Review: I've Never Been So Happy by Rude Mechs
by Michael Meigs
It's clever. It's mythic. It's melodic. It's multimedia.
It's the Rude Mechanicals still-in-workshop production of I've Never Been So Happy with book and lyrics by Kirk Lynn and music by Peter Stopchinsky, who also sings the part of the mountain lion.
But it's short and it's incomplete. By design, it will leave you wanting more.
The Rude Mechanicals have made for themselves an enviable place in the bubbling world of Austin's young non-Equity original-works theatres.
The Rudes are highly creative. They've done 22 original productions since inventing themselves in 1995, building a reputation, a following and support. They are not a high-volume theatre company, despite their six co-producing artistic directors, 28 company members, 88 business partners and an impressive array of individual supporters.
They've survived and triumphed by learning networking and grantsmanship. The Rudes succeeded in getting grant funding for this Western operetta fable from the National Endowment for the Arts, both directly and as part of the subsequent anti-recession stimulus package. The show is part of the NEA's new play development project, coordinated by the Arena Stage in Washington DC. Last December they did a workshop production in Austin of the early scenes of the play. They've worked parts of it further at the Orchard Project in the Catskills and last June with the UT Department of Theatre and Dance.
This iteration of I've Never Been So Happy gives you scene 1 of the show, in which Annabellee (Meg Sullivan) dreams of a mountain lion and plans her escape from her oppressive father , Brutus (Lowell Bartholomee), with the help of her frisky little dachshund Sigmunda (Jenny Larson).
Meg Sullivan then offers a 30-second summary of the following five scenes -- introducing a prospective suitor Jeremy, an equally frisky male dachshund Sigfried, Jeremy's tough feminist communard mother, a mountain lion and a sheriff.
The show then leaps to scenes 7 through 11, including the apparently successful courtship, the disappearance of Annabellee, a search, a trap for the mountain lion and a funeral for dachshund Siegfried, who lingers to hear his praises sung. There may be loose ends flapping here, available for future elaboration.
This performance takes a scant 30 minutes, following which the spectators are invited to linger for a mini-carnival staged at booths outside the Off Center. The activities are variously amusing, impressive, or stupid, and they offer the opportunity to interact with cast members to learn roping, sing Western karaoke, get your hair cut, buy drinks and food, touch a real gun, get yer knives sharpened, or participate in a "Texas cage" random competition. Matt Hislope, aka "Potty Mouth" can be heard exercising verbal scatalogy, locked away in a raised outhouse with a crescent moon on the door.
All of this works well for marketing and fund-raising. You get just enough of the show to anticipate the full product sometime next year. As a loyal Rudes fan, over time you will in effect find yourself beguiled into paying about $60-$75 in a sort of installment plan to make the full production possible.
The story of I've Never Been So Happy is simple and silly enough to qualify as mythic, an affectionate tweaking of the tales and characters familar in tales of Western settlement. The Lynn-Stopschinski partnership is a happy one. Tunes were catchy, orchestration was impressive and often surprising. The singers strutted and shook their booty. Back-up vocals and stage choreography were done with the neatness of a gospel choir or a nightclub act.
This selection from the show went, almost literally, to the dogs. Paul Soileau and Jenny Larson are cute, earnest and funny as tail-waggers. In scene 7 they give doggie advice to infatuated Jeremy on how to win the heart of Annabellee. "She loves fur! She loves my nails! She loves my tail!" (click to play this scene, as done in the December workshop).
The live show is fine, as much of it as we see. Less satisfying is the use of live projections throughout the show to illustrate the narrative. Shadow puppets, color effects and comments appear back-projected onto a tall screen occupying more than a third of the playing space at stage right (to the audience's left). These images are clever, offer plenty of whimsy, and reinforce the teasing epic. But the configuration of the stage for the simultaneous actions splits the attention of spectators alternately between live performers and projected shadowland. Directors Lesley and Graves counter this at times by moving individual characters or singers to the left of the screen. Repeatedly, however, we see live performers standing and watching the screen instead of facing the audience.
Perhaps further fund-raising might eventually provide the company the resources with which to present these clever illustrations on a large video screen above or behind the live characters, so as to help unify the story.
Review by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin at Statesman's Austin360 "Seeing Things" blog, September 15
Pre-opening piece by Javier Sanchez at the Daily Texan, September 10
EXTRAS
Preamble and opening scene, posted on YouTube January 14, 2010 by the Rude Mechs (other scenes also available)ick for the lyrics to the Mountain Lion Song, as sung by composer Peter Stopschinski
Click to view program of work-in-progress I've Never Been So Happy by the Rude Mechanicals
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I've Never Been So Happy
by Rude Mechanicals ensemble
Rude Mechs
2211-A Hidalgo Street
near Robert Martinez and E. 7th Street, behind Joe's Bakery
Austin, TX, 78702
