"Case shows tremendous range taking Vincent from his
awkward beginning to his histrionic conclusion...
Vincent becomes more human and easier to grasp."
- Rich Copley, Culture Critic - Lexington Herald-Leader
(Reprinted courtesy of THE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER)
BEFORE STARDOM: REINVENTING VINCENT
Play is a compelling and humanizing look at affair van Gogh might or might not have had with his landlady.
Rich Copley
THE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER
October 28, 2005
Thanks to posters, T-shirts, a legend about an ear and a weepy Don McLean ballad, Vincent van Gogh has traveled a somewhat dehumanizing road from artist to pop-culture icon.
Fortunately, that road stretched long enough to interest Nicholas Wright in writing a little piece of speculative history, Vincent in Brixton.
The play, now in production at the Downtown Arts Center by Actors' Guild of Lexington, is by no means a biography of van Gogh. But it does remortalize the icon, and it offers a theory as to why "when no hope was left in sight on that starry, starry night, you took your life as lovers often do" -- to borrow an overwrought phrase from McLean.
Director Patrick Kagan-Moore's production is a sharp, compelling piece of drama that is occasionally hard to watch, but it's worth the roller-coaster plunge into depression it takes us on.
There's a little truth there: Van Gogh was a lodger at the home of a widow named Ursula Loyer in 1873 in a London suburb, and there was even a lodger named Sam Plowman. But whether van Gogh had an affair with Loyer that inspired his work is another question.
Vincent covers three years in the artist's life, all before he started creating the work for which we know him. He arrives at Loyer's home seeking a room. He's a combination of painfully shy and compulsively outspoken. Left on their own, 20-year-old Vincent and 45-year-old Ursula declare their love for one another, and in the hands of Ryan Case and Jane Dewey, it is genuine.
As she giggles while holding hands across the table with Case, years melt from Dewey's face, and we root for them to make it.
But we don't need Paul Harvey to tell us the rest of the story, or at least how Vincent's life turns out.
This production goes very well, thanks to five excellent performances including Jenny Fitzpatrick as Ursula's daughter Eugenie, Rachel Rogers as Vincent's sister Anna, and Eric Ryan Seale as Sam. It's a multilayered tale, and under Kagan-Moore's direction, the actors effectively illuminate many of its subtle points -- particularly Dewey, who has to quietly guide us to the show's poignant conclusion.
Case shows tremendous range taking Vincent from his awkward beginning to his histrionic conclusion, though in the final act he seems more like a manic punk-rocker than a 19th-century aesthete. On the whole, though, Vincent becomes more human and easier to grasp in this show.
Matthew Hallock's set design creates the dingy mood of the show and gives the viewer some insight into 1870s life, including a water pump in the sink. But the seating arrangement for this show has upsides and downsides as wild as Vincent's mood swings. The theater-in-the-round arrangement puts everyone very close to this intimate tale, but it also forces the actors to have their backs to someone at all times.
Actors' Guild's production of Vincent in Brixton is sometimes hard to watch, but it's essential to see.
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(Reprinted courtesy of THE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER)
PASSIONATELY INSPIRED
Playing with the idea that van Gogh had an older lover who was his muse.
Rich Copley
THE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER
October 30, 2005
DANVILLE - Sitting at the Hub Coffee House & Cafe next to the Centre College bookstore, Jane Dewey and Ryan Case could easily be mistaken for a professor and her student, conferring over an assignment.
Little do their fellow diners know that they play lovers in Actors Guild of Lexington's current production, Vincent in Brixton.
Nicholas Wright's multilayered play speculates about the early years of artist Vincent van Gogh, when he was a boarder with Ursula Loyer, a widow 25 years his senior. The play theorizes that a passionate and ill-fated affair between Vincent and Ursula was the muse for van Gogh's iconic work and fueled the depression that ultimately led him to commit suicide.
Despite the unconventional nature of Vincent and Ursula's relationship, it is based on a rather deep mutual attraction, say Case and Dewey, who actually are only 16 years apart -- he is 30, she is 46.
"It's a lot more than just the sex," Case says about the characters' relationship. "There is a real spiritual kinship between them. A lot of the things she feels, he understands completely."
Though things start out tense between the pair, the audience can see where Vincent and Ursula have similar aesthetic tastes, similar ideas and, despite the 25 years, are at similar points in their lives: isolated and lonely.
Vincent is in England, far from his home in the Netherlands, and is socially awkward, so friendships don't come easily. Ursula still dresses in black and, since her husband's death, has limited her interaction to her daughter and another boarder.
Maybe even more striking than their age difference are Vincent's and Ursula's individual struggles with depression that draw them together and ultimately tear them apart.
It makes for 13 harrowing nights of theater for the actors, who have to get on an emotional roller coaster over and over again. "It's really hard," Case says.
"Exhausting," Dewey adds. "In order for this show to work, you have to lay yourself bare, and that takes as much energy as doing a full-scale musical with singing and dancing."
To avoid letting the show get to them, Dewey and Case say, it's important to let it go when they leave the theater. "Go home and have a glass of wine," Dewey says, "let the cat in and watch Letterman's Top 10 list."
Aside from the physical and emotional demands of playing depressed people, the actors say it was also a challenge to make the characters' emotional states realistic and avoid becoming unbearably maudlin.
"I wanted to make sure I steered clear of conventional ways of playing depressed," Dewey says. "At first, I was going to go do research on depression, but then I decided no, I would just think about people I know who had struggled with depression ... and pick up little bits and pieces of what I know of their behavior. That way, you are playing a more human portrayal, rather than a clinical definition."
Humanizing the characters was a great help to Case, who said he was initially nervous about playing the iconic artist.
"At first, it was like, 'All right, I'm playing van Gogh,'" Case says. "But then it was like, 'Oh my God, I'm van Gogh.' And everyone knows him and has an opinion about him... I can't live up to those expectations."
Case got a basic understanding of van Gogh's life and work, but, "Eventually it got to a point where I realized, this guy was just flesh and blood. This guy was just a guy."
Motioning around the coffee shop he says, "We could have an icon here in the room and not know it."
"SOME THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS"
(A Final Evening With the Illuminati)
(Reprinted courtesy of THE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER)
THE END IS HERE ON TWO FRONTS
The last play Ryan Case will perform in Lexington is set in a place where it seems there will be no tomorrow.
Rich Copley
THE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER
October ?, 2005
Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends (A Final Evening With the Illuminati) is a two-person play set in a church after an apocalyptic biological war. Reverend Eddie (Adam Luckey) and Brother Lawrence (Case) explore issues of faith in the dwindling hours.
Luckey says he has been interested in the play for a while, after a Georgetown College professor showed it to him. He put plans to present it in motion when Case announced he was moving to Philadelphia this month.
"I said it's imperative that we do this show," Luckey says. "When I saw it, I knew immediately that Ryan and I could have a hell of a lot of fun with this show... He's very, very good at comedy, and I have not done much comedy."
The satirical play takes an irreverent look at organized religion. Preparing to give a sermon titled Life Is Like a Basketball Game, Reverend Eddie has paranoid hallucinations.
"He's seeing the inconsistencies of the church teachings that he's been teaching," Luckey says.
Some of the visions play out in "Monty Python-like" sketches, Luckey says.
"It puts Christianity on a skewer a little bit, but it's not blasphemous because there are many ways you take the messages," Luckey says.
Case says it's a tricky show "because it's satire using religion as a focal point, and religion is on the rise. People get a little itchy, like 'I'm right and you're wrong.' So people could get a little upset if they hear you're doing a satirical piece on religion.
"But if you understand satire, it's not a problem."
The duo say that the play looks at things like dogma for dogma's sake, contradictions between church doctrine and Scripture, and the ways religious leaders can mislead people -- drinking the Kool-Aid, so to speak. Religion and religious leaders have been at the center of controversy in recent weeks, from protests during the filming of The Da Vinci Code to evangelist Pat Robertson's recent statements suggesting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez be assassinated.
Luckey and Case give a lot of credit to Gene and Natasha Williams, who are hosting the show at their restaurant, Natasha's Cafe, for being willing to present what could be a controversial play.
During the past few years, Natasha's has become home to quite a bit of offbeat theater under the banner of Balagula Theatre. Much of it has been orchestrated by Luckey and featured Case.
Case might be best known to local audiences for the title role in Actors Guild of Lexington's production of Bat Boy: The Musical, in fall 2003.
"A job promotion in the household" prompted Case's impending move, he said.
He said he'll be looking to break into the Philadelphia theater scene and allowed that he might be back sometime, as all of his family is in Central Kentucky. Case's fate might not be as certain as Reverend Eddie's and Brother Lawrence's.
"CONTACT"
"A marvelously gifted and talented young actor."
- Barry Morse, Actor/Director/Author
"One of the highlights for me was seeing Ryan Case's
wonderful performance in 'Contact' with Barry Morse."
- Ken Scott, Online Alpha
"THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY"
"Ryan Case moved smoothly from Basil Hallward to a host of other minor characters...
the play was a great success, true to the spirit of the novel and as a theater exigency,
well-adapted, well-acted, and well-directed."
- Richard Freed, Eastern Kentucky University
"Ryan Case is at his best as Basil Hallward, the artist obsessed with Dorian..."
- The Lexington Herald-Leader
(Reprinted courtesy of THE OSCHOLARS)
REVIEW OF THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
The Picture of Dorian Gray, performed in Lexington, Kentucky, 30th May to 16th June 2002, at the Actors' Guild of Lexington.
Richard Freed
THE OSCHOLARS
August 2002
The Picture of Dorian Gray has defied movie makers for years, with one laughably bad film attempt after another, leading most who find the novel compelling to conclude that it is another late 19th century novel whose purple prose is too rich for visual production. In July 2002, at The Actors' Guild of Lexington Kentucky production, director Deb Shoss worked well with playwrite Patrick Kagan-Moore, to demonstrate clearly that the novel can work when performed on a live stage.
The play worked better than any film version in part because, by definition, the novel inevitably is 'stagey.' The viewer of a film is led to think in more realistic terms; realism clearly is not at the heart of the success of Wilde's gothic romance. In a similar way, the 2002 film of The Importance of Being Earnest compares unfavorably to the 1952 Edith Evans, Michael Redgrave, Margaret Rutherford version. The new film succeeds in giving the play a filmic sense of realism, but it is far less satisfying than the older version which may be the most delightful play ever filmed, and it is so because it views simply as a play being performed on film. The Shoss/Kagan-Moore dramatic rendition of Dorian Gray was likewise successful because the strangely static atmosphere of the novel was captured adeptly on stage.
Using masks to play minor roles, only four actors performed multiple parts making the audience work a little harder to follow the action. Michael Oaks sported gorgeous blond hair as the somewhat too attractive, young Henry Wotton (he seemed at first to be playing Dorian), but the wig came off for Act Two to reveal an older looking, totally bald Sir Henry; in both acts, Oaks succeeded in creating the cynicism that is so challenging for even experienced film actors to do convincingly. Ryan Case moved smoothly from Basil Hallward to a host of other minor characters.
Rexx Samuell played Dorian with real sensitivity, giving the play its closest approach to a 'real' character, spoiled and self-indulgent, but ultimately struggling, in contrast the other caricature roles.
Susan Wigglesworth moved with astonishing ease from Sybil Vane to Lady Bracknell to Dorian Gray's various household servants (male, of course). In a discussion held after the last performance, Shoss noted that Kagan-Moore's original script had only the three males in his staged version. When she suggested a female actor be added, Kagan-Moore agreed readily. The addition was essential, and Wigglesworth's versatility and spark added vibrancy to the production.
The problem of staging the decaying of the portrait was solved very successfully by displaying a large empty frame on stage that could be seen by viewers on all three sides of the intimate, new theater. Dorian, of course, never had to age, and the audience had no problem imagining the physical corruption of the picture. As Dorian, ever young, moved from being fascinated by, to recoiling in horror at, covering, and finally stabbing the portrait, the audience had only to look at the empty frame and imagine its decay. The portrait was raised to an imaginary attic, setting up an effective and dramatic concluding scene. As Dorian stabbed the picture, he moved, while covered by a cloud of smoke, into the picture frame, becoming the rejuvenated picture, while leaving an unlit crumpled pile of clothing, the 'remains' of the 'real' Dorian, in front of the picture. The dramatic intensity of the concluding scene held the audience with more tension than would ever be possible in either a film version or even in the novel itself.
The three male actors, in their principal roles, were directed to be rather explicitly sexually attracted to each other. When I asked Kagan-Moore if he had read the 1890 Lippincott text, a more explicitly gay version, he said that he had not, but that he felt his was true to the spirit of the 1891 novel, one that he obviously had read many times. At one point, toward the end of the play, the aging Wotton kisses Gray on the lips. In Lexington, Kentucky production, this is still mildly shocking behavior on a stage that abuts the new City Hall, but more to the point, I think, is that the play is decadent enough without explicit sexuality and would be more effective, I think with a bit of restraint. Wilde was never known for understatement, but the novel reads, and the play would have performed better, with the steaming suggestivity that is on every page of the second version.
In any case, the play was a great success, true to the spirit of the novel and as a theater exigency, well-adapted, well-acted, and well-directed. In the last few years, Actors' Guild of Lexington, like many small city professional play houses, has tackled new and old works with daring and with skill. This production can and may travel well to other venues. I hope it does.
It should also be pointed out that this play was the first to be performed at Lexington's new theater, yet another indication of Wilde's increasing status as a major writer and a source of comfort and joy to the ever growing number of Wildeans everywhere.
- Richard Freed is Professor of English, EEastern Kentucky University, Richmond, Kentucky.
"THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN"
"A crisp show with some outstanding performances and a knockout set by Matthew Hallock...
Ryan Case gives a heroic performance as Billy, looking convincingly handicapped...
We see the torture of his life in his face and in the callous people he interacts with."
- The Lexington Herald-Leader
(Reprinted courtesy of The Kentucky Kernel)
FROM EMERALD ISLE TO BLUEGRASS
Kiss me I’m Irish: Actors’ Guild performs comedy by award-winning Irish playwright
Located on one of the secluded Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland, all of Inishmaan’s residents agree that this is the best gossip Johnnypateenmike, otherwise known for his boring "news," has ever reported. But for Billy Thomas, better known as Cripple Billy, it’s going to take more than a four-leaf clover and the luck of the Irish to make his entrance in Hollywood.
Inspired by a true incident, The Cripple of Inishmaan takes place in 1934 when the famous Hollywood filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty visits a nearby island to film Man of Aran, a silent film documentary about the heroic struggles of Irish fishermen. Disabled since birth and raised by his two aunts after the mysterious death of his parents, Cripple Billy is eager to break free from the ordinary life on Inishmaan to fulfill a lifelong dream of acting.
Ryan Case, who portrays Cripple Billy in the Actors’ Guild of Lexington’s performance of the play, said he can relate to Cripple Billy.
"Much like Billy’s dream to act in Hollywood, it has always been a dream of mine to do a show at Actors’ Guild. This is a dream come true," Case said.
Jessica Wortham, who plays the highly aggressive and brutally honest Helen, said Inishmaan’s dark comedic flare is "wildly funny" and anyone who has ever felt frustrated or bound by life’s circumstances can relate to the play.
Marking his debut in 1996, Irish playwright Martin McDonagh has swept Western Europe and the United States as the hottest contemporary dramatist in the English speaking theater. McDonagh is the first playwright since Shakespeare to have four hit plays running simultaneously in London. His other plays include the Tony Award-winning The Beauty of Queen Leenane, The Lonesome West and A Skull in Connemara.
"Everyone should come see [Inishmaan] because the chance to see this writer’s work is the real deal. He’s not even 30 years old," said director Patrick Kagan-Moore. "He is a really good Irish storyteller."
"BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL"
"A common sentiment from audiences after seeing local shows is 'That's as good as anything you'll see in New York or on tour.' Sometimes it's a quaint sentiment, and sometimes it's right on. Last weekend, for instance, I sat through the national tour of Saturday Night Fever at the Lexington Opera House on Friday and then took in Bat Boy at Actors' Guild of Lexington the next night... Ryan Case, who played Bat Boy (was) as good as any, any of the single threats in that Saturday Night Fever cast. If those people can be on tour, Case can."
- Rich Copley, The Lexington Herald-Leader
"...He hits the stage, and he's brilliant. Bat Boy: The Musical, the Actors' Guild production, showed us Case's true range. In particular, the opening of the second act showed skills with dialect, singing and physicality rarely seen in a Lexington talent."
- The Lexington Herald-Leader
"Actor Ryan Case is truly exceptional as the Bat Boy. He squints and contorts and flies into rages as his scheming guardians seek to groom him for civilized life... when the script calls for a booming, Broadway-style song, Case turns his powerful, expressive voice loose."
- Dag Ryen (Theater Critic), The Lexington Herald-Leader
(Reprinted courtesy of The Lexington Herald-Leader)
TELL NO ONE, LEAD IN LEXINGTON PRODUCTION BEGGED
Singing in Secret
Rich Copley, Arts Writer
The Lexington Herald-Leader
October 24, 2003
When auditions for Bat Boy: The Musical rolled around, Actors' Guild of Lexington staff knew what they had to do:
Keep Ryan Case in the building.
If one sentinel had to leave, another had to take over. If Case left the room, someone made sure he wasn't going out the front door.
"It was horrible," Bat Boy director Mike Thomas says, "He was so stressed out about it, and that made us stressed out."
Actors' Guild managing director Tom Hayward says, "I sat through the entire audition process with Mike and Mark (Funk, music director) and we were very open to other actors, but no one held a candle to him in that role.
"I don't know why he didn't realize that."
Case recalls, "People who audition for musicals are musical theater people, and I just didn't think that was me."
But Case does sing.
Oh, does he sing.
"My family was musical," Case says, noting his father played in big bands and his mother sang. "I started with piano and piano recitals, and then there was the violin, and, you know, you move on to the dulcimer..."
Yeah, Ryan, that's how it happened for all of us.
Case's acting prowess has been established for quite a while.
He debuted on the Actors' Guild stage in 2001 as Cripple Billy, the leading role in Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan. It was a physically and emotionally demanding role that required him to portray numerous physicaly limitations while enduring insult after disappointment after insult after dissappointment.
He stumbled into auditions when he was taking acting classes at Actors' Guild and was shocked to get the title role.
Lexington was put on notice that there was a formidable new acting talent in town.
But Case's musical prowess remained a secret until Actors' Guild general operations director Michael Oaks visited Case's Winchester home and saw his in-house recording studio.
"I was like, 'What's all this about?'" Oaks says.
Case started sending MP3 files to Oaks, asking for some feedback and pleading: Don't tell a soul.
In the meantime, he took on some other roles at Actors': Multiple parts in Patrick Kagen-Moore's adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray in 2002 and the Rachel Carson biographical play In The Garden of Live Flowers earlier this year.
The roles are a dream come true for Case, who started longing to work with actors such as Oaks, Susan Wigglesworth, Adam Luckey and Anitra Brumagen as he went to Lexington theaters.
"I remember watching Kevin Hardesty in Hamlet and thinking, 'That's where I want to go,'" Case recalls.
Despite encouragement to test the waters elsewhere, Case is content to stay in Lexington.
"I really love Lexington," says Case, who is a map editor by day. "Everybody goes to New York or Chicago, you know what I mean? Between work and going home and going to rehearsals, I'll walk around the streets, and I really love it.
At this point, the town offers him a shot at roles such as Bat Boy.
A science fiction fan, he's even followed the Bat Boy saga in the Weekly World News, recalling stories such as "Bat Boy Escapes From Hospital."
Not that he bit on the role right away.
Thomas tried to calm Case's nerves before auditions by having him come in for a little rehearsal before the tryouts.
Still, the concept of taking the stage as a lead in a full-blown musical put him in flight mode.
"Thankfully he didn't," Thomas says.
"He's an incredible leading man," Thomas says, "It's the most incredible performance here, there or anywhere; the most human monster performance I've ever seen."
As Bat Boy, Case goes from purely animal to erudite, Bible-reading Christian to vengeful animal. But there's also the horror show element.
At his big unveiling, Case's head shoots forward, and his eyes bulge as he bares his custom-made teeth at the crowd.
To alter his appearance for Bat Boy, Case has lost weight and shaved his head. He gets made up with the dentures, pointed ears and body makeup to whiten his already pale complexion. He watched animals, noting how dogs tilt their heads when they're curious, and climbed around playground equipment.
"The physical part is what I love the most," Case says. "For this role, I started to think, 'How does a bat move? How would his arms be fixed?' You feel how it feels to be trapped in that skin and adapt.
"He's still an animal, in a sense. He is what he is.
And he sings and dances.
"It's amazing how he took right to it," says Hayward, who plays Dr. Parker in Bat Boy and has an extensive musical theater background. "He sings and dances like he's been doing this for years." That's way, after the audition ordeal, Thomas read Case the riot act telling him: "Don't pull this 'I can't sing' act again, because you're incredible."
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