Columbia City Paper

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Art + Cayce’s newest exhibition features ceramic and mixed media sculptures and assemblages. 

When one enters the gallery, Andrew Norton Weber’s sculptures immediately demand attention. The subject matter of the mixed media assemblages can be hard to discern. Yet, the abstracts include some of the most intriguing objects one could conceive to use for a sculpture. Wall assemblages feature anything from plastic toys, flowers and fruits to random objects made of melted wire. The final result is less a sculpture and more a visual journey. 

Robin Jones grew up in Columbia and went to USC before moving to Boston to study art history at Harvard.  Finally the artist moved back to Columbia in 2002 and has been working and exhibiting here since. The Harvard-educated sculptor works with a variety of media including stone, ceramics and bronze. 

Jones’ black and white ceramics create his own wonderland with fantastic chess pieces and futuristic igloos.  Jones is fascinated by geometric shapes and the possibility to utilize not only the medium and also the space around it.

“Most of the ceramics in this show were conceived as models for much larger structures which one could walk through,” Jones said. 

Viewing his chessboard ceramic, one can only imagine walking among the huge chess pieces on a shiny chessboard like walking around marble columns.  Jones therefore not only engages the viewers mentally and aesthetically but also physically. Some of the artist’s latest projects are designed in a way that allows viewers to move the pieces and rearrange them, making it an interactive artwork.

While Jones creates futuristic fantasies, he remains loyal to his signature dynamics: the contrasts between straight lines and curves inspired by nature. 

“Artistic creation is very much part of nature: for what are we if not nature?” he said. 

ART + Cayce provides art lovers in the Columbia area with a serious of outstanding exhibitions. This exhibit can be viewed until October 8 at Cayce Art Gallery on State Street. The next show will feature Suzy Scarborough’s paintings starting October 8. 

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Erectile dysfunction ads commonly warn prospective patrons that one should consult a doctor if the popping of that little purple pill results in an erection lasting more than four hours.  Odds are, Workshop Theatre’s current comedic masterpiece, “The Producers,” won’t send patrons to the urologist with a case of priapism.  But it is likely to leave them laughing so hard by intermission that they’ll be forced to watch the second act with their hands pressed onto their bruised midsections in an effort to prevent further belly laughing.

Palmetto Health be warned:  Expect more than one case of Involuntary Emotional Expression Disorder in the coming weeks!  Send all medical bills to Jewish comic genius Mel Brooks and director/choreographer extraordinaire Cindy Flach (“Fiddler on the Roof,” Workshop Theatre; “The Will Roger Follies,” Workshop Theatre).

Perhaps it isn’t standard behavior for a reviewer to guffaw and clap spasmodically.  So be it.  But as my critical faculties are severely stretched in an effort to find any flaws with this production, I might as well lambast the schmuck who sat in front of me and reacted with great offense every time I cheered as if I had just witnessed a World Series grand slam.

If you aren’t aware of the storyline of “The Producers,” you’ve probably just emerged from several decades of baking raisin bread in a Trappist monastery.  The 1968 movie version (with limited musical numbers) starred Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder as Max Bialystock and Leopold Bloom, respectively, in one of the zaniest and most outrageously clever films ever conceived.

Bialystock is a washed-up Broadway walrus with a comb-over coiffure, who schtupps wealthy septuagenarians in order to finance his schlocky shows.  Max’s hired public accountant and introvert galore, Leo, invents a scheme to make a theatrical killing by producing the worst story ever penned and absconding with the surfeit of preproduction revenue.  Enter a Nazi devotee with a penchant for playwriting, a sultry Swedish receptionist, and a gay director and personal assistant who seem to have been conceived following a Noel Coward LSD cocktail, and you have the makings of the most politically-incorrect, non-musical musical comedy in history.

In 2001, “The Producers” was adapted into a Tony Award-winning franchise starring Nathan Lane as the ne’er-do-good producer, Max, and Matthew Broderick as the security blanket-toting, numbers-totaler, Leo.  (Other well-regarded actors who have tackled these roles include Jason Alexander, Tony Danza, and even “Seinfeld” creator Larry David in a tongue-in-cheek, Brooks-sponsored spoof on the HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”)

The success of “The Producers” began a Broadway trend to musically convert great comedies from the 1960s and 1970s, including “Spamalot” (from “Monty Python and The Holy Grail”), “The New Mel Brooks’ Musical Young Frankenstein” (from Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein”), and “Sesame Street” rip-off “Avenue Q.”  Unlike Hollywood’s irrepressible urge with middling results to create movies from television shows, Broadway’s bet on the silver screen has paid off in spades.  And Workshop’s production of “The Producers” likely begins a welcome trend of such musicals gradually making their way to Columbia stages.

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Children’s Theatre New Space Goes to the Dogs

Harken back to a time when workloads weren’t so demanding. Long before an afternoon break for coffee or cigarettes satisfied our cravings (not to mention happy hour!), we were all once kindergarteners in need of graham cracker and milk snacks.  While supervisors now torture us with meeting minutes and memoranda, there was once a teacher or parent who introduced us to books and showed us that reading could be both educational and entertaining.

The Columbia Children’s Theatre is set to bring to life the pages of one of those popular stories, “Go, Dog. Go!”  In 1961, P.D. Eastman created a cast of canine characters decorated in an array of colors and placed in some very strange, yet entertaining situations—all with a modicum of 74 words!  For the next several weekends, theatergoers young and young at heart can catch the word-for-word adaptation of this charming children’s book as performed by Gina Calvert, Jack Drummond, Joy Felder, Toni Moore, Chris Riddle, Lee O. Smith and Roz Stanley, and newcomer Robin Saviolla.  These dedicated performers have the delightful task, and challenge, of providing patrons with a glimpse of puppy personality as each page of the book is turned on stage.

To see the effect “Go, Dog. Go!” has on nascent readers, I turned to a recent kindergarten graduate—my niece, Amanda.  She turned each page with great anticipation and giggled her way through this tale of raucous and rambunctious hounds.  I was surprised to find several narrative nuances ensconced in the illustrations, which will certainly tickle audiences as they are portrayed on stage.  And my niece had no problems picking up the multiple plots and subplots and especially Eastman’s canine creativity, which is nothing less than a celebration of reading itself.

With “Go, Dog. Go!”, the Columbia Children’s Theatre sets to do precisely what authors like Dr. Seuss and P.D Eastman did with their classic Beginner Books:  show readers the informative, fun simplicity of storytelling.  Columbia Children’s Theatre artistic director, Jerry Stevenson, has transformed the author’s original story and artwork into an engaging presentation for child and adult alike—or uncle and niece, in my case.  

Go, Dog. Go! runs September 18-27 at the Columbia Children’s Theatre’s new performance space above the food court in Midtown at Forest Acres (formerly Richland Fashion Mall), which is located at 3400 Forest Drive in Columbia.  Show times are Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.  Tickets are $6 and are available at www.etix.com or at the door.  To learn more about Columbia Children’s Theatre, visit www.columbiachildrenstheater.com or call 691.4548. 

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