Director Jennifer Rockwood can’t wait to share the joy she feels toward her chosen art form. For nearly three decades she has taught theater at the University of Toledo, guiding generations of young actors. She’s directed productions at the university and for community theater, done some films, written her own plays, and more. Locally, there are not many people involved with live theater who have been more prolific and influential than her.

Few who have kept their plate as full as Rockwood would seek even more challenges. But she is not one of the few.

“So I got together with a group about a year ago this time. We put together a sort of collective called Catalyst Theater,” Rockwood said in an interview with Toledo Free Press Star. “And we’ve been doing various shows and using people that work in all the different community theaters. We’re not exclusive — we’re inclusive.”

The latest from Catalyst — and director Rockwood — is a production of the Yasmina Reza play “God of Carnage,” premiering April 18 in the Attic Theater at the Toledo School for the Arts.

“I decided to do this show and I’m somewhat involved with the Toledo School for the Arts. So I thought it would be fun to do it as a fundraiser. And since not a lot of people know they have a theater there, a small theater, I’m doing it as a fundraiser for the Toledo School for the Arts in their Attic Theater space, which is a more intimate, smaller theater space. It only seats 200. It should be fun,” she said.

Clockwise, from left, John Meadows, Jennifer Rockwood, Brad Smith, Kate Abu-Absi and Jennifer Nagy Lake.

“God of Carnage” has been wildly popular since it debuted in 2006. “Two sets of parents come together to discuss some violence that’s happened between their children on the playground, very civilized. And, of course, it ends up not being so civilized. And it’s very funny,” Rockwood said. “It’s intellectual, and it’s funny.”

After a stellar run in its native France, English translations of “God of Carnage” have proven to be equally well-received in the U.K. and U.S., with actors such as Ralph Fiennes, Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden and James Gandolfini filling the roles. There has even been a big screen adaptation (“Carnage”) directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz.

“I’ve tried to get the royalties for this play for a couple years, and it was very tough because they were very careful about where, regionally, they wanted it to happen, so it didn’t happen all the time in the same places,” Rockwood said.

What helps make the play so effective, she added, is that audience members can identify with its events — even if they cringe while they do so. “When people start to become their children — or want their children to become them — then they get obnoxious. And that’s what so funny, is that you can kind of see yourself.

Helping to establish a unique atmosphere for the show is its performance space. An intimate setting like the Attic Theater allows for the audience to feel more immediately invested in the play’s events, Rockwood said.

“I personally like being up close with actors — I like being able to see your eyes, I like being able to see when they blink. It’s different than being in Stratford at the Shakespeare Festival, at the Globe Theater,” she said. “I think that when you’re up close and personal, it’s much more visceral. You can sort of hear and see the actors breathing up close. And ultimately, it allows you to suspend your disbelief more easily.”

It’s been a very fast-paced process for Rockwood and her cast as they bring “God of Carnage” together. Fortunately, all the members of her cast — John Meadows, Jennifer Nagy Lake, Kate Abu-Absi and Brad Smith, head of the Board of Directors for the Toledo Rep — have tons of experience in Toledo theater.

“We’re working in a very short rehearsal period, but I like to work like that. We always joke about how I like to work fast and dirty, or quick and dirty. I’ve worked with two of the actresses a lot. And one of the actors, John Meadows — and Kate and Jennifer — were students at UT.

“I’ve known them for a long time and I’ve worked with them in lots of different shows, so they kind of know my directing style.”

And as opening night closes in for Rockwood and her cast, the director is once again feeling that joy of anticipation. The time to share this great show — and earn money for a good program — is close at hand.

“They are gelling,” Rockwood said of her cast. “They are fun. The one thing that you know — when the actors are having fun in rehearsal, when you’re having fun and you’re enjoying each other and you’re almost breaking each other up — you know you can’t wait to get to an audience. And you hope they’re having as much fun as you are onstage.”

Performances of “God of Carnage” will take place at 7:30 p.m. April 18-20 and at 2:30 p.m. April 21 at the Toledo School for the Arts Attic Theater. Tickets will be $15. For more information, call (419) 246-8732, ext. 217.

Tags: Brad Smith, God of Carnage, Jennifer Nagy Lake, Jennifer Rockwood, John Meadows, Kate Abu-Absi, Toledo School for the Arts

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 9th, 2013 at 10:08 am and is filed under Star, Theater.
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Jennifer Rockwood is a force of nature. The director and actress, who serves as assistant dean for the University of Toledo’s College of Innovative Learning and director of the First Year Experience Program, possesses a personality designed to mobilize other people into action.  As a 20-plus-year veteran of theater on and off campus, she has guided hundreds of people through the always compelling and often introspective journey that leads actors to the stage.

I have known Rockwood since the early 1990s, when I was a student journalist and she was directing plays at UT. She is as much a part of my definition of “Toledo” as a Mud Hens game, the High Level Bridge and a signed hot dog bun at Tony Packo’s. Her husband, John, is one of the naturally coolest men on the planet, a musician with Voodoo Libido who also takes insightful and often breathtaking photos of other musicians.

In July, when Rockwood asked if I would take part in a staged reading of the marriage equality play “8,” I jumped at the chance to work with her and be part of an important social and political statement.

“8,” written by Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, appealed to me because it is very much a work of journalism. Black took the court transcripts of Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown), a federal district court case filed to overturn California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay and lesbian couples’ right to marry in that state. By presenting actual transcripts of testimony (from a trial that had been closed to television broadcast), Black was revealing the testimony and facts behind the arguments.

I have long maintained that gay marriage in the United States is as inevitable as interracial marriage and other once-contested civil rights. There is no cogent, empirical argument that allowing gay people to marry has any detrimental effect on heterosexual marriage, that stalwart institution that barely 50 percent of Americans can successfully navigate. You don’t have to like it, but understand that your distaste is irrelevant to the legal and social standards that should guarantee this right for all Americans.

The cast of “8” met for one table reading and two stage run-throughs before the Oct. 7 performance. My role, marriage equality advocate Evan Wolfson, was a brief but loud moment of conflict on a talking heads news show, arguing with marriage equality opponent Maggie Gallagher, played by Merlaine Angwall. The brief appearance called for us to step on each other’s lines in protest and escalate our rhetoric to a flash of righteous anger.

“Loud and indignant? I can do that,” I told Rockwood.

It was a tremendous learning experience, watching the actors and nonactors gel and slip into character. I was particularly struck by the efforts of Ben Pryor as Proposition 8 proponents’ attorney Charles J. Cooper and John Meadows as proponents’ witness David Blankenhorn. Both men took difficult strings of often stuttering, insupportable dialogue and brought them to life with wit and empathy.

“8” also features real commercials that were run to convince California voters to overturn gay marriage rights. The commercials are stunning examples of lying propaganda, focusing on how marriage equality would supposedly destroy families, children and education as we know them.

As plaintiffs’ attorney Theodore B. Olson (played by John Adams) argued, “The overwhelming evidence proves that allowing persons to marry someone of the same-sex will not, in the slightest, deter heterosexuals from marrying or from having babies.”

Some of the most striking moments in “8” focus on the frustration gay couples feel in not being able to participate in marriage and how that exclusion keeps them from expressing the basics of their relationships and humanity.

As spoken by plaintiffs Jeff Zarrillo (Rob Salem) and Paul Katami (Larry Dean Harris), “A civil union? A domestic partnership would relegate me to a level of second-class citizenship, maybe even third-class citizenship. It doesn’t give due respect to the relationship that we have had for almost nine years. Only a marriage could do that. … ‘Husband’ is definitive. It’s something that everyone understands. There is no subtlety to it. It is absolute, and comes with an understanding that your relationship is not temporal, it’s not new, it’s not something that could fade easily.”

Illuminating testimony about gay marriage was provided by Gary Segura (played by Carter Wilson): “For starters, and I would include in this undocumented aliens who are a distant second, there is no group who has been targeted by ballot initiatives more than gays and lesbians. The number of ballot initiative contests since the late 1970s is probably at or above 200. Gays and lesbians lose 70 percent of the contests and 100 percent of the contests over same-sex marriage and adoption.”

In his closing argument, Olson said, “The Supreme Court has said that marriage is the most important relation in life. It is the foundation of society. It is essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness. It’s a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights and older than our political parties. A right of intimacy to the degree of being sacred.”

Denying anyone that right is un-American. And as Blankenhorn testifies (to the chagrin of Proposition 8 believers), “we would be more — emphasize more — American on the day we permitted same-sex marriage than we were on the day before.”

More than 500 people attended Rockwood’s one-time only reading of “8.” My guess is the vast majority of them already support marriage equality. It is up to them, and forces of nature like Rockwood, to keep educating and working to share the message that “8” dramatizes so effectively.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: 8, Ben Pryor, Carter Wilson, Charles J. Cooper, David Blankenhorn, Dustin Lance Black, Evan Wolfson, Gary Segura, gay marriage, Jeff Zarrillo, Jennifer Rockwood, John Adams, John Meadows, John Rockwood, Larry Dean Harris, Lighting The Fuse, Maggie Gallagher, marriage equality, Merlaine Angwall, Michael S. Miller, Paul Katami, Rob Salem, Theodore B. Olson

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2012 at 12:00 am and is filed under Lighting The Fuse, Opinion.
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