"Compleat Female Stage Beauty" from Rogue Machine at Theatre/Theater

Jeffery Hatcher's play "Compleat Female Stage Beauty" is the first show produced by fledgling theatre company Rogue Machine, a troupe made up largely of PRT talent who were looking to do their own thing. And as solid as PRT work can be, all I can say is "lucky us!"

Rogue Machine has taken the somewhat ungainly Theatre/Theater space and turned it into an intimate uneven 3/4 thrust. Under the sharp direction of John Perrin Flynn, Hatcher's play of the last days of men playing women's roles during the English Restoration is a riveting look at artists who must change with the times or die. The tight, no-weak-links ensemble is lead by the exceptional Micheal Traynor as Ned Kynaston, the last of the male actors to specialize in playing female roles. I can't imagine an actor alive who doesn't see something of himself in Traynor's Kynaston -- one part star, one part whore, one part expert, and all-parts child forced to grow up. He is both delicate and fierce, much as the women who come to replace him are. But really everyone on stage is pitch-perfect, with special kudos to the foppish, but edgy performance turned in by Jaxon Gwillam as King Charles II. (And may I add *everyone* nailed the British accents--thank you!)

In this particular production the director and design team decided to turn this period piece into a work that is set in its own universe of the 17th Century by way of today's runway. Mostly the costumes look like something out of a "Vogue" shoot, with an emphasis on a 21st-C. retro-high-fashion feel, down-selling to jeans only once our hero has hit bottom. This is a bold choice, which I understood was to make the audience understand that the story is as fresh as this week's "Variety" (and with TV actors losing jobs to movie stars and "reality" "celebrities", and voice over artists losing work to TV stars these days, seems utterly on the money). But even while well-intentioned, I found this a little distracting, as the concept was not quite as solidified as it might have been: is this a look only sported by the rich? And if so, then at what financial point is the look abandoned to a lack of cash-flow, since everyone--no matter what their status--seems to be sporting some version of it most of the time, but not always? But I applaud the bigness and bravery of the choice, whereas so many companies would have done half-assed period clothing.

The show also had a single live musician in back and above the house, who played guitar and recorder during the scene breaks. Her singing and playing were lovely and the pieces appropriate, and I always love live musicians in a theatre setting, but truth be told I found a lone musician too small a sound to really fill the space. Not for volume so much as scale--this piece of theatre seemed larger than any one musician could balance. But this is a minor consideration considering the achievement of this new company in this, their debut production.

They have extended the run two weeks to June 15, by popular demand. I highly recommend you catch these folks while you can.

Bottom line: a solid A.

'Til next time!
--HDSQ, Jr