Here's a puzzling paradox about Milwaukee theater. We are blessed with a deep and wide pool of stage artists, from actors to directors and designers. We have young companies and old companies, small companies and large companies.
The local theater palette ranges from tame to edgy. But Milwaukee has not been proficient at developing playwrights. New work is imported, more often than not.
Neil Haven, a UW-Whitewater grad, is a happy exception. His first professionally produced piece, "Get a Life," is a cute and fluffy comedy about an apartment being haunted by a dead porno actress. Initially mounted at the old Brumder Mansion Theatre, "Life" was such a hit, the show was revived for a second engagement.
Comedy is definitely Haven's genre, and he has a knack for the good one-liner. He thinks funny.
Milwaukee audiences have watched Haven play with several different sitcom conventions and devices in subsequent works. Now he brings us "Pink Champagne," which uses humor to address much more serious issues. Tough and sticky family problems are in his crosshairs.
A joint production staged by Uprooted Theatre and the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center opened during the weekend.
The story revolves around a 17-year-old gay high school student coming out to his rigid and disapproving father. The kid decides to pack up and drive to Milwaukee, where his aging grandfather is in a gay relationship with a younger man. The grandson wants to move in with them.
Marital discord between the teenager's parents is a prominent subplot.
These are big and relevant issues, and it is encouraging to see Haven moving toward more substantive material. He admirably offers us differing perspectives from various members of this unhappy family, and he shows us how half-truths and misunderstandings spawn festering resentment.
However, "Pink Champagne" is too long, too melodramatic and contains too many emotional hairpin turns. Haven needs to take a chisel to the piece and get it down to its essential core.
Note that while the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center is a co-producer, the show is being staged through June 5 at the Tenth Street Theatre.
Damien has been around so long, he was at Summerfest the night George Carlin was arrested for speaking the seven dirty words you can't say on TV. He was also at the Uptown Theatre the night Bruce Springsteen's first Milwaukee concert was interrupted for three hours by a bomb scare. Damien was reviewing the concert for the Milwaukee Journal. He wrote for the Journal and Journal Sentinel for 37 years, the last 29 as theater critic.
During those years, Damien served two terms on the board of the American Theatre Critics Association, a term on the board of the association's foundation, and he studied the Latinization of American culture in a University of Southern California fellowship program. Damien also hosted his own arts radio program, "Milwaukee Presents with Damien Jaques," on WHAD for eight years.
Travel, books and, not surprisingly, theater top the list of Damien's interests. A news junkie, he is particularly plugged into politics and international affairs, but he also closely follows the Brewers, Packers and Marquette baskeball. Damien lives downtown, within easy walking distance of most of the theaters he attends.
