story to leave a sour after-taste. A milder case in point: “A Note from Grandma.” Rosie sings her condolences to Robbie (just after he’s belted out his crazed “Somebody Kill Me”), adding fuel into his smoldering heart with this piece of advice: “You’ll find someone to love you / sure as waves will find the shore/ and when you’re sad, remember / that Linda is a skanky whore.” Hardly a healing lullaby rhyme from grandma, to be sure.

Did the 80s – over any other decade in recent times – have such a corner on the moral turpitude market as to justify the insulting language we encounter in “The Wedding Singer”? Certainly not. Was it vital to the credibility or sweetness of this particular story, then? Again, no. “But people really do talk like that” is an insouciant, toothless, and inapplicable defense of such vulgarities in this case. Even if viewed as a caricature, this cavalier “color” came off as merely gratuitous and embarrassing, and cheapened the proceedings of an otherwise professionally- delivered evening of musical theatre.

Interestingly enough, though, the audience in large part ate it up, along with lots of children in attendance. Clearly, we attended different schools.


Photo: Courtesy North Canton Playhouse: Cast of “The Wedding Singer,” presented at Canton’s Palace Theatre, July 23 -25

Sins Of Our Fathers

Sins Of Our Fathers

By Tom Wachunas


“Then Waves” is the last of the three world-premiere plays in this year’s New Play Conservatory at Canton Players Guild Theatre. Written by Kevin Anthony Kautzman and directed here by Craig Joseph, it is easily the most audacious and startling – even dangerous – drama I’ve seen anywhere for longer than I can remember. Its staying power is not unlike the rude, abusive dinner guest who refuses to leave. And even after he’s been physically dispatched (leaving in his wake painful memories), there are those clingy remnants of yet- to- be- chewed meat particles still lodged in my teeth.

I am cautiously certain that such difficulty in processing this story lies in its complex psychological layerings that, like peeling an onion, reveal progressively unsettling facts and flaws about the characters. Kautzman’s compelling writing is a vigorous and visceral exercise in exorcising – a riveting portrait rendered with a relentless barrage of narrative lightning bolts. This is a story for our time, to be sure. As such it’s a searing cry, a dirge, a howling prayer for redemption.

The play opens with cast members reciting, “Stabat mater dolorosa…,” the beginning of the classic medieval Roman Catholic hymn about Mary’s suffering as she beholds her crucified son. “The sorrowful mother stood…” Stabat mater. Even the Latin words are an eerily relevant onomatopoeia: ‘stabbing matter.’

Most of the scenes take place on a hilltop with a blood-red bench and limp American flag on a pole, overlooking a Veteran’s cemetery in the characters’ hometown. And most are introduced with recited lines from Stabat Mater, giving the proceedings all the dark, ‘sacred’ solemnity of a funereal lament.

The story is built around the life of Brady, a U.S. soldier returned from his Mid- Eastern tour of duty, suffering from PTSD. In the first act we quickly sense that this is a worst-case scenario. Ultimately we’re presented with a man so torn and haunted by the war atrocities he witnessed and committed that his mind, already sickened by past bitter resentments, has snapped beyond retrieval. His is a paranoid-schizophrenic reality immersed in mangled obsession with the Old Testament God of hellfire and vengeance; horrific verbal and physical abuse of his son, Cailin (who, Brady is convinced, is not his own); and the certainty that his wife, Thee, has had an affair with his old school chum, Ryan. Brady confesses to his counselor that a dream has inspired him exactly how and where to kill Cailin. Thus in the second act we as audience become in turn fully immersed in Brady’s nightmarish ‘reality’. Actually carried out, or only imagined? I’ll never tell. Then again, I’m not precisely sure. Still chewing on that one.

The cast here is uniformly excellent. Peter Calac is utterly disarming as the abused son struggling with shattered dreams of a romantic future amid fruitless attempts to heal his broken relationship with Brady. He’s the embodiment of real wounded innocence, tempered by a wisdom and resolve beyond his years. Additionally, it’s fascinating to watch how Maria Work, playing Thee, and Ryan Nehlan, playing Ryan, are transformed from their convincing portrayals of concerned wife and loyal friend, respectively, into equally convincing guilty lovers on-the-attack in the second act.

All of this is certainly a testament to Craig Joseph’s skills as a director. But what’s most astonishing are his skills as an actor. Who or what could have directed him in his portrayal of Brady, other than a profoundly genuine, even selfless submergence in the story? Joseph’s performance is a baptism of sorts, this one complete with not a sprinkling but a frightening torrent of insanely fowl-mouthed chants and ravings that constantly crest and fall throughout the evening like...waves. Despite our “civilized” aversion to such unnerving displays, we watch, captured and mesmerized, like helpless bystanders at a house on fire.

The play ends with the image of much-awaited rainfall washing the cast gathered on the hill. Another wave, then. There is an abiding, haunting sense of inevitability about the moment. In the big picture, such waves – purges- are only temporary, albeit necessary salves on an ageless, painful truth: redemption comes always – and only - with blood.

Amen.


New Play Conservatory at the Players Guild William G. Fry Arena Theatre, located in the Cultural Center for the Arts, 1001 Market Ave. North, Canton, Ohio. All performances at 8p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2:30p.m. Sundays, Tickets $10. Call (330) 453 – 7617.
“Then Waves,” by Kevin Kautzman, directed by Craig Joseph, July 23 – 25 (violence and adult language). www.playersguildtheatre.com

For more information on playwright Kevin Anthony Kautzman, visit
www.kevinkautzman.com


Photo: “The Scream” by Edvard Munch