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'Dry Hours' asks, dare we dream?
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Erika LaVonn and Roger Robinson in Centerstage’s production of Naomi Wallace’s Things of Dry Hours, directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah.
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Tice Hogan has a thing for apples.
Playwright Naomi Wallace’s principal character in the play “Things of Dry Hours,” Tice (Roger Robinson) expresses a childlike delight and a philosopher’s fascination for this particular piece of fruit, exploring the dichotomy between the apple’s “white flesh” and the black seeds at the core. Is the apple a metaphor for the struggle between races, classes, fathers and daughters, the educated and ignorant, the civilized and barbarians, the poor black Communists and the rich whites who run Tennessee Coal and Iron in 1932 Alabama, the setting of the play?
Perhaps all of the above.
Tice is the proud owner of two books by which he makes his living and his life — The Bible and Karl Marx’s Manifesto of the Communist Party. Teaching Sunday school and preaching the rise of the proletariat, his principal pupil is his reluctant daughter, Cali (Erika LaVonn) who proves in the first act that she can swing an ax and divine the nature of man by the shoes they haphazardly leave in the sheets they bring her to wash.
In their dialogues, Tice and Cali are like Socrates and Theaetetus, teacher and student. Deciding to keep a blue ribbon she found among her clients’ sheets, Cali declares, “A little bit of sin reminds me to be good.” Tice instructs that change happens within us all the time, and if you “look at something long enough, it will change, just out of spite.”
The new element to their dialectic is Corbin Teel (Steven Cole Hughes), an illiterate white man on the run who explodes upon their lives with a “knock at the door” — one of three things Tice describes in an opening soliloquy.
Tice and Cali both become teachers for Corbin, as Cali introduces Corbin to the myth of Narcissus while Tice teaches him to read. Corbin takes many forms, from would-be rapist to party comrade to naked white man to harassed black girl. In Corbin, one finds the quintessential question posed by the play: can a man change? If Tice’s Communist Party can bring former Klansmen together with women and blacks to build a utopian tomorrow, isn’t changing human nature possible?
“Things of Dry Hours” questions whether those who live day-to-day dare take time to dream. Should we sacrifice our ideals, our aspirations for something greater, in light of the pressing needs of the daily grind which is survival? But what are we if we do?
The play ends with Tice cutting open an apple. He is astounded by what he finds within as the audience seemed astounded by what they saw on stage.
IF YOU GO
Things of Dry Hours
» Venue: Center Stage, Head Theater
» Where: 700 N. Calvert St., Baltimore
» When: Through June 3
8 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday, 7:30 p.m Sunday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday matinees
» Tickets: $10 to $60.
» Information: 410-332-0033
Comments from Examiner Readers
12:06 AM MST on Mon., Oct. 6, 2008 re: "Wicked ‘Witches’"
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8:22 PM MST on Wed., Aug. 13, 2008
re: "Performer gets risqué in new act"
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re: "Theater: Hillbarn closes season with Elton John’s ‘Aida’"
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8:00 PM MST on Thu., Apr. 17, 2008
re: "Review: 'High School Musical' sticks to the status quo"
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10:40 AM MST on Sat., Oct. 6, 2007
re: "Review: 'Heartbreak' at Berkeley Rep"
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12:15 PM MST on Sun., Sep. 9, 2007
re: "A ‘Macbeth’ in the Macbuff"
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5:18 AM MST on Sat., Sep. 8, 2007
re: "A ‘Macbeth’ in the Macbuff"
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2:23 PM MST on Mon., Aug. 20, 2007
re: "A ‘Macbeth’ in the Macbuff"
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11:14 PM MST on Fri., Jul. 6, 2007
re: "A ‘Macbeth’ in the Macbuff"
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9:27 PM MST on Fri., Jul. 6, 2007
re: "A ‘Macbeth’ in the Macbuff"
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9:09 PM MST on Fri., Jul. 6, 2007
re: "A ‘Macbeth’ in the Macbuff"
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6:47 PM MST on Wed., Jun. 20, 2007
re: "Eye of the beholder at the heart of ‘Fat Pig”"
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2:03 PM MST on Wed., Jun. 13, 2007
re: "A trifle of a ‘Tempest’"
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10:45 AM MST on Wed., May. 30, 2007
re: "A harrowing choice at Theater J"
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9:33 PM MST on Mon., Apr. 23, 2007
re: "Shakespeare’s bloodiest"
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9:27 PM MST on Mon., Apr. 23, 2007
re: "Shaking up Shakespeare"
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9:23 PM MST on Mon., Apr. 23, 2007
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Examiner Reader said:
GOOD
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Bessica said:
The government should get out of marriage entirely. Straight or gay, we need good family law to protect children, we need contracts for interdependent relationships. Marriage is an important institution. Rename the legal part something else for EVERYONE. Many GLBT on the site **bisexualmingle c o m** want the same-sex marriage.
8 agree | 8 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I thought it was a great production and both Alexa Ortega and Adam Barry were absolutely fantastic.
23 agree | 16 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
The Government Inspector: Quite poorly done. Actors unprepared. Line delivery mishaps. Overpriced. Prop failure at the end. It reminded me of sequels such as Oceans v11 - v13, where a group of well known actors use their names to draw a crowd and sell tickets. Uk. The result is a mediocre performance, in part because of too many cooks -- and some of these cooks, e.g. Geoff Hoyle are really good. Hopefully this review will save someone else the time and money.
24 agree | 17 disagree
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Parkside Poulegene said:
Re: High School Musical I just took my daughter Sharmuta to this show and we had to leave early! When we got home I took away all her "High School Musical" CD's and tee-shirts. If she even mentions the show again she's grounded for a month, and that goes for her other mother too. This show is really racist, homophobic and pro-Zionist and pro-Bush-Terror. There's too many white people in it. This show needs to be shut down and outlawed.
18 agree | 18 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Thank you for the first honest review that I have read on this production. The length of Act two was tortuous to sit through.
391 agree | 338 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I bet the scene where Macbeth and Macduff are branishing their CLAYMORES is a hoot!
307 agree | 320 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Playing naked? Not really - the main character's body is covered by fur! As the reader before wrote the actor playing Macbeth is extremely hairy. It is quite strange to see how hairy a mans body can be... His body hair was the most impressing thing of the whole play.
330 agree | 299 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Bloody, Bold, Resolute, and Naked - AND HAIRY!!! I read an article that all actors were not allowed to shave any body hair three months before the play started to look "naturally". So it is impressive how hairy the actor playing Macbeth is - he has a furry chest and even a quite hairy back and bushy pubic hairs. It is very unusual today to see such a hairy actor fully nude, because normally an actor shaves at least his back hairs doing a nude scene on stage or in a movie... So big compliments to Daniel Eichner for presenting us his great furry body fully nude!
359 agree | 314 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Good review... one of the few critics able to articulate some of the problems with this show. I left at intermission and the lighting was troublesome. sometimes I wonder what the other critics are thinking --- if you are still curious fgo on Saturday afternoons when the tickets are "pay what you can."
393 agree | 351 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Munch claims "there is no denying" that the nudity in WSC's "Macbeth" "does little to enhance or elevate Shakespeare’s Scottish play." Well, the critics at www.PotomacStages.com and www.DCTheatreScene.com have taken the opposite view. Potomac Stages, in fact, wrote: "in no uncertain terms that this is a quality production that presents "the Scottish play" in a new and very effective light (or is that a new and very effective darkness?)." DC Theatre Scene wrote: "The actors’ nudity provides an extra dimension to their presentations...By being physically naked, these actors become emotionally naked as well. This production of Macbeth is a great gift to those who have the will to receive it. We are unlikely to see anything like it in the foreseeable future." So it seems the only thing there is no denying is that Munch doesn't speak for everyone.
411 agree | 320 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Tonight's performance of "Macbeth" started at 8:05 pm and was done precisely at 10:30. I'm not the best at math, but that seems like under 2 and half hours...not over 3 hours, which the critic claims the play to be.
397 agree | 362 disagree
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JaimeK said:
Shame Fat Pig wasn't given an actual review on the acting. There were some pretty phenomenal performances. Especially Erin Riley as Helen and Courtney Ryan as Jeannie. Very VERY good show.
523 agree | 411 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Closes in 4 days
455 agree | 406 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Why review it a few days before it closes and not mention its closing in the review?
447 agree | 436 disagree
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EdnBetty said:
We just returned from Titus Andronicus, the play that Kenneth Tynan called "the worst play Marlowe ever wrote". We expected gore and got it! Tsoutsouvas was also great, but Valerie Leonard was vamping it over the top. And that voice set my teeth on edge!
751 agree | 486 disagree
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Reader said:
Yes, "She Stoops to Comedy" at Woolly Mammoth is a treat!
551 agree | 470 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Oh, we just a-DORed this show!
578 agree | 463 disagree
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