Theatre Reset picks up 'Water to Whine'

Theatre Reset, a Columbus-based and a women and nonbinary owned and operated theatre company, has selected my play, "Water to Whine," to be part of its fifth short play festival.

The company has previously produced two other plays I wrote - "Your Child, The Devil, and You" and "George of the Dead" - and I am excited to see what they do with "Water to Whine."

The festival will be held May 30 and 31 at Shedd Theater, 540 Franklin Ave., Columbus, OH 43215. Auditions are mid-March.

For more information about the festival, visit Theatre Reset's website.

The Ascent

Two Soviet partisans during World War II become cut off from their unit, struggle to survive the winter Belarusian countryside, and end up captured by the Germans.

That is the entire plot of The Ascent (1977), the final film of director Larisa Shepitko, who died two years later in a car accident. Like Wings, it is a stark, black-and-white drama, but instead of nestled twenty years after the Great Patriotic War, The Ascent is buried face first in the grueling conflict and misery of fighting and marching.

The Train

Is The Train the Saving Private Ryan of the 1960s? Consider the premises of both films: during World War II, a small group of battle-weary men are tasked with a near-impossible mission behind enemy lines to retrieve something that holds more propagandist than strategic value. 

In the case of The Train, that something is a nation's art, a symbol cultural heritage and pride. In Saving Private Ryan, the mission is one man, the sole survivor of a group of brothers, whose return will spare his mother more heartbreak and give the American public a positive story in the midst of the costly D-Day landings.

Obviously, there are plenty of differences. Steven Spielberg is, at his heart, a sentimentalist, who sees saving Ryan as a decent act among all the horrors of war, a good deed performed at a great cost that reminds us to be grateful for all the veterans went through. John Frankenheimer, still a relative upstart when he directed The Train, is a pessimist, a cynic who questions the human cost of saving a few paintings.

Seven Days in May

The United States and the Soviet Union have signed a peace treaty that calls for both nations to eliminate their stocks of nuclear weapons. President Jordan Lyman (Frederic March), who pushed for the treaty, sees his approval rating reach an all-time low, the deal unpopular among many Americans. His most prominent opponent is U.S. Air Force General James Mattoon Scott, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Burt Lancaster), who believes Lyman has weakened the country. 

Marine Colonel "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas) is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving directly under Scott, whom he greatly admires. Jiggs stumbles upon evidence that Scott and other generals are planning a coup d'etat, removing Lyman and installing Scott in his place as the head of a military junta. The plan is set to take place in seven days, under the cover of a training exercise.

Frame by Frame: The Big Lebowski

Cuts help keep scenes dynamic. Hold the camera in place too long, and you risk boring the audience with a static image.

However, there are occasions when a long, unbroken take makes for a compelling scene. Consider this scene from The Big Lebowski. By traditional standards of cinema, this should make for a dull sequence; our three main characters sit at a bar and talk. No cuts and no camera movement until the end.

But the Coen Brothers, who wrote and directed the film, have made their career out of breaking norms. There's a strategy at work that serves the story at this juncture.

Frame by Frame: Tremors

If Shadow of a Doubt contains a great example of a zoom that doesn't call attention to itself, Tremors contains a great example of a zoom that works because it calls attention to itself.

As I noted in my analysis of Shadow of a Doubt, "Zooms can be tricky to pull off because compared other to other techniques; they draw more attention to themselves, and that can distance the audience and take them out of the moment."

Not so in Tremors. The zoom doesn't distract; it serves a purpose.

Frame by Frame: Aliens

The chestburster scene in Alien is one of the most iconic moments in the science fiction and horror genres. It was so unexpected, so grueling, it defined the series. Any sequel would have to include its own chestburster moment, but how does one match the power of the original when the surprise is gone?

If you're James Cameron, you play up the fact audiences know it's coming. You emphasize the emotions of the characters, especially Ripley's. Instead of shocking viewers with the unexpected, you force them to watch the realization of their worst fears. The recreation of the chestburster scene in Aliens demonstrates why it's a superlative sequel.

Frame by Frame: Shadow of a Doubt

I've talked before about the power of the closeup. When the frame is so close to a character's face, we the audience can feel the character's emotions more strongly. We develop an intimate connection, an empathy.

Few directors understood film technique as well as Alfred Hitchcok, and he understood better than just about anyone else how, to borrow his phrase, "to play the audience like a piano." His films are filled with iconic closeups, but I want to examine one from Shadow of a Doubt, where he combines a closeup with another technique - the zoom - for chilling effect. 

Shadow of a Doubt stars Joseph Cotton as the Merry Widow Murderer, a sociopath who murders rich widows to steal their money. Theresa Wright plays his niece who gradually learns the horrifying truth about her beloved Uncle Charlie. 

The moment I want to talk about is a monologue by Joseph Cotton. 

Frame by Frame: They Live

The reveal, that moment when a movie shows us the truth about what's going on. In the right hands, this is the most powerful scene of the story.

Directed by John Carpenter, They Live is the story of a homeless drifter named John Nada who learns aliens are using subliminal messaging to brainwash and control humanity. The bug-eyed aliens exploit Earth as its own Third World, keeping most people in poverty while they enrich themselves and pillage the planet. Any similarities to Reaganomics and rampant consumerism are completely intentional.

Nada learns the truth when he finds a pair of sunglasses. When he puts them on, he sees the truth buried beneath the facade, and this moment, this revelation, is a wonderfully eerie and effective moment.

Let's break it down.