Reviews

NATHAN SANDERS

Reviews

San Jose Stage Company 2006

"THE METRO WEEKLY" (Silicon Valley)

November, 2005

Swamp Things

Bayou siblings go over the top in Stage Company's outrageous 'Sugar Bean Sisters'

By Marianne Messina

Taking on a plot that sounds too outrageous to bear, San Jose Stage Company makes The Sugar Bean Sisters work, sensationally - it feels a bit like Granny Clampett falls into "A Rose for Emily." Fascinating and funny, the sisters Faye Clementine (Nancy Madden) and Willie Mae (Jeffra Cook) Nettles grab on from the first drawled words out of Faye's mouth: "I got one nerve left, and you are dangling from it."

The knotted, contentious relationship between the sisters in their crotchety Florida bayou cabin (picture what is known in Silicon Valley as a "tear-down") drives this bristly story right on through the absurdities. And the deaths by flying cat, the family ghosts and the much-awaited return visit of Martians seem no more disruptive than the odd character quirks of a good friend.

Dressed down and back woodsy (costume designer Jeremy Cole hit the nail on this one), Madden's short, squat body suits the let-go appearance of someone whose plans for the future involve being taken off by Martians. And the way she slyly pours water on electrical wires as her sister Willie Mae handles them is pure impishness. The sisters are Latter Day Saints by way of handsome bell-ringing proselyte. But where afraid-of-her-shadow, prim (bald, wig-sporting) Willie is desperate to marry the Mormon minister on her way to Celestial Heaven, Faye is the cussing, drink-sneaking handywoman who provokes her sister with language like, "Makes my ass want to chew tobacco."

Never overstated, Madden's Faye can give a withering look that crosses patience and seething, and keeps us in suspense as to how far she's gone over to the dark side. But even the righteous Miss Willie has her nasty outbursts, holding us ever between pity and empathy. The handsome minister calls (James Bigelow gave him a nice combination of charm and whitewash); a potion-selling, poisonous-snake-collecting "Reptile Woman" is invited over (a Caribbean-flavored Casey Jones Bastiaans did vodun creepiness to a T-it's all in the laugh); and the standard mystery visitor takes the form of feathered floozy, Videllia Sparks (Judith Miller).

This delightful production gets everything right: Ching-Yi Wei's set design encircles the cutaway front room of the perfectly cluttered shack with the swamp wharf outside, and director Rick Singleton establishes the invisible wall between them right away, having Miss Sparks run around the perimeter of the open room seeking entrance to finally climb in a window. Michael Walsh's lighting and Jamie D. Mann's sound help make it easy to shift focus from inside to outside. The shack's lights go dim or dark, eerie twilight lighting singles out the perimeter and teeming bayou sounds come up all around. The effect underscores the dread sense of an encroaching unknown world that is this play's subtle metaphor for our latter days.

The so-satisfying special effects in the three finale scenes included a marvelous black light (which forefronts any white surface). Its stunning effect showed that someone preplanned these white surfaces down to amazing detail. Add great musical choices, stage trappings and humor, and you get three finale "endings" with an anthem-like power to bring up swells of emotion all over the chart.

"BACKSTAGE" Review: 'The Sugar Bean Sisters' May 11, 2006 By Barry Wisdom Like a page from the Weekly World News brought to life, Nathan Sanders' The Sugar Bean Sisters is an improbable "swamp tale" filled with flying cats and flying saucers, sisterly betrayal, and voodoo curses. And like those supermarket tabloids that keep us occupied as we queue up at the checkout, The Sugar Bean Sisters provides an oasis from the real world, keeping us laughing and entertained in the face of grim realities. In its superbly performed, well-directed debut as a professional Equity company, the Studio Theatre offers the stage equivalent of a summer popcorn movie: lightweight escapist fare that is nonetheless well done from top to bottom, including a knock-your-wig-off set courtesy of designer Michael Peters. He is just one member of a high-performing cast and crew that producer Jacqueline Schultz, who stages this production, has assembled for her 11-year-old theatre's step into the big leagues. Faye Clementine Nettles (Nancy Madden) and sibling Willie Mae (Chris Hille) are a pair of twisted spinster sisters in the mythical hamlet of Sugar Bean, Fla. It's summertime and the living is anything but easy as the cynical and frustrated Faye plots her escape from the one-gator town via an alien spaceship, which is due to return on the 20th anniversary of its original close encounter with Sugar Bean. Dithering and dotty (and hairless) Willie Mae dreams of a new life in the celestial kingdom promised by the Book of Mormon. Throwing a monkey wrench into schemes for salvation is Videllia Sparks (Nisa Davis Hayden), a molting and mysterious "bird lady" from New Orleans whose visit to the Nettles homestead isn't as accidental as she leads us to believe. Before the night is through, Sanders' surreal story -- a mix of Green Acres and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? -- takes several more absurd turns, including visits from a spell-casting Reptile Lady (Lauren Charlesworth) and a Scripture-toting Mormon bishop (Jay Charlesworth). Madden and Hille are a fabulously earnest pair, whose dead-serious demeanor makes the loopy dialogue all the funnier. Hayden adds sex and sparkle in her flamboyant performance, which is the best of the show.

(Lauren Caldwell in "The Sugar Bean Sisters" at the Hipp)

"The Sugar Bean Sisters"

"Hilarious!"
- The Los Angeles Times

"Authentic Southern Gothic comedy... You will enjoy recalling its deliciously lunatic lines!"
- New York Newsday

"Endearing... An exuberantly wacky comedy...Weird and wonderful!"
- The Gainesville Sun

"Deliciously offbeat... Sisterhood as an extreme sport... It's just plum impossible to resist the flights of whimsy!"
- The San Jose Mercury News

"A wildly funny script... Recommended!"
- LA Weekly

"Imaginative and fascinating!"
- Scripps Howard

"Sanders has a colorfully twisted imagination, a sharp-tongued way with one-liners and uniquely vulnerable characters who have no desire to live ordinary lives."
- The San Francisco Bay Times

"Stunning... an absolute, hilarious winner!"
- The Florida Islander

"Magical!"
- The Naples Daily News

"Fascinating and funny...marvelous and stunning... a subtle metaphor for our latter days.... "The Sugar Bean Sisters" brings up swells of emotion all over the chart!"
- Metro Weekly (Silicon Valley)

"Richly absurd... surprisingly touching... Our best recommendation!"
- Out & About Magazine

"A wacky alternative to the usual holiday fare!"
- San Jose Magazine

"'The Sugar Bean Sisters' provides an oasis from the real world, keeping us laughing and entertained in the face of grim realities... a page from the 'Weekly World News' brought to life!"
- Backstage

"We recommend "The Sugar Bean Sisters"!
- The Wave Magazine

"There's a whole lot of wacky in Nathan Sanders' light comic charmer!"
- The Sacramento Bee

"Nathan Sanders' Southern gothic fantasy is a potent, odd mix of Tobacco Road's shabby
poetics and Ma and Pa Kettle's whimsy, with a dollop of supermarket tabloid Weekly World News thrown in. The sisters' dreams don't evaporate under harsh reality, they metastasize!"
- Houston Press

"(an) unpretentious laugher... the theatrical equivalent of comfort food!"
- Capital Public Radio (KXJZ - Sacramento)

"'Brilliant dialogue... a hilarious comedy...don't miss the opportunity to laugh out loud!"
-The Oroville Mercury Register

"Uproarious... a wonderful sight and sound experience!"
Russian River Monthly

"Playwright Sanders has a real gift of writing in the vernacular, capturing the colorful, often very humorous phrases of his characters!"
- Aisle Say (San Francisco)

"Delightfully screwy!"
- Billings Gazette

"A fresh little alligator soufflé... a swampy good time!"
-"Dallas Morning News"

"And just wait until you see the ending - it has to be one of the craziest, unexpected, exhilaratingly satisfying endings ever staged. With special effects that leave you hyperventilating with disbelief while you are choking with laughter, it had the whole audience cheering with delight. The Sugar Bean Sisters is one story that will take you out of this world!"
- Gainesville Sun

"An entertaining, phatasmagorical tale... The Sugar Bean Sisters is one sweet success!"
- Vero Beach Press Journal

(Lauren Charlesworth as "The Reptile Woman")

"Out & About Magazine"

December, 2005

by Paul Myrvold

"The Sugar Bean Sisters": Deliciously Dark Comedy
at San Jose Stage Company

I don't know what more one could ask for in a comedy. The Northern California Premiere of Nathan Sanders "The Sugar Bean Sisters" at San Jose Stage Company has it all: richly absurd characters in ridiculous situations living out an improbable plot line that wrings peals of well-earned laughter from a delighted audience. And it is all deliciously dark with setups and payoffs, one-liners and physical jokes that lead to the satisfaction of the surprising yet inevitable end. But through it all there is a warmth in the characters that is surprisingly touching.

Sisters Faye Clementine Nettles (Nancy Madden) and her sister Willie Mae (Jeffra Cook), middle-aged "bachelor girls", live in a tin-roofed, run down house on the outskirts of the Florida swamp town of Sugar Bean. Recent converts to the Mormon faith, Willie Mae longs to ascend to the Celestial Kingdom but not before she marries the handsome young Bishop (James Bigelow) while her sister Faye plans to leave Earth in an alien space craft. A flighty, anxious New Orleans strip club chanteuse, Miss Videllia Sparks (Judith Miller) dressed in red and trimmed in feathers, literally comes through the window into this hot bed of expectation on a steamy, stormy August night. Ostensibly lured by the tabloid report of Faye Clementine's UFO sighting, she has her own mysterious motivations for showing up. And for good comedic measure, into the mix Mr. Sanders stirs the Reptile Woman (Casey Jones Bastiaans), a witchy, voodoo-like snake charmer who seems to see through all the posing and pretenses of the zany trio.

The enthralling, nuanced performances are superb in this ensemble piece, as is the production. Ching-Yi Wei's busy, detailed and wonderfully dressed house set is just right and the lighting plot by Michael Walsh unobtrusively serves the action and the design just as it should. Costume designer Jeremy Cole gets each character's individuality just right, especially that of Videllia whose bird jacket is its own visual joke.

The humor of this show has depth in all areas and meets and exceeds the high artistic standard that is the hallmark of the Stage Company, a Bay Area treasure.

My best recommendation: get to this show before it closes on December 11. You'll have a very good time.

(Nell Page, Diane Bearden & Lauren Caldwell, Hippodrome State Theatre)

"GAINESVILLE SUN"

Spring, 2005

Review by Arline Greer

Theatre Critic

Rookie ballplayers don't usually step up to the plate and bang home runs their first time at bat any more than first-time playwrights write solid hits. Nathan Sanders has defied the odds with his first play, "The Sugar Bean Sisters," an exuberantly wacky comedy at the Hippodrome State Theatre.

"The Sugar Bean Sisters" had its initial run at the WPA Theatre in New York City, where it was hailed as a true Southern Gothic comedy. (The Hipp is presenting its Southeastern premiere.) Southern Gothic may be the name of the genre, but what rings a bell in this very funny play is its ties to all off-the-wall comedy.

After watching the slightly touched sisters of Sugar Bean plan murder, mayhem and southern comfort in a Florida swamp near Disney World, there comes to mind another set of sisters, the quaintly murderous Brooklyn duo of "Arsenic and Old Lace," 50 years and 1,300 miles removed. The sisters of the South and their northern counterparts share a common endearing lunacy that makes audiences root for insanity over reason.

There's enough lunacy in "The Sugar Bean Sisters" to fill several plays. Sanders has called upon real-life experiences to create Willie and Faye, the Mormon sisters who live at the edge of the swamp. In accordance with her faith, Willie yearns for a husband so that she can go to the celestial kingdom when she dies. Faye is awaiting the return of space people on the 25th anniversary of their landing outside her home. She didn't go away with them 25 years ago; now, she's ready for lift-off.

Unusual visitors arrive in the sisters' home. They include the mysterious Videllia Sparks, who performs as a "bird woman in a cage in New Orleans." Bishop Crumley, the handsome Mormon minister, comes to escort the smitten Willie to a house of mourning. The Reptile Woman is called in to exorcise snakes. (Venomous snakes are a source of macabre fun in the play.)

Sanders' dialogue for "The Sugar Bean Sisters" is laced with acid humor reflecting the love-hate relationship of the sisters. Sparkling hot one-liners follow hard on each others' heels as the sisters fight for their separate dreams.

Faye could go off with her Martians if only Willie were called to the celestial kingdom. The fortune Willie has acquired could be left to both Faye and the visiting bird woman (who is not quite what she seems).

Underlying the outrageous humor lies a certain affection, a sure bond the sisters feel for each other. It pops out in redemptive fashion, enlisting our sympathy and identification.

The play's denouement is as weird and wonderful as all that's preceeded it. It is brilliantly acted as is the entire play by its cast of five.

As bald-headed Willie, who years for a good Mormon husband, Nell Page Sexton gives a zany performance that's both rueful and sharp-tongued. Her flirtatious mannerisms with Bishop Crumely, and her carefully rehearsed saintly behavior for the newly bereaved, are wonderfully executed.

Lauren Caldwell as Faye, the hard-nosed sister who makes sandwiches for her expected guests from outer space, gives a crafty interpretation of her role that balances the sister act.

Interjecting yet a third dimension of humor with her inspired acting is Diane Bearden, who plays Videllia Sparks, the bird woman. Bearden is all fluttery, scatter-brained, wide-eyed, mysterious and entirely funny.

Brad Evans makes a dignified Bishop Crumley. Bonnie Harrison gives an eccentric performance in the cameo role of the Reptile Woman.

Mary Hausch's direction moves with inspired, unfailing humor. Marilyn Wall-Asse's costumes are funny and appropriate. James Morgan's set of a home in the Florida swamps complete with attic, porch and creepy outdoors is just what you'd expect of a place named Sugar Bean in Watchalahoochee, Florida.

"The Sugar Witch"

(Paul Ulloa, Kezia Radke & Kendra Owens in "The Sugar Witch" at Northside Theatre Co. in San Jose)

"Bewitching!"

-San Jose Mercury News

"Spellbinding...
a gem of special effects, dead bodies, silent demons,
flickering campfires and flying cats...
eerie... chilling... moody...
(The Sugar Witch) embraces gay/lesbian themes as
heartily as anything you'll get south of San Francisco...
(a) gender-reversed Sleeping Beauty!"

- Metro Weekly (Silicon Valley)

"A hauntingly creepy delight...
lyrically written... a standout... quality play...
intriguing... impressive...wonderful...
(a) story of decay, violence and transformation...
Li'l Abner meets William Faulkner...
(The Sugar Witch) is filled with weird, surreal, stageworthy dramatic moments and situations...
a satisfying balance between gothic horror and humor!"

-Palo Alto Daily News

COMING SOON!
ACTING EDITION OF "THE SUGAR WITCH"-
PUBLISHING DATE: TO BE ANNOUNCED!

(Scott Cox & Paul Ulloa in "The Sugar Witch" at Northside Theatre Co.)

THEATRE REVIEW:

From the "Palo Alto Daily News"

'Sugar Witch' a standout production

Northside Theater Company's comic horror play scores

By John Angell Grant / Theater Reviewer

The dead are walking in the swamp tonight. You don't want to be caught there after sundown.

So goes the advice in Nathan Sanders' intriguing new play, "The Sugar Witch," a gothic, comic horror about death and rebirth.

San Jose's impressive Northside Theater Company is presenting the world premiere of this excellent community production at the Black Box Theater near downtown San Jose. With this show, Northside lives up to its reputation as the best-kept theater secret in the South Bay.

"The Sugar Witch" is a southern American story, told in a hybrid cockeyed genre. It's like Li'l Abner meets William Faulkner. Although he lives in San Francisco now, playwright Sanders is originally from Florida.

"The Sugar Witch" tells the tale of a broken family who lives in a run-down haunted house on the edge of a Florida swamp. This is a family that was cursed years ago by an evil spirit. Since then, things have deteriorated.

The Bean family, as they are called, used to own much of the local sugar cane land before they fell on troubled times. On the particular night in which the play unfolds, flying cats haunt the air. Everyone can see them.

It's hot and humid in the old shack by the swamp. Before long, things get bad. Very bad.

"The Sugar Witch" is a sequel to playwright Sanders' "The Sugar Bean Sisters," which has seen about 30 productions since its New York off-Broadway staging in 1995. In that play, three wacky sisters wait to be picked up by a UFO.

In "The Sugar Witch" sequel, Sanders offers the same town, but tells of mostly different characters.

Set designer Richard Orlando's wonderful, falling-down ramshackle house porch and river-edge swamp land provide an appropriate matrix for this story of decay, violence and transformation.

The acting is quite good. Overweight "Sisser" (Kezia Radke), sits in a wheelchair on the porch eating oatmeal cream pies and other Southern junk food. Psychologically, Sisser is not all there, the way characters in Southern stories sometimes aren't.

Her younger brother Moses (Scott Cox), the local Texaco mechanic, feels that he's trapped in his tiny hometown, but also feels that he can't live without Sisser. As family history tells it, a housekeeper found Moses one day as an infant in the nearby swamp reeds.

JeannieRae Orlando is wonderful as a demented backwoods stalker, desperate for sex one last time before her upcoming baptism in the river.

Kendra Owens does some impressive acting as Annabelle, the family retainer and the last of the Sugar Witches. She reads minds and understands what people are thinking before they say it.

Paul Ulloa is strong as the town's funeral home owner. As the play's only well-dressed character, he is reluctantly back living in his boyhood small town, after a spell in the big city, but carrying a secret.

Although the script of "Sugar Witch" can get exposition-heavy in its back story, the play is lyrically written, contains interesting characters and is filled with weird, surreal, stageworthy dramatic moments and situations.

Doubling as set designer and director, Orlando finds a satisfying balance between gothic horror and humor. Although they are eccentric, the characters are firmly rooted in real human dilemmas, and are thus anchored to the real world.

Colin A. Trevor's excellent sound design offers a low level of subdued, eerie swamp noises. There is also some great backwoods bluegrass and folk music.

Kudos to Northside for doing such a good job of bringing this quality play to life with its world premiere. This is what many theaters aspire to do, but few actually achieve. The production is a standout.

Rating: Three and 1/2 stars

E-mail John Angell Grant at jagplays@paloaltodailynews.com.