-----Original Message-----
From: Frederick Mead
Sent: May 10, 2008 3:35 PM
To:
Cc: nedcat@earthlink.net
Subject: REVIEW: Butch is Out at Voodoo Lounge!
Lewis Routh wrote:
Professor's of playwrighting will tell you that - in a good play ? the character must change. Frederick Mead's character, Butch, in David Schein's Out Comes Butch, changes six times right before our eyes. In the talented hands of Frederick Mead, with direction by Michael Martin and costumes by Veronica Russell, Out Comes Butch becomes a true art.
Frederick's "Butches" move spontaneously and with sure-footedness through the tiny space at Voodoo Lounge [718 North Rampart, corner of Rampart and Orleans] creating a much larger world with locations that require an audience to use their imaginations. An audience can always imagine a more vivid habitat than you can ever build on stage. Frederick's menagerie of characters construct a world which is completely recognizable. His various Butches are people we have known, and all are stamped with the distinct frailty of humanity.
The play has many laugh-out-loud moments, and it was wise of Michael Martin to suggest a bathroom break prior to the beginning. That Michael also locked us in - though a bit unnerving - set our laughter in motion right from the start.
When Frederick's first Butch burst in, we were startled. This swaggering, chauvinist-pig boasts of his life as the dominant male of humanity. He is loud, forceful, an imperious egotist, yet underneath this gruff exterior is a vulnerability that could easily have been omitted by a less talented actor. It is the subtle vulnerability that I admired most and the delicate way Frederick allowed it to be seen. As layer upon layer of this vulnerability is peeled-away - enhanced by Veronica Russell's layered costumes - the myriad Butches are exposed.
Out Comes Butch is a delightful journey -- for actor and audience -- filled with laughter, pathos, human frailty and a sense that this is an exceptionally promising start for a new theatre space.
Lewis Routh
504.312.2682