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rndyounghowze · 4 years

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Helvetica Sails On At Elm Street Cultural Arts Village

By Ricky and Dana Young-Howze

Woodstock, Georgia

On May Thirteenth around three o'clock the play Helvetica by one of our dear friends Will Coleman was dead on arrival. It was yet another theatrical casualty of this global pandemic that has shuttered the doors of theaters everywhere from the Elm Street Cultural Arts Village in Woodstock, Georgia all the way to Broadway. The notice was one of the millions just like it that Dana and I had seen in our feed and our hearts had gone out to them. As reviewers we have felt helpless sitting on the sidelines for this whole thing. Then we saw a post by director Nicole Adkins that the show was not only not dead but going live on Thursday as a digitally streamed experience. So one message later and Dana and I were sitting on our bed with our cats doing our first theatre review from our homes!

Saying that Helvetica is the story of a writer of the same name isn't doing it justice. A "deconstructed" or "exploded" life is more fitting. Narrated by her favorite stuffed bear Myron this play takes you on a journey through Helvetica's younger years with her Mom and Dad to her adult life in a marriage gone wrong, to her final months battling cancer. But we never stay in one place too long as Myron deftly moves us from one time to another weaving the story together as if it's a tapestry. This is a play about stories and how they're born.

I've mainly known Nicole as a talented children's playwright and teacher. This is my first real encounter with her directing and I want to point out two strengths she has. When you watch this the first thing you'll notice in many scenes is that you don't notice her. When you sample the wares of a baker you're not tasting the individual ingredients you're tasting the confection and this is the case with her. Like with my South Jersey cohort I love the directors that put in the time and labor over their shows but like up North she's one of the few where you don't see her metaphorical hands on actors' shoulders gently nudging them or see their handiwork everywhere. You just see the amazing work as a whole! Nicole's second strength was grand stage pictures that reminded us of the depth of this story and its journey through time. There were a couple times like in Helvetica's funeral and the ballerina scene where I felt pacing suffered for that depth but that is being completely nitpicky.

One thing I envy about K. Willow Coleman are their characters. But in this play there are some characters that offer challenges to actors which rival the feats of Hercules.

Take Myron (played by Sean Haley) in which you have to be a stuffed bear that's not just a stuffed bear. If you stepped into this role thinking, "I'm just Helvetica's teddy bear" you've failed from the beginning. Haley seems to know that Myron is also Helvetica's avatar, the only person that she has loved one hundred percent, and the only person qualified to tell her story. But he still had to also be a bear and through Haley's performance I never forgot that even though he's not wearing a bear costume.

Now there's the impossible task of playing Helvetica. Helvetica is played by three actresses: Past Helvetica (Evie Sickbert), Present Helvetica (Molly Gilmartin), and Future Helvetica (Mary Wolfson). It would be very hard to play one of these people but then you have the added hardship of making your performance work in such a way that I don't see a "seam" in the actresses portrayal and they all blend into one character. I don't know how much (if at all) they planned for this but whatever they they did it worked. If they did this purely by accident they should take that secret to their graves.

First of all Miss Sickbert was my absolute favorite performer! The scene she has with Helvetica's father needs a maturity way beyond her years and it touched me to the core. At such a young age to be emoting with her eyes and face like that is so amazing. Gilmartin's performance played the perfect balance of reserved and passionate. I totally felt her character's feeling of being stuck and she drew this emotion out of me that just wanted to yell "just punch the dumb husband and sail away with Myron!" Wolfson's performance is what grounded me and I found myself calmed by her. Playing a writer is hard already because all of the conflict is inside the head yet Wolfson allowed that inner conflict to come outside and I could see her working through it. All three of these women came together to give us only one Helvetica and they deserve a riotous applause.

Then there are the characters that form a sort of a spine to the play because even when we don't see them we feel them. Father (played by Daniel Sickbert) and Mother (played by Riley Rawson) were two such characters. These were both people who needed to be powerful performers because we had to feel their effect on Helvetica's life long after they were gone. I think Sickbert's delivery rang with me more but he may have been "cheating" because he was talking to his real life daughter Evie most of the time (although from people I know who have done it acting with real life family can sometimes be harder). At first I thought Rawson's performance left something to be desired but then I saw her start to settle in and own it. Her last monologue in the play is one of my favorites of all time and she killed it. I just wished we could have had that energy the whole performance.

Big shout out to James Cogswell for giving me a Husband that I want to punch in the face. It's very hard to play a jackass and my hat is off to him for it.

Okay I was looking in the program for the almost five other talented actresses that were in this play but it turns out that they were all Amanda Lynn Simmons. This performer is not only a talented actress and ballet dancer but also a composer! I can't believe that I'm using the word "polymath" in a review but here I am giving it to her. There you go Miss Simmons making me pull out my SAT words.

Okay I want to talk to both set designer Brian Gamel and lighting designer Megan Johnson. Because of the very monochromatic gray color palette of the stage all I could think about was that we were inside Helvetica's brain (her "graymatter") and watching her story unfold in her mind. If that was your intention you're geniuses. If it wasn't let that be your biggest secret. The grays gave a great background for Johnson's vibrant purples and the muted blues and greens and browns of Cindy Flanders' costume design. Also Flanders deserves high praise for uniting all three Helveticas with the same color scheme but giving them all different styles and tastes. Whereas the trio of actresses played a unified character the clothing clued us into their different personalities.

Also a shout-out to sound designer Zach Roe and projection designer Beth Tate. These roles hardly ever get any love and they are the unsung heroes of the theatre.

A special shout-out to videography by David Thompson Technologies without whom this production would have stayed cancelled.

Don't tell Katie Coleman this but this play has stuck with Dana and me throughout the seven or so years since we first saw the staged reading at the Hollins Playwright's Lab. We have stayed up at night in bed talking (and arguing) about this play because we love it so much. It was very special for it to be our first review from quarantine. Also even in this digital age we still feel that need to be somewhere in person. We've had eyes and ears as a species way before we got phones and cameras so there is still a drive to get around the campfire as a tribe and let our hearts sync up as one to hear a good story. However in these times it's good to be reminded that technology can help us feel present with our loved ones even in times of uncertainty like this. Hence why I was able to do a review of play done in Georgia from my home in New Jersey written by a colleague from Chicago and directed by a professor I met in Virginia. This is what reminds me that Theatre is really about community and as long as the community still thrives theatre lives on. You now have a limited time to be a part of that global community. Follow the link below and watch this play yourself. After you watch it share it with a friend. Hurry fast because after May 10th it disappears!

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