DAILY CAMPUS By Lauren Smart December 2, 2010

Duo design dreamlike drama

Collaboration must be in the air in Meadows because everyone seems to be catching onto the idea that two skills are better than one.

Theater student Ezra Bookman caught the bug to collaborate with MFA visual art student Bernie Diaz for his undertaking of "Grenadine" by Neil Wechsler.
"There's a lot of potential for collaboration in Meadows," Bookman said. " There's a power in combining art forms; it's a challenge for the creators that hopefully translates to an interesting show."

Bookman found "Grenadine" when perusing bookstores in New York City.

Although relatively new, Wechsler's play was awarded the 2008 Yale Drama Series Award by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Edward Albee.

The play is a story of friendship, love and a journey.

Similar in plot to "Oh Brother Where art Thou?" the play is about four friends on a journey from prison to reunite with the lives they once led.

The four friends are played by Dylan Stewart, Micah Figueroa, Tyler Crim and Piper Werle.

The other four theater students in the show play a total of 24 characters whom the friends encounter on this journey.

These parts are performed by Alia Tavakouan, Isaac McGinley, Aneesha Kudtarkar and Nick Cains.

"Grenadine captures the change that people undergo when they are faced with problems that they need to conquer," Bookman said.
Bookman has pulled together a show that promises to be both challenging and aesthetically pleasing, thanks to Diaz' hand drawn designs for the projected backdrops.

Bookman has crafted the play into something all his own, from the white backdrop for Diaz's backgrounds to the mixture of puppetry, shadow puppetry, physical presence and shadows.

The play's surrealism fits well into the setting that Bookman has envisioned, and the only way to fully visualize it is to come see it.

"I hope the show challenges people's preconceived notions of what theater is and should be," Bookman said.

Grenadine will be produced in Meadows B150, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 8 p.m.

BUFFALO NEWS By Colin Dabkowski September 15, 2009

Award-winning 'Grenadine' deserves its hype

Never before has an unproduced play by an unknown playwright stirred so much interest and excitement on Buffalo’s theater scene.

Ever since heavyweight playwright Edward Albee selected Neil Wechsler’s “Grenadine” as the winner of the highly competitive 2008 Yale Drama Award, both the piece and the playwright have been the chatter of theatrical circles both locally and in New York. And on Saturday, after eight years of work on the play and a full year of mounting anticipation, Wechsler’s labor of love finally saw the light of day.

GRENADINE
Three and a half stars (Out of four) Comedy presented by Road Less Traveled Productions, Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre, 639 Main St. For information, call 629-3069 or visit www.roadlesstraveledproductions.org.

In a well-oiled production in the Road Less Traveled Theatre, Wechsler’s abstract, strangely comical and charming one-act play received a treatment largely worthy of its wit and originality.

As the lights go up, we meet a motley quartet of vagrants. There’s Grove (David Oliver), a perplexed violinist with no perception of time; Sconce (Jay Pichardo), an eternally optimistic rationalist given to grandiose personal stories about historical characters he’s never met; Pyx (Luke Wager), who harbors the Whitman-esque notion that he is one with the universe; and finally the crestfallen Prismatic (Gerry Maher), who leads the crew on their sordid quest to reach his recalcitrant lover, Grenadine.

Wechsler’s writing, like his characters, is willfully enigmatic and infused with a kind of playfully erudite, post-adolescent humor, which is nearly always well timed and placed. That’s especially true in the case of Pyx, who proclaims at various points that he “is” such concepts as ambiguity, contradiction and music. On the point of Pyx, he seemed to me a great deal funnier in the script than onstage, which could be attributable to the bombast of Wager’s performance.

But within that wise and wry humor, Wechsler has buried great pieces of insight. When Prismatic criticizes Sconce for rhapsodizing about his fictional travels with Sir Galahad, one of the many strange characters the group meets along the way corrects him.

“Too often we distrust our imaginations,” the man says. “More of us should think we traveled with Galahad.” And right he is.

If Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” was, as Brooks Atkinson wrote in 1956, “an acrid cartoon of the story of mankind,” Wechsler’s debut is a similarly sparse cartoon of similar scope but far more hopeful ambitions. Where Beckett hacked away at the inane to reveal near-terminal hopelessness, Wechsler instead uncovers a sort of buried joy.

Director Scott Behrend has given Wechsler’s play the look and feel of an early “Star Trek” episode. The colors in Ron Schwartz’s fine set are heightened to the point of surrealism, as are the mannerisms and dialogue of Wechsler’s four main characters. They are lost in unfamiliar territory, and their playful antagonism seems to be the main thing that sustains them (and their audience) through their wanderings.

Wechsler leaves the story, such as it is, open to interpretation. Constant references to Greek mythology — as well as Irish and English folklore — can’t help but put one in mind of Odysseus. Though Wechsler’s characters are skilled in few of the ways of contending, they seem to represent different sides of the same personality — our hero’s brain split into its rational, poetic and impulsive facets.

No doubt each audience member comes away scratching his head a bit, perhaps formulating a unique take on the vague meanings of the play’s great quest. That ambiguity, and the enticing challenge it poses for theatergoers, is but one of the many charms of this fine new play.

WNYMEDIA.NET By Chris Van Patten September 7, 2009

Grenadine (Curtain Up Preview #1)

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the prolonged absence. I’ve been getting resettled here in Buffalo and had to hold off on some blogging as a result. I’m back though, and Curtain Up!, the biggest event in the WNY theatre season, is on the horizon. I thought I’d post a series previewing the Curtain Up! shows, now through this Friday.

First up is Grenadine, a world premiere play at Road Less Traveled Productions.

Although it has never been formally produced, Grenadine is already quite accomplished. It won the 2008 Yale Drama Award, hand selected by Edward Albee for the honor. Albee will be in attendance for the production, and will also visit RLTP later this year, when they present his play “The Goat; Or Who Is Sylvia?”.

Grenadine tells the tale of a man in search for love. Separate press notes have described it as follows:

Grenadine follows a man’s quest for love in the company of his three devoted friends. The bonds of friendship are challenged – and ultimately reaffirmed – by the quartet’s journey through an unfamiliar landscape.

and

Four friends embark on a fantastical journey to win the heart of the fabled Grenadine… the bonds of friendship are challenged and ultimately reaffirmed by the quartet’s journey through an unfamiliar landscape.

Fairly similar; you get the idea.

It’s really exciting on many levels to see RLTP continue to premiere such exciting new works, with big names attached. Anthony Chase noted in this week’s Artvoice that RLTP is clearly “continuing its ambitious bid for a national profile” and if they continue to land award-winning plays like this, they’ll get on the national stage in no time.

Scott Behrend, RLTP co-founder and artistic director, will direct.

Grenadine stars Gerry Maher, with David Oliver, Jay Pichardo, Luke Wager, Peter Jaskowiak, Bonnie Jean Taylor, Lisa Vitrano, & Chris Corporandy also in the cast.

The show opens Friday (September 11th, as do all Curtain Up! shows) and runs through October 11th. Tickets are available online at RLTP’s website.

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Above Scrolling Images:
All photos by Katie Gilliland (Courtesy of Road Less Traveled Productions)