From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V11 #124 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Saturday, August 30 2008 Volume 11 : Number 124 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- Great review of "My Strange Nation" ["Tracy J. Wells" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:11:30 -0400 From: "Tracy J. Wells" Subject: Great review of "My Strange Nation" http://www.redwoodcitydailynews.com/article/2008-8-29-my-strange-nation 'Strange' uncommonly good Five women of Theater Q cabaret four-star talents By John Angell Grant / Theater Reviewer "My Strange Nation" is a wonderful evening of cabaret theater running in downtown Palo Alto. Don't miss this terrific four-star show. Presented by Theatre Q at Palo Alto's Dragon Theatre, "My Strange Nation" offers a pastiche of short independent scenes constructed around 18 songs by talented songwriter Susan Werner. The musical style ranges from pop, jazz and gospel to torch songs and cabaret. Composer Werner is a big talent. Both her tunes and words remind me of the musical richness and lyrical cleverness found in the songs by Cole Porter or Bob Dylan. Against surprising but moving minor key melodies, she sets up unexpected situations that tell an oblique story that keeps you guessing and discovering. It makes for a sweet evening in the theater. A strong cast of five women performs "My Strange Nation." All are good singers and actors. About half of Werner's songs are about spiritual quest. Half are about the ups and downs of personal romance. Women in love with women is a recurring theme, as they cruise the bars and clubs. "Shades of Grey" tells the story of a latest romance that turns out to be "just another shade of grey." It's a beautiful song in a torchy, minor jazz key, well-performed by Jennifer Knisbell. Later, Jenny Debevec performs amusingly as a drunk woman in love and out of luck, weaving around a nightclub in the Porter-influenced "Maybe If I Sang Cole Porter." In "Misery," a crooner in a bar tries to pick up a woman who's with someone else. Diahanna Davidson gives a terrific sleazy performance as the club hustler who repels her target. Connie Nelson sings a great story about waiting in "A Long Time Between Trains," though it's not exactly clear where she is and what's she's waiting for, which eventually becomes part of the song's magic. In "Much at All" former lovers Debevec and Halili Knox sing about how they don't miss each other. Guess what happens. Davidson carefully approaches a wallflower in "OK to Feel Good," and sings to her about wallflower psychology and how to grow beyond it. Elsewhere, "I Like that You're Pretty" is a beautiful love song well- performed by Knisbell. Knox performs fabulously in the gospel-tinged "Our Father," singing about the gift of heaven coming to earth, and asking those obsessed with religious rules, who are impeding its arrival, to please step out of the way and let it arrive. In "Probably Not," Nelson searches for a God she thinks she doesn't believe in. One recurring theme in "My Strange Nation" is that of spiritual quest by a woman who doesn't believe in God, but who is unable let that decision comfortably rest. Her discontent makes for effective story tension. She keeps returning to her inner spiritual void to figure out what that discontent might mean, searching to see if she can find a meaningful spiritual life that makes sense for her personal integrity. In this Palo Alto world premiere of "My Strange Nation," assembled by the Theater Q folks, it's left to director Dale Albright and his five performers to create the little stories that frame each of the 18 songs. Creating one stage story is challenge enough for most playwrights. Creating 18 stage stories is a huge project. Some segments fare better than others. The show was a little slow to lift off the night I attended. An opening political song, followed by a song about a woman and her car, contained less relationship traction than later songs about romantic entanglement or personal spiritual quest. In some of the earlier numbers, more elaborate or distinctive choreography might have helped. Having said that, overall this is a moving evening of theater. With its compassionate social spin, "My Strange Nation" is a healing show. If you're looking for nightlife in downtown Palo Alto, this 75-minute cabaret evening is a good alternative to Magdalena's, and only a few blocks away. Rating: Four stars E-mail John Angell Grant at jagplays@paloaltodailynews.com. HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V11 #124 ******************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- -------------------------- This has been a posting from the Susan Werner believers-digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the message