Linda Hunt

Lady Helen Macduff waits in wonderment, isolated in an undefined space. Her silence is broken by the appearance of the loathsome King Macbeth, a specter from her past and the emissary of her condition. And it is here, in limbo—the existential space between heaven and hell—where together they await their destiny.

Macbeth (played to pompous effect by Bobby Cody) is in a state of confusion in the presence of Helen Macduff (played by the powerful Yolanda Stange). His first recognition of her is an emerging memory of the two of them as children, aligned in youthful play turned to romance, and of her bewitching Bitter Lemon cake.

How quickly that sweet memory turned bitter. Macbeth’s death, thus his presence in this ethereal space, came at the hands of Andrew Macduff as an act of revenge for Macbeth’s slaying of Macduff’s beloved wife and three children, Andrew Jr., Alexander and baby Angela, 

Here in limbo, Helen Macduff seizes the moment. A woman murdered alongside her children is not to be toyed with, after all. An enraged Helen Macduff is given her voice in playwright Melissa Leilani Larson’s imaginative epilogue to Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Kudos to Jerry Rapier, Plan-B’s artistic director and the director of Bitter Lemon, the final play of Plan-B’s season. His commitment to progressive, intelligent theatre and to the enriched community is truly nothing short of remarkable. 

The scenery (designed by Janice Chan) is tiered, vertical backdrop panels, with a fluidity representative of an undersea scape. Emma Belnap’s lighting design underscores the room’s impermanence, yet illuminates space for the impending confrontation. Current-era costumes (designed by Victoria Bird) further set the mood for the 21st Century adaptation. Cheryl Ann Cluff has again surpassed audience expectations with the sound design of Bitter Lemon.

The characters evolve as the conversation between Finley Macbeth and Helen Macduff turns into a confrontation. While a defiant Macbeth turns to defensiveness, an angry, bitter Helen Macduff summons her rage in a full-out assault on Macbeth, railing against his vile tactics and his self-obsessed schemes for power. 

Helen Macduff seeks reconciliation through forgiveness, while Macbeth defends his violent quest for permanent rule. And in one of her most inspiring and most defiant retorts to his queasy defense of his self-seeking aggrandizement, she claims, “That is just typical of you, and your gender. It reeks of privilege. What can be more selfish than to tire of someone else’s pain? If you are the hero, the leader, you claim to be, you will embrace your sins. Own them, hold them up and say—‘I did this.’” 

And in his one, stunning act of contrition, Finley Macbeth asks Helen Macduff for forgiveness. To which she replies …”That’s the balance, then. You must own your wrongs, and I must forgive them.”

As the audience’s applause faded and we walked out of the theater, I was reminded that political leaders’ self-seeking obsession for power and wealth, irrespective of mass human deprivation is sadly not just a relic of the 16th Century.

• What: Plan-B Theatre’s Bitter Lemon by Melissa Leilani Larson, Directed by Jerry Rapier
• When: Bitter Lemon at Plan B runs April 11-28, on Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 4 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.
• Where: The Studio Theatre, Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. 300 South, SLC
• Tickets and info: planbtheatre.org

On Friday, Feb. 16, 2024, Plan-B staged the world premiere of Balthazar, a new play by Debora Threedy that puts a modern twist on Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

The lights go up and Portia enters the law library of her staid cousin Bellario. The scene is set for a battle of the wills. She implores her cousin to teach her the law, so she can defend Antonio, her paramour, Bassanio’s “friend,” in debtor’s court. The debt, she believed was hers. Bassanio, an impoverished suitor, borrowed the money from Antonio so he could court and marry the noblewoman, Portia.

Bellario (played by Jason Bowcutt, with equal parts gravitas and humor), refuses. Women are barred from practicing law. And he is after all a successful man, a doctor of the law and a practitioner of 16th Century Venetian mores. He also is gay. But Portia (played by the effervescent Lilly Hue Soo Dixon) will not be deterred. Still, he refuses to aid in the charade and emphatically instructs Portia to forget about such deception lest she end up in a convent for wayward women.

Portia returns to his office dressed as Balthazar, a young man. Bellario doesn’t recognize Portia as Balthazar, and proceeds in the game of deception by teaching him the rigors of the law. The two engage in a lively discussion regarding the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law. Through the exchange between the two, Balthazar reinterprets and reimagines the law into a successful defense of Antonio as a debtor-criminal defendant.

Threedy developed the play in Plan-B’s Lab and Script-in-hand Series and the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s Words Cubed, a week-long, intense development process. Derek Livingston, director of New Plays at Utah Shakespeare Festival says, “As a Utah writer, Debora has been fortunate to have Plan-B as a home at which she has developed the play.”

“Plan-B’s focus on women, queer stories, and Utah writers is an important commitment to elevating underrepresented voices,” Livingston says. “That Balthazar manages to have those foci, was developed by two different theaters with very different missions, located at opposite ends of the state, points to how universal Threedy’s work is,” he said.

The combination of Plan-B Theatre, playwright Threedy, and William Shakespeare is a powerful concoction. Threedy doesn’t shy away from creating plays with progressive themes, and Plan-B Theatre, likewise, produces and stages powerful and exploratory productions. In Balthazar, the audience is given a Shakespearean romp with a contemporary twist. 

Throughout the play the set is constant, a glimpse into a successful lawyer’s environs. The set design (created by Scenic Designer, Janice Chan) evokes the rigidity of 16th-century tradition. The furniture is heavy, the art is “Titian” as Portia points out, and the image of conservatism reigns. Likewise, the costumes (designed by Aaron Asano Swenson) effectively convey convention.

Once Antonio is released from the debtor’s claims, and Bassanio fulfills the obligations of Portia’s father’s will, Portia and Bassanio marry. The three set up a household, with Portia seamlessly transitioning from Portia to Balthazar to the joy and amusement of Bassanio and Antonio.

“‘Different’ is different from ‘unnatural,’” claims Portia. “I am Her, I am Him.”

As the play ended, the sold-out theater erupted with resounding applause. The 70-minute play captured our imaginations at seeing justice, in every sense, was served.

• What: Balthazar by Debora Threedy
• Where: Plan-B Theater’s studio stage in the Rose Wagner Theatre, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City
• When: Runs through March 3, 2024
• Tickets, showtimes and information at planbtheatre.org

Sherlock Holmes and the Final Problem is the 17th episode in Plan-B Theatre’s radio presentations and the first to be aired with a live theater audience in nearly a decade. 

But is this Sherlock’s final episode? You’ll have to attend one of Friday’s World Premier performances or tune into KUER 90.1 to find out! 

To the plot. Sherlock Holmes (voiced by KUER’s RadioWest host Doug Fabrizio) is driven to seek refuge from his longtime nemesis Dr. Moriarty (played by Jay Perry). On the run with Dr. Watson (played by Isabell Reeder) the duo travel by train from London to the Channel crossing, destined for Paris. Or so it seems. Holmes, a master of disguise and misdirection, eludes Moriarty and their destination from Paris to Brussels, then to Strasbourg and into Switzerland.   

Amid the escape, Sherlock Holmes avows his fondness — then love — for Dr. Watson. Their interchanges are gentle, his affirming and hers resistant, but finally conciliatory. 

From their Alpine hideaway in the Swiss Alps, Dr. Watson is called back to the hotel to treat an ailing British woman, who refuses care from a “foreign doctor.” Holmes is left alone to fend for himself against the cunning, murderous Dr. Moriarty who lurks nearby. 

The live audience will see backdrops move from one destination to another, illustrating international chase. Meanwhile, for listeners gathered around the radio, clever Foley work fills in the visual gaps and brings the action to life. 

The British accents of the three presenters are finely tuned and pitch-perfect. As a member of the radio generation, I can say that this live radio broadcast is true to its nostalgic form—including the pauses for station identification. It brought back memories of listening to the Lux Radio Theater around the family RCA as I sat back in my theater seat and closed my eyes, I was transported.
The World Premiere of Sherlock Holmes and the Final Problem by Matthew Ivan Bennett, adapted from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, airs before a live audience on Friday, Oct. 27, 2023, with two performances at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. in the Jeanne Wagner Theatre. Presented by Plan-B Theatre, Jerry Rapier, Artistic Director.

• What: Plan-B Theatre and KUER 90.1 present Radio Hour: Sherlock Holmes and the Final Problem
• Where: The Jeanne Wagner Theatre, 138 W. 300 South, SLC and broadcast live on KUER 90.1
• When: Oct. 27, 2023, at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Note: Because the performances will be broadcast live, there will be NO late admissions to the theater.
• Tickets and information: planbtheatre.org
• Also: The program will be available to listen on-demand starting Monday, Oct. 20, 2023.

Related: PLAN-B AND SHERLOCK HOLMES RETURN TO THE AIRWAVES

The opening night audience at Eccles Theater was restive but eager on May 30th. It had been less than a week since Tina Turner’s death (May 24, 2023), and we awaited a reprise of her life in tonight’s sold-out performance of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.

The lights went up, the show began. Tina sat center stage, her back to the audience as the ensemble cast emerged from the wings to signal the start of a journey of one of music’s most memorable stars.

Appearing first onstage as a pesky child (played by the astonishing Ayvah Johnson), little Anna Mae Bullock’s spirited defiance could not be contained within the confines of Nutbush, Tennessee nor of her violence-ridden home. Wearily, her mother Zelma (an affecting Roz White) and Anna Mae’s sister Aline (Parris Lewis) fled, leaving Anna Mae finally in the care of her sympathetic Gran (played by Carla R. Stewart).

Pulitzer-winning playwright Katori Hall, along with writers Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins, helmed the book. Act one laid the foundation for Anna Mae’s emergence as a talent when, once discovered by Ike Turner, found moderate success in the music they generated as partners in the Ike Turner Revue.

But a smooth path to stardom was not assured, as Ike’s penchant for power surged through his fists, and his ever-tightening control descended into a reign of violent rage and sexual betrayal.

As Ike’s violence grew, Tina Turner’s love grew. Her love for Raymond (played by Gerard M. Williams) the group’s saxophonist. In the show’s standout duet, Tina and Raymond seamlessly meld the haunting refrains of “Let’s Stay Together,” in pulsating falsettos of love and despair. When Ike discovered their affair, Raymond was driven out, leaving Tina pregnant with their child.

Not even marriage to Tina tamed the rapacious Ike, made even starker when Phil Spector who records with them is besotted by Tina’s rendition of “River Deep – Mountain High.” Tina’s surge toward freedom is palpable. In a formidable act of sisterhood, one of Ike’s blond conquests, Rhonda (played by Lael Van Keuren), befriends Tina, finally becoming her erstwhile manager throughout Tina’s journey.

After a siege of bloody beatings and a suicide attempt, Tina Turner fights back and runs off, ending Act One in a hotel, with no money, singing “I Don’t Wanna Fight No More.” Act Two brought a tectonic shift in tone and temper in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.

It was here, it was now, that the stage exploded with Tina’s transcendence into a vaunted solo artist. Bruno Poet’s lighting design and Mark Thompson’s set design, emblazoned in graphic undulating projections, heightened the play’s temperature. And Nicholas Skilbeck’s music direction found its exhilarating tone in what was Tina Turner’s unforgettable oeuvre.

But it was the standout, electrifying performance of Naomi Rodgers as Tina Turner that left the audience breathless. She was the Tina Turner we’d been waiting to see.  Tina’s journey as a solo artist began with a new manager, Australian Roger Davies (played by Zachary Freier-Harrison), and a trip to London to explore new music spurred by the advent of computer-aided Rock ’n Roll. Here she meets German marketing executive Erwin Bach, the man she will later marry (and live with the remainder of her life in a small Swiss town outside Zurich).

Confounded by the new wave of computerized music, Tina returned to New York, where she begins her transformation into a mini-skirted, leather-clad blonde diva. Still, Capitol Records executives reject her for being too old and too black for the label. After all, they already had Diana Ross. But Capitol’s executives were brought to heel when David Bowie dragged them to New York’s rock club, the Ritz, to see her perform her first solo hit,  “What’s Love Got to Do With It.” Capitol immediately offered Tina Turner a new recording contract.

The climax of Rodger’s performance as Tina was yet to come. Her unbounded exuberance, the shaking, shimmying, fist-pumping energy!  It was her show and she carried it, literally channeling Tina Turner and celebrating her in the transcendent spirit of the star. Tina climbed the lighted stairway, toward thousands of starlights, an ode to her historic Brazilian concert attended by more than 180,000 fans. She descended the staircase, electrifying the audience as they jumped to their feet, and for an exhilarating ten minutes joined the finale, clapping in unison to the beat of “Nutbush City Limits” and “Proud Mary.” Tina Turner was alive, and the earth moved under our feet.

WHAT: TINA: THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL

WHEN: May 30 – June 4, 2023

WHERE: George S. And Dolores Dore Eccles Theater

HOW TO GO: Tickets and more info are available at saltlakecountyarts.org

Plan B Theatre’s revival production of Jennifer Nii’s highly acclaimed FIRE opened in April of 2023. FIRE, Nii’s farewell to her astonishing career as a playwright, features a stunning solo performance by Carleton Bluford as Wallace Thurman, the celebrated African American writer and editor who grew up in Salt Lake City. FIRE played from opening night to closing night to sold-out houses. 

As the lights dim, the stage’s backlights illuminate the simple backdrop with the word ‘FIRE’ rendered in bold red print. Wallace Thurman takes the stage with a haughty swagger that belies the struggle of a deeply committed Black artist seeking his freedom to create without artifice or compromise. And to do so in a place that averts its eyes from, nay scorns, Black cultural expression.

Thurman is, after all, a child of Salt Lake City, Utah—raised by his grandmother who ventured across the plains as Brigham Young’s servant; and the son of a peripatetic mother who broadened his experiences through travel and the reassurances of his intellect, individuality and artistic promise.

After two years at the University of Utah, Thurman hit the road westward. Seeking a vital, energetic Black community, he arrived at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Here, among his peers, Thurman discovered for the first time what it meant to be Black—in fact, too Black. In defiance and as an affirmative act of rebellion he founded Outlet, a Black cultural magazine. 

“Isn’t that what all subversives do?” Bluford’s Thurman asks.

Discouraged and without fanfare, Thurman boarded a train headed east to New York City. Here, he predicted, he’d find the Negro Nirvana, the site of the Black cultural Mecca. My heart swelled, too, as I saw and heard Thurman’s wild anticipation of joining the Harlem Renaissance; the collective contribution of such luminaries as the poet Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston’s voice of freedom, the exuberant poetry of Countee Cullen, and the creative energies of others. It was an era marked by a burst of Black creativity in art, music and literature. 

“It wasn’t until I arrived that Labor Day in 1925 that I finally understood what Brother Brigham meant when he let loose his cry into the thin cracking air, ‘This is the place.’ I like that crazy dude,” recalls Thurman.

Thurman and his like-minded comrades founded the FIRE a literary journal devoted to younger negro artists, proclaiming the arrival of Black cultural creativity. The magazine published just one issue.

But Thurman’s time in Harlem, absorbing the street fair machinations, the broad landscape of freedom and the creative vibrancy of the thinkers and artists, the energy of the creative work helped to define his commitment “To create and to try to do it well, he said, that is all I expect from any creative person.” But alongside, a cloud of physical depletion and alcoholism haunted him. He was largely able to ignore it as long as he was writing, creating and absorbing the vitality of the scene. That is until he could no longer ignore his declining health.

Thurman left Harlem’s Niggerati Manor, named for the Niggerati Literati, and boarded the train headed for Salt Lake City, seeking the curative powers of the clear mountain air. After a brief stay in Salt Lake City, he traveled to Reno where he sought a final divorce from his angry, vituperative wife Louise. In the throes of her accusations of his homosexuality, she succeeded in stripping him of his royalties, past, present and in perpetuity. Thurman was left impoverished and ill. Thus began his slow march to death.

Still, he continued to climb to the pinnacle of creative excellence, publishing Blacker the Berry a novel about intra-racial prejudice; and collaborating with William Jourdan Rapp on the play Harlem which opened on Broadway to rave reviews.  Other highly lauded books followed. Yet others were met with mixed reviews or all-out rejections, as publishers feared commercial failure.

Drinking heavily and increasingly weakened by the wrenching cough he carried with him, he returned to New York to seek medical care at City Hospital on Welfare Island, a hospital that he’d ironically excoriated in his earlier book citing its deplorable conditions, the despicable staff and absence of care whose conditions he exposed as “one of the great horrors in American health care, right here in New York.”

 “We are all alone when we die, whether with everyone who has loved us or in a solitary cinderblock room,” said 32-year-old Wallace Thurman.

As the stage lights dimmed and the audience exploded in deafening applause, I had a vision, one of playwright Jennifer Nii and Wallace Thurman, standing back to back, arms outstretched, fingertips touching, in the literal manifestation of Socrates’ ideal of  “Two bodies, one spirit.”

• Fire! by Jenifer Nii a one-actor show performed by Carleton Bluford as Wallace Thurman. Directed by Directed by Jerry Rapier with design by Maddy Ashton (set), Emma Belnap (lighting), Cheryl Ann Cluff (sound), and Aaron Swenson (costumes). Stage managed by Sammee Jackman.
• When:  April 13 to April 23, 2023
• Where: Plan-B Theatre in the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. Broadway, SLC

Dear Evan Hansen, opening Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023, at the Eccles Theater, in Salt Lake City, brings to the stage—in text and tone — the crushing isolation of a nerdy teenager, trapped in his own awkward snare. Evan Hansen is that socially inept, tic-filled kid whose biggest struggle is to face the throngs of high schoolers as he plods and weaves through each day.

But even as Evan falters and stumbles he learns the benefit of telling people what they want and need to hear. Once the story’s out, untrue though it is, the falsehoods collapse around him.

Winner of six Tony awards, Dear Evan Hansen has won numerous other awards, including the Drama League Award for Outstanding Musical Production and for the off-Broadway production, two Obie Awards, a Drama Desk Award and two Outer Critics Circle Awards and two Helen Hayes Awards.

Michael Greif, veteran director of luminous productions such as “Rent,” guides the inspiring book by Steven Levenson and haunting, score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul to its ultimate nuanced conclusion. 

Underneath the thick layers of insecurity, Evan yearns desperately for affection,  affection that ultimately spells trouble for its seeker. 

This is when Evan’s fateful encounter with his nemesis and salvation, Connor Murphy, finds Evan in the school’s computer room printing one of the daily “atta-boy” letters to himself that his therapist has advised him to write, thus the title “Dear Evan Hansen…” The letter, seized by Connor, is grist for his own mean mill. When Connor notices the blank white cast on Evan’s arm, he scrawls his name in bold letters across it and laughs a mocking, taunting laugh.

That evening Connor Murphy, a drug-addled, alienated schoolmate, commits suicide.

As news of Connor’s suicide and his so-called friendship with Evan spreads across the school, the class smart aleck Alana starts a fund in Connor’s name.  Pulled into the Connor Project’s school assembly, Evan is persuaded to give a speech. When the speech hits the social media platforms it becomes a sensation, and lackluster Evan becomes a social media phenom garnering thousands upon thousands of “likes.” 

And here we have the nub of the story. Dear Evan Hansen shows how social media have become both a way of advocating for good and inspiring collective participation, but also suggests that viral movements can spiral out of control, doing more damage than good.

Seduced by the long-awaited attention, yet silenced by the duplicity of his message Evan personifies the query of what happens when you do the wrong things for the right reasons.

The story and the themes it explore are both current and timeless. And it does so through the inspiring and memorable score. “You Will Be Found “ allows Evan to express what it feels like to be an anxious person desperate to connect, yet filled with hope.

“Have you ever felt like nobody was there? / Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere? / When you’re broken on the ground / You will be found / So let the sun come streaming in / ‘Cause you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again / You will be found ….

Dear Evan Hansen is a momentous production we’re looking forward to seeing the touring cast put it through it’s paces. And we’ll be sure to bring a hanky. 

THE TOURING CAST:  Anthony Norman as Evan Hansen; Alaina Anderson as Zoe Murphy; Coleen Sexton as Heidi Hansen; Lili Thomas as Cynthia Murphy; August Emerson as Connor Murphy; John Hemphill as Larry Murphy; Pablo David Laucerica as Jared Kleinman; Micaela Lamas as Alana Beck.

• What: Dear Evan Hansen
• When: Feb. 28 through March 5, 2023
• Where: George S. And Dolores Dore Eccles Theater
• How to go: Tickets and more info are available at saltlakecountyarts.org

Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations, opening Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023 as part of the Broadway at the Eccles series, is a veritable explosion of music and story. Woven into a tableau of America’s mid-century musical history, it promises to be both an exhilarating (and tragic) journey.

Spanning an era from doo-wop to psychedelic funk and beyond, The Temptations’ powerhouse career included hits like “My Girl,” “I Can’t Get Next to You,” “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” and of course, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.” Along the journey from Detroit’s Motown to the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame, The Temptations picked up 42 Top 10 Hits with 14 of those songs reaching number one.

Nominated for 12 Tony Awards and the winner of the 2019 Tony Award for Best Choreography, Ain’t Too Proud’s lush music and dramatic narrative seamlessly weaves the tale of five men who would be kings.

The odyssey, rife with drama, intrigue and betrayal, is a musical passage based on the surviving Temptation, Otis Williams’ autobiography  that examines the complex history of the band amid a rapidly shifting social and political landscape.

This feast of music and movement, created by Obie Award-winning playwright Domonique Morriseau, moves through the major stages of Williams’ memoir—the gathering of the legends and their rapid rise to stardom; the challenges of keeping the band together against adversaries from both within and outside the group; and the final tragic deaths of each member of the original Temptations—except for Williams, himself, of course.

Motown birthed The Temptations and its patriarch Barry Gordy gloried in their fame, even as he exercised authoritarian control over Motown’s stable of artists. Fearing that his cross-over audiences would take offense at what he characterized as “Black politics” he blocked their foray into the nascent anti-Vietnam War and civil rights movements and took the protest song “War” out of The Temptations’ playbook, passing it to Edwin Starr. Still, the Temptations, like other Motown luminaries, moved along the historic path of protest in an era of cultural resistance.  

Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations is an electrifying memorial to the artists, who through commitment, struggle and singular success, breathed life into an era’s history. Or is that “Just My Imagination?”

The touring cast features Elijah Ahmad Lewis as David Ruffin; Marcus Paul James as Otis Williams; James T. Lane as Paul Williams; Jalen Harris as Eddie  Kendricks, Harrell Holmes as Melvin Franklin and Harris Mathews as Dennis Edwards. Running time is approximately two hours and 30 minutes including a 15-minute intermission.

See Linda Hunt’s full review of Ain’t Too Proud here and all of her theater coverage here.

• What: Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations
• When: Jan. 10-15, 2023 with matinee and evening performances Jan. 14 and Sunday, Jan. 15.
• Where: George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Theater
• How to go: Tickets and more info are available at saltlakecountyarts.org