Displaying items by tag: Fin Coe

I try to attend all performances of Babes w/ Blades Theater Company, but I haven’t seen them in this fabulous venue – The Edge Theater, on Broadway – since 2022. That presentation of Shakespeare’s RICHARD III holds a special place in my heart as one of the finest theatrical productions I’ve ever seen. I can’t say THE MARK quite equaled RICHARD III, but it carried a similar stamp of excellence, no doubt due to the high percentage of artists involved in the two shows. Both were directed by Richard Costes, and Line Bower was Technical Director for both; THE MARK’s fight director Hazel Monson was in the cast of RICHARD III, while Maureen Yasko acted in THE MARK and choreographed the fights for RICHARD III. Playwright Jillian Leff wrote THE MARK but not RICHARD III (duh), but she played a major role in RICHARD. Both casts included Jennifer L Mickelson, Jennifer Mohr, Rose Hamill, and … but you get my drift, yeah? The collaborative efforts of these artists – most of whom, not coincidentally, are members of Babes w/ Blades – are outstanding. [BTW, if I missed you in that list please forgive me -- SO not intentional.]

THE MARK is set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian stratocracy. The Mark decides who gets how much of the strictly rationed food and other essentials. Obviously. members of the Army who have earned The Mark are entitled to special benefits, highly valued in this hardscrabble society.

Members in this elite syndicate are distinguished by a red Mark on the face and selected by brutal tests calculated to glean the most aggressive, volatile candidates. Those who fail a test (or aren’t even chosen to compete) are the Laborers, fated to live precariously on meagre rations. Any Laborer who resists is expelled from the district, to … well, no one comes back to report just what’s out there.

M J Handsome plays the protagonist, Raina, who has been raised by her father Jonas (Tamarus Harvell) in his bakery.  When she hears of a resistance brewing among the Laborers, she rebuffs Jonas (as adolescents will do) for not sharing her enthusiasm for it.

Raina is unexpectedly invited to compete for a place in The Mark, where she meets Jack (Whit Baxter Bates), an ambitious and rather bumptious contestant. The vicious test battles are overseen by staff officers: Nicky Jasper’s expertise with stage fighting is amply demonstrated in the character of bellicose Officer Maxwell while Fin Coe’s Staff Officer Peters shows that Mark officers may be compassionate, but such deviance really should be kept under wraps. Maureen Yasko’s stagecraft in her role as Cain is as notable as her stage fighting, and combat expertise is likewise apparent in each of the Ensemble: Matt Chester, Jennifer L Mickelson, Jennifer Mohr, Izis Mollinedo, and Shane Richlen. Amy J Johnson portrays The Commander as totally professional, pro-Army to the core, and a strict disciplinarian, yet shows us she cares about her recruits.  

At the core of THE MARK is the question of change. The Commander is working to bring about change gradually, addressing one quandary at a time, while many of the resistance advocate a more extremist approach, tearing it all down and building a completely new system.

This duality of views is the basic premise of THE MARK: what’s the best way to address a systemic wrong?  a timely issue! And one that Leffer examines by attaching different ideas to separate characters. I found myself identifying with now one, now another set of views – in itself a worthwhile exercise of flexibility. Yet THE MARK doesn’t oversimplify – there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, and people are brought to their various mindsets by their unique experiences and circumstances

The set, designed by Amy C Gilman and skillfully lighted by Laura J Wiley, was simple yet multifunctional: a few basic shapes from which a desk, a hospital bed, or whatever’s needed may be quickly created. Kasey Wolfgang managed to create costumes that indicated military uniforms while remaining, in my case at least, non-offensive and non-triggering (not an easy feat!) And gratitude goes to Ab Rieve for managing to avoid firearms.  

Hannah Foerschler’s backup sound was so supportive and credible that I find I can’t distinctly recall it – ideal, it seems to me. And as Stage Manager… I once asked a more experienced friend “Just what does a Stage Manager do?” Their succinct reply: “Everything.” Grace Elizabeth Mealy, with Assistant Dylan Hirt, did Everything and did it well.  Intimacy Director Becca Schwartz clearly worked closely with Fight Director Hazel Monson and her Assistant Carly Belle Cason. Fighting and intimacy are closely linked and, as with all Babes productions, they meshed perfectly.  Stage combat is, after all, the Babes’ raison d'etere and they do it superbly.

I was a bit confused about time jumps. There was no direct indication that some scenes were actually backstory. Still, once I muddled it out the storyline progressed smoothly. Perhaps this could be simply indicated using costume and/or props. Also, I couldn’t help noticing a couple of misspoken lines, but that’s to be expected at the start of the run.

In essence THE MARK is a relevant and thoroughly entertaining show, an excellent vehicle for the special magic of the Babes w/Blades.

Playing at The Edge Theater through November 22                                                                                                       

Highly Recommended!

The new show running at the Den Theater, Fun Harmless Warmachine, may surprise you. While treating the world of video games, which struggles for recognition against more established art forms, it delivers an important commentary on a powerful social phenomenon.

Video games are a cultural mainstay; when a new game “drops” it can earn $1 billion, far more than a typical Hollywood blockbuster. Often dismissed as trivial, video games are full, multi-media expressions, and they truly merit our attention.

Fun Harmless Warmachine is also seriously good, I dare say even an important play. But its setting in the social world of virtually-interactive video game players could not be further afield from the living, breathing world of live theater. Playwright Fin Coe has successfully brought that extremely virtual world to its polar opposite, the location known IRL (In Real Life) as the Stage.

The story tracks Tom, a realistic gamer who is one of the many loners, men (and a few women) who could be located anywhere in any location and time zone on earth, and who bond in massively interactive competitive battles, as a rule, without ever meeting each other.

The show’s production at Den Theater is wonderful largely because of great performances. Ayanna Bria Bakari lights up the stage from the moment she enters as Ekaterina. It is impossible to stop watching her performance, as she presents the essence of an empowered, emancipated coquettishness, providing a dramatic pivot point for the play, and for Tom, an everyman gone astray played convincingly by Daniel Chenard. We also witness a jaw droppingly powerful delivery in the closing soliloquy by Emily Marso as Melissa. 

Fun Harmless Warmachine looks at the horrible undercurrent of the misogynist male gamer, which rose to public awareness during the 2013 and 2014 scandal of #GamerGate, years before #MeToo, when women begin to complain about misogyny in the games, and others complained about their gratuitous violence.

This brought to public attention a group of violent gaming advocates, not so different from guns rights militants, who harassed their critics and attempted to stifle the discussion. 

In Fun Harmless Warmachine we meet Tom (Chenard), a wandering, disaffected youth, turning ever more cynical as he realizes he has been captured on a treadmill of a dead end job with an overbearing boss. The more trapped he feels, the more he escapes to the world of gaming, withdrawing from his real relationships with work friends, leaving calls from his family unanswered, and becoming further depressed by a lack of romance in his life.

Tom's world devolves ever more into role playing games, where he poses as an alpha male warrior in a popular mass-participant game known as “Iron Fate.” During a match, Tom is discovered by a secret group of alt right gamer rights advocates – the "Order of the Sword.” The whole thing might remind you of an online version of the Fight Club. Indeed members are sworn to secrecy.  

This group's leader is Hunter, that familiar dominant male presence who can also fortify a weak ego (played with perfect menace by Robert Koon). Hunter woos Tom, enlisting him in Order of the Sword's efforts to stalk, shame, and harass activists who protest gaming for its celebration of violence. It's testosterone-fueled agenda also feeds Tom’s emotional void, giving him a sense of purpose and belonging. Buoyed by the group, his self-esteem rises, and he begins to find success in a new job and in his love life with Ekatarina (Bakari).

As Tom succumbs and becomes part of the group’s sinister pursuits of degrading, stalking and harassing women through social media, he finds a purpose that boosts his ego. 

Ultimately the play comes to a satisfying resolution, and Tom faces up to the evils he has wrought. While it is an Everyman story and a moral fable, this does not diminish Fun Harmless Warmachine as a satisfying dramatic work. 

Though hundreds of millions of people play video games for recreation and enjoyment, there truly is a subset of hyper-masculine, frequently misogynistic communities who combine into teams formed in this world of massively interactive video gamers.

By trial and error such kindred souls bond, and in this social landscape some less healthy individuals do actually form small, and insidious groups of alt right meanies. The groups coalesce into a terribly unhealthy social cliques, often choosing women as targets of their uncivilized behavior.

These folks increasingly transferred their virtual cruelty into real life harassment of harmless individuals who had the misfortune of being caught in their crosshairs. As gamers began to be called out for their misogyny, the term Gamergate arose - resonating too in the pre-#MeToo complaints about Silicon Valley misogyny.

“I finished it in 2015, and I was afraid it wouldn’t be relevant anymore,” says playwright Coe. But given the #MeToo movement and the recent tribulation of the Supreme Court appointment hearings, the world is even more ready for this play. After its run at Den Theater, it would not be surprising to see Coes work reappear at someplace like Steppenwolf Garage or another new voices program. Dramaturgs take note!

Don't miss your chance to see Fun Harmless War Machine through November 4 at The Den Theater in Chicago.