THEATER REVIEWS
WORLD PREMIERE SUNDOWN**
John Garcia's THE COLUMN
April 23, 2002
**Reviewed 04-20-02 performance

What new laurels and accolades can we bestow on Lyric Stage that hasn't already been said? Lyric Stage is the only theater company in Texas that has the bulk of their productions mounted that are totally fresh and new, never to have been produced before. Now, while the company does produced off and on a well known show,(past titles include Gypsy & Brigadoon), they primarily produced brand new musicals. This makes any musical theater fan (both in the audience and on stage) yelp with glee! Lyric Stage has brought to life some of the finest musical theater productions to its audiences. Some of these include Richard Cory and Abyissina. The company has now even ventured into New York with co-producing with the York Theater Company the musical Roadside, which we metroplex audiences had first dibs to see when it was produced here earlier this season.

Lyric Stage this time around presents the world premiere of the new musical, Sundown, which centers around Doc Holliday and that well known shootout at the OK Corral. I must confess that I am not a huge fan of those John Wayne western films, to the point that I really haven't seen that many films dealing with cowboys, gunslingers, and the such. So I walked into the Dupree theater really not knowing a lot about Holliday and the OK battle. While this is quite a different subject to write a musical around, there have been stranger subjects. I mean take a gander at past broadway musicals, they went way out there once and brought to life a musical about Carrie! So why not Doc Holliday?! It was quite interesting to know that Holliday wanted to leave Tombstone,Arizona to become a Dental doctor, only to be sidelined by the Earp Brothers into staying in town for a little longer.

Director Cheryl Denson continues to take artistic risks and has not once dropped the ball! She is assigned constantly new or hardly ever produced musicals and the end result is another artistic gem of a production. Denson has a grand eye for visual enhancement to the emotion of the piece that she is working on, and in Sundown you see it.

From the opening act number of foreshadowing, to the cryptic and dark ending of Act one, to the tour de force Act Two that has the elements of blocking, vision, costume, lighting, set, and cast that is just breath taking. Take my word, from the number "Poisoned Water" to the end, it is magical theater at its finest!

One of the best elements of the production is the score itself. There are nineteen songs interspread within the book, and they are both powerful and beautifully written pieces of music. The score's best moments come from the solos sung throughout the evening.But Peter Link's score does for the most hit great emotional arch and the music coming from the orchestra pit (conducted again by the marvelous Nyela Basney) is both impressive and exquisite. Easily the best ensemble number of the evening is "Poisoned Water", with its lush harmonies of the singers and the commitment of the entire cast on understanding the emotion of the number is wonderful to both see and hear. Link's strongest work is in the majestic solos for various characters. Some of my favorite arias included, "Arizona Morning", "The Rest of My Life", "Bridges", "Sundown", "Prisoner", "Men Aint What They Used to Be", and the haunting "Another Time". Each of these solos are gold nuggets! The music written for them is moving, with a light air of country & western mixed in with a light dusting of pop/rock overtones. I wished though that the character "Woman in Black" had a solo of her own. The character truly begs for one. It takes awhile to realize that the character is the Angel of Death, but she has not one song to establish her purpose or reason within the plot. Which is too bad, because I honestly think this is a great idea of having this character in the piece.

Gina Biancardi is both tough and loving as "Kate", she is divine! As for the kudos to the best performances of the evening, those would belong to Kevin Varner (Doc Holliday) and Steve Barcus (Wyatt Earp). The book, score, and characters all circle around one major character-that of Doc Holliday, which is performed here with brilliance by Kevin Varner.Varner also has the best songs of the evening to sing. From the light and airy "Arizona Morning"; to the fun and festive up-tempo "The Rest of My Life"; to the tour de force and deeply emotional act one finale, "Sundown". The actor sings with passion and gives total commitment to his character. As you may remember, Wyatt was quite ill, thus Varner brings this element as well to the table. His harsh coughing and wheezing is extremely realistic and gives his Act one and Act two finales great subtext. Varner is magnificent in the role.

The cast and director are greatly aided by the creative design team as well. Giva Taylor and Susan Mayes' costumes are perfect in period and detail. Susan A. White's lighting design could rival any broadway production! Her design of creating "emotional color" is to be admired greatly. Her design of Act two 's battle at the OK Corral is worth the price of admission alone! I loved it!Wade Giampa's set involves platforms and two major turntables on either side of the stage. The sets are designed with authenticity and are painted to reflect sun burned ,worn out wood that actually looks like these buildings have been sitting out in the hot, western sun for years. Not many cities in the United States have theater companies that produced new musicals from scratch. New York has Encores, Los Angeles has Reprise, both are companies that do new or hardly ever seen musicals. We are indeed VERY lucky to have our very own such company right here in Dallas! Lyric Stage is currently in its ninth season, and with productions like SUNDOWN, they will be here for another ten years! And for that, both audiences and our metroplex artistic family are very fortunate to have.

RATING:
CAST/DIRECTION/PRODUCTION: A+

SUNDOWN COMBINES GRIT AND BEAUTY
by Robert McKinney / BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

 
Barter Theatre has been selected for the East Coast premier of Sundown, a wonderful new musical drama that recounts the events leading up to the famous Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, in October of 1881, the gunfight itself that lasted all of 90 seconds, and a brief glance at the legend it became. This show stands head and shoulders above any western-type musical I can remember, including such a favorite as Oklahoma. Actually, to compare Sundown to other western musicals is probably unfair to all. Sundown, although containing singing, dancing, and some pretty funny bits, has a gritty, almost morbid reality to it that befits its subject, a shootout more of an ambush, really that resulted in the immediate deaths of three men, the severe wounding of two more, and, probably, the final curtain call on what we today know as The Old West.

The Barters own John Hardy plays Doc Holliday, the tubercular Georgia dentist turned cardsharp, alleged Wells-Fargo stagecoach robber, and ladies man. Hardy is perfectly cast as Holliday, a man keenly aware of his own legend, yet grappling with the fact that he is dying of bloody consumption. It is primarily from the viewpoint of Holliday that we see the escalation into violence of what amounted, some historians believe, to little more than an ongoing feud between two rival groups, the Earp brothers, Morgan, Virgil, and Wyatt, along with Doc Holliday, and their rivals consisting primarily of Billy and Ike Clanton and Frank and Tom McLaury. The truth about who was in the right, if anybody probably nobody; who fired first; and whether justice or vengeance was served has long ago blown away in the dusty Arizona wind. Even at the time few people agreed whether Wyatt Earp, who had been briefly the sheriff of Tombstone, was an upstanding citizen defending the town against a marauding gang or if he was, in fact, little better than the gang himself. This is not a story about saints.

Derek Davidson plays Wyatt Earp, Chris Ross plays Morgan Earp, and John Hedges plays Virgil Earp. Dressed all in black, the Earps and Doc Holliday, very nicely counter play the good guys cliques, while the Clantons and McLaurys, supposedly the bad guys, look far less sinister. Mike Ostroski plays Billy Clanton, Eugene Wolf plays Ike Clanton, Peter Yonka plays Frank McLaury, and JJ Musgrove plays Tom McLaury. Nicholas Piper, whose absence from Barter casts has been noted for the past couple of years, is back as John Behan, a friend of the Clantons and McLaurys, who was the sheriff of Tombstone at the time of the famous shootout. Piper is a fine and versatile actor and it is good to have him home. Docs girlfriend, Kate Fisher, known as Big Nose Kate, is played by Kathryn Foster, a beautiful newcomer to the Barter stage. Her character, a drifting bar girl, pickpocket, and sometimes prostitute, is nicely done and believable. Finally, the magnificent Evalyn Baron rounds out the cast as the Woman In Black or, if one so chooses, Death. Her presence is felt throughout the play, but in the end she has to wait for the dramas two principals Wyatt Earp and Holliday. Earp would live into a ripe old age in California as a real estate speculator and Holliday would live at least a dozen more years before finally dying in a sanitarium in Colorado.

This play has several fantastic songs, probably the best of which is the first: Arizona Morning sung by Holliday (Hardy) and the ensemble. Other notable numbers include We Aint Never Had It So Good, Politickin, Bridges, sung by Kate, and Another Time, by Kate and Doc. This is a play that seems particularly well cast. The set, while simple, works wonderfully. And all the other stuff such as sound, lighting, etc. is, of course, up to the Barters usual high standards. Richard Rose directs and choreographed. William Perry Morgan leads the live four-piece orchestra.

Sundown had its world premier in Irving, Texas, at the Lyric Stage. The music is by Peter Link with lyrics by Larry Rosler. The book is by Joe Bravaco and Larry Rosler. If youd like to read a bit more about the history of the shootout at the O.K. Corral and the bad blood between the Earps, the Clantons, and the McLaurys, a good Internet site is www.jcs-group.com/oldwest/towns/okcorral.html. This site gives an 11-page history. Checking out this site makes Sundown much more enjoyable. I do have a warning, however, and it is an important one to note. This play contains quite a bit of pretty realistic gunfire and it gets quite noisy. Several times members of the cast point their weapons (pistols and one double-barreled shotgun) in the direction of the audience. They are not shooting toward the audience or at the audience, but just the fact of having a firearm, even a harmless stage firearm, pointed in my direction is a bit unnerving. And, please understand, I like guns, own guns, and have shot guns all my life, including in the military. For those among us, however, who only know firearms from their movie or television depictioneither in shows or on the newssuch gunplay might cause some deal of discomfort. You are, of course, certainly never in any danger and, by the time you read this the choreography will probably be a bit revised to reduce the illusion of such. This warning is not meant to keep you from attending a great musical play and I hope it doesnt. Just go advised that there is gunplay and it is fairly realistic. Sundown runs through May 17 on the Barter Mainstage. For times, dates, and reservations, call the Box Office at 276-628-3991 or visit Barter online at www.bartertheatre.com.

REVIEW OF SUNDOWN, BARTER THEATRE
By Warren M. Harris / WASHINGTON COUNTY NEWS
SUBMITTED MARCH 17, 2003

 
The Barter Theatre’s currently running East Coast premiere of the musical play Sundown is a rollicking, tuneful re-telling of the Old-West tale of the gunfight at the OK Corral. The challenge of this enterprise is to bring a fresh and engaging approach to a story so well-known as to have become a part of mythic Americana. Joe Bravaco and Larry Rosler’s script, Peter Link and Rosler’s songs, and Richard Rose’s staging succeed in doing so by borrowing from several models in roughly equal parts: the traditional stage musical, the ancient Greek myth, the Western movie, and a Bud Light commercial.

As in all good musicals, the songs consistently entertain, illuminate character, and advance the story. With a cast of nine men and only two women, there is, predictably, quite a bit of "rousing" male singing. But Kathryn Foster (as Kate Fisher) uses a rich, country-style voice in her solo opportunities to create some of the show’s most moving and powerful moments. Musical Director Wm. Perry Morgan effectively creates a Western atmosphere with guitar and piano. But I did miss the pleasure of being able to see the musicians, either on stage or in the pit. Sundown retells the events which occurred in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1881, not as history, but as myth, and that with an original twist.

Wyatt Earp becomes a largely comic figure – drunken and infantile. Derek Davidson in this role effectively amuses with wild eyes, lunging movements, and whiny snarls. Sundown’s hero is the multi-dimensional character of Doc Holliday, played with riveting intensity by John Hardy. Holliday finds himself, like a Wild-West Sisyphus, caught in a cruelly ironic situation, and Hardy exploits his character’s introspective frame of mind with impressive dramatic and musical performances, including a hard-edged, thoroughly engrossing rendition of the title song at the end of Act One. From the B-Western movie, Sundown borrows several stock supporting characters. Each of the bad-guy members of the Clanton gang has his shtick -- one is wily, one is naïve, one is hot-headed. The (relatively) good guys, Wyatt Earp and his brothers, are likewise stereotypical, as are the weak-kneed sheriff and the cynical saloon temptress.

The Western film format contributes visual elements as well. Cheri Prough DeVol’s open stage design with movable set pieces features Arizona colors and a nicely rendered background projection representing a Western street. And (not surprisingly, given the show’s title) there is at times a beautiful sunset of the sort into which horse-opera heroes frequently disappear. Amanda Aldridge’s notable 1880’s costumes feature long overcoats, frock coats, gun belts, holsters, and a couple sets of clanking spurs, items normally only seen at one remove on TV or the silver screen. And yet another reminder of the cowboy pictures is a generous use of gunfire from ubiquitous pistols. Finally, by my reference to the model of a Bud Light commercial, I mean that a sly, roguish humor energizes the dialogue and action of most scenes. A significant part of the fun resides in Rose’s choreography. It has just enough comic bravado and rowdiness to make it a credible employment for the he-man gunslingers who largely people Sundown. For example, one of the dance numbers features pistol-twirling, and another uses the gunfighting cowboy’s distinctive leg twitches to excellent comic effect.

There may of course be legitimate moral reservations about legends of the Old West in which problems are solved with six-shooters. But at least for me, the high theatricalism and the overlay of humor largely excuse Sundown from the world of ethical discourse and make it an enjoyable musical variation on an archetypal story.

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