THE GAZETTE
Wednesday, January 15, 2014 b
THEATER
AT THE MOVIES
‘Almost’ there Small town life, love come alive in ‘Almost, Maine’
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BY
WILL C. FRANKLIN STAFF WRITER
Never underestimate the importance of living in a small town. Sure, the excitement from the everyday hustle and bustle isn’t quite as big, but that only leaves more time for people to interact, tell stories and fall in love. Such is the case in John Cariani’s play, “Almost, Maine,” which is being performed by the Upcounty Theatre at the BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown. The play features nine vignettes all taking place in the enchanted little town of Almost, Maine. Each little story explores love — both gained and lost. Denise Smith, who plays Rhonda, said she originally had never heard of the play, but quickly fell in love with both the script and her character. “[Rhonda’s] best friend in the whole world is Dave and they’ve been really good friends for a long, long time,” Smith said. “Rhonda’s kind of a tomboy and I really felt when I read the script for the first time that you’re supposed to believe that maybe she’s a lesbian. But she loves Dave. … You find out she’s never kissed a guy, she doesn’t know how and she just likes guy things.” Director Matti Jane Dickenson had the idea to do “Almost, Maine,” and brought the suggestion to the Upcounty Theatre board. Dickenson, according to Smith, came prepared by offering the board different ways to do the show spending varying amounts of money. “The president, Jeff Smith, was pretty intrigued,” Smith said. “… Matti presented it so well. She had schematics and
ALMOST, MAINE
n When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 17-18 n Where: BlackRock Center for the Arts, 12901 Town Commons Dr., Germantown n Tickets: $8-$15 n For information: 301-5282260; upcountytheatre.org
everything planned out. … Matti is absolutely wonderful and young and fresh with a lot of experience from college and some post-grad work.” “Almost, Maine,” is the second show Dickenson has directed. Her first was a threewoman production with no set pieces and the actors remaining on stage throughout. Needless to say, with a cast of 15 and a full crew, “Almost, Maine,” is a bit different. “I think it’s such a perfect show for this company and the space and time that we have,” Dickenson said. “We just finished the holidays. We’re getting ready to go into Valentine’s Day and it’s a perfect time for it. We have this perfectly fine frigid air that helps set the mood!” Smith said she has really enjoyed working with the cast and playing Rhonda might have opened her eyes a little. “Playing Rhonda has helped me personally explore parts of me that I think needed some exploring and maybe nurturing,” Smith said. “Rhonda’s a [tough girl] and [I’m] exploring that part of [me] and I kind of want to see that just a little more.” For Dickenson, she hopes the audiences walks away knowing unexpected things can sometimes happen and they can be good. “You have to not take things too seriously,” Dickenson said. “You have to have fun with love.” wfranklin@gazette.net
UPCOUNTY THEATRE
Thomas Gower as Chad and Jacob Lucas as Randy rehearse a scene for “Almost, Maine.”
DANCERS
Continued from Page B-5 The Conservatory grads, now in college, will perform a piece about “what happens after a person [dies] and what happens with the people still there,” said Priore. Also scheduled is a solo about the feeling of freedom after a long struggle, and a duet about love. “It’s about finding a love who will be there no matter what, and how that can happen unexpectedly,” he said. The longest work in “Emergence” is a five-section piece called “Os Padroes,” a Portuguese word for patterns. It was inspired by the work of Dayton artist Willis “Bing” Davis, whom Priore got to know while performing in Ohio. “It came out of a collabora-
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tion between myself and Bing,” Priore said. Looking at one of Davis’ paintings called “Ancestral Spirit Dance,” he began to hear the music of Brazil and the Caribbean in his head and choreographed the piece with that in mind. The dance is set to music by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain, and the Belgian/African vocal ensemble Zap Mama. “There are four dancers from Dayton, four alumni and three current students in it,” he said. Priore said he is very glad to be hosting a first-time visit by the Dayton dancers to CityDance. “It’s like a dream come true to have both [companies] working together,” he said. “It’s awesome.” vterhune@gazette.net
JASON GARCIA IGNACIO
CityDance will present “Emergence,” a program featuring original work by its resident choreographer Robert Priore, on Saturday and Sunday at the CityDance Studio Theater at Strathmore in North Bethesda.
PHOTOS FROM WARNER BROS. PICTURES
Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore in the romantic drama “Her,” directed by Spike Jonze.
‘Her’ makes a perfect love connection BY
MICHAEL PHILLIPS
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
A delicate, droll masterwork, writerdirector Spike Jonze’s “Her” sticks its neck out, all the way out, asserting that what the world needs now and evermore is love, sweet love. Preferably between humans, but you can’t have everything all the time. It tells a love story about a forlorn writer, whose firm — BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com — provides busy, digitally preoccupied customers with personalized correspondence crafted by professionals like Theodore Twombly, played by refreshingly rage-free and wholly inspired Joaquin Phoenix. Theodore is smarting from a marital breakup he’s not ready to process, legally or emotionally. He has a filmmaker friend, played by Amy Adams, living in his building in a Los Angeles of the very near future, perhaps 30 years from now. This is a city whose interiors are dominated by reds and pinks and salmon tones, as if the entire culture had taken an oath to view itself through rose-colored glasses. Theodore buys the latest new gadget, the iPhone of its day. It is an advanced “operating system” that is simply a voice. Not a face. Not a body. Not a person, but a carefully rendered collection of so much intelligence, so many programmed human traits and quirks and speech patterns and interests and desires that, well, why not? Why not call her your girlfriend and take it from there? No grief; no apparent emotional neediness; no accusing glances, like the ones we see in beautifully rendered flashback, showing Theodore’s life and times with his wife, portrayed by Rooney Mara. I love this film, and I’m one of the most technophobic and least gadget-centric people on the planet. It’s unusually witty science fiction and it’s unfashionably sincere, as well as a work of such casual visual inspiration that a second viewing of “Her” feels more like a first. This is the fourth feature from Jonze, and the first in which he directs his own script. Jonze has learned well from his earlier work. He met his poetic screwball match in screenwriter Charlie Kaufman for “Being John Malkovich” and “Adap-
(From left) Joaquin Phoenix and Olivia Wilde in the romantic drama “Her.” tation,” and his more recent and fiercely divisive “Where the Wild Things Are” sent half the audience into emotional shock and the other half into emotional shock followed by immense gratitude. “Her” is a more even-toned work, but not in a blanded-out way. The high-waisted beltless pants of the future alone make this film worth seeing. Jonze works with some creatively fabulous designers, among them production designer K.K. Barrett and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, creating a futuristic L.A. where everyone seems a little calmer but a little more isolated. The earbuds in so many ears may as well be space dividers. Theodore’s path to Samantha, the operating system with the voice of Scarlett Johansson, involves a blind date with a gorgeous but touchy and insecure woman (Olivia Wilde, mercurial and striking) and a lot of blissfully easygoing debriefing with Theodore’s platonic-ish soul mate, the Adams character, rendered with unusual emotional transparency and the lightest of touches. Phoenix is remarkable as Theodore; he never rolls over for an obvious laugh. Sitting alone in his apartment, playing the latest immersive video game, he paws the air like a chipmunk as his gam-
HER n 4 stars n R; 119 minutes n Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Olivia Wilde, Rooney Mara n Directed by Spike Jonze
ing avatar burrows into tunnels. It’s a sad but truly funny image, and the film’s full of such double-sided gems. Where does the love story take Theodore and his new thrill? Better you find out for yourself. Jonze’s truisms sometimes have a somewhat predigested ring to them (“The heart expands in size the more you love”), but as Theodore and Samantha reach a relationship crossroads, the film becomes more and more amazing in its high-wire act. It is a small film made by enormous talents working in harmony. Jonze’s first solo script is topical in the right ways, and forward-thinking in the right ways. We’re living in this enticingly lonely world, more or less, already. But does Siri really understand your needs?
ROCK
Continued from Page B-5 Bollettino and her husband Jeff opened two School of Rock locations in Virginia: one in Vienna in July 2006 and one in Ashburn in July 2007. The two took over the Silver Spring location in September 2007. “My husband and I were both involved in corporate America and as our kids were getting older, we realized we were missing out on a lot,” Bollettino said. “This was a unique concept … we really saw it made [students] really good, really fast.” School of Rock is a performance-based music school with an emphasis on fun. “We always joke around and say, ‘Don’t tell the kids we’re a serious music school,” Bollettino said. But School of Rock means business. Students are first enrolled in School of Rock 101, teaching basic skills through 45-minute private lessons and 90-minute group sessions. Students then move on to the Performance Program, which consists of 45-minute private lessons and a final show. The students rehearse for three hours, once a week in preparation for the end-of-season show at the end of the 12-13 week session. Teachers at the school come from a range of backgrounds. “We use a combination of teachers,” Bollettino said. “ … [some] are gigging musicians, some have degrees, some have just a lot of experience.” But the headmaster is studio manager Forrest Hainline IV. “I like to think of myself as the principal of School of Rock,” Hainline said. “I promote a culture that is fun and safe and comfortable and inspiring for students.” A Montgomery County native and a graduate of the Landon School in Bethesda, Hainline has been with School of Rock of Silver Spring for one and a half years.
LAURA BOLLETTINO
Gabby Chuke, 12 and a student at the School of Rock, performs in downtown Silver Spring. “I really never thought of teaching,” said Hainline, who graduated from Augustana College in Illinois. “Even two years into it I never thought I was qualified, but people kept asking me to come back.” On top of teaching private lessons, Hainline also leads students in the Performance Program and has prepared all of the students performing in Saturday’s concert. “We give them song assignments …” Hainline said. “Students come in once a week for three hours and start chipping away.” According to Hainline, Saturday’s concert, which is divided into two parts, “What’s His Name Is?!” and “Who’s That Grrrl?!” is a celebration of songs about guys and girls. The lineup includes Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia,” “Hey Jude,” by the Beatles and “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” by the Ramones. Though School of Rock’s emphasis is
obviously on the music, both Bollettino and Hainline said the program helps its students develop skills applicable to other areas of their lives as well. “Part of being an artist and being a gigging musician is you have to do promotion,” Bollettino said. “Selling tickets, making posters.” School of Rock students have vowed to sell 400 tickets on their own for Saturday’s performance. Bollettino added that School of Rock also builds self-assurance in its students. “One of the things I’ve seen over and over again, by getting on stage and pushing through your fears, you gain confidence,” Bollettino said. “The feeling of accomplishment and ‘I did it’ and ‘I learned this hard piece of music,’ that can translate to any obstacle they’ll face in the future.” chedgepeth@gazette.net