Horizons Town Talk mentalist boggles the minds of reporter, audience

review and photos by janet i. martineau

Richard Osterlind  and a spoon he has twisted

“Fascinating”..... as one pointy-eared television/movie character is fond of saying.

His “Star Trek” crew character  being of a skeptical and science-driven mind.

Likewise my close encounter with Richard Osterlind, a mentalist/magician/hypnotist who was the speaker at a recent Horizons Town Talk offering at the Horizons Conference Center in Saginaw Township.

Told him straight up, in an interview before his presentation, I did not buy into this mind reading stuff...and besides, doesn’t the television series “The Mentalist” trash the whole idea with the title character of that show just being gifted in knowing how to read and/or trick people very, very well.

Osterlind was polite and patient.

“Yes, the show implies everything he does is based on reading body language,” he said. “But mine is based on ESP (extra sensory perception). I pick up people’s thoughts.

“I use abilities we all have. I have just refined them. And everyone has it (ESP) to some degree. They just don’t use it.”

He was also apparently reading that I was thinking “ya, right buddy” and asked me to pick a number between 1 and 100, took a piece of paper, wrote on it and folded it. Then he asked what I was thinking and I said 56. He held up the paper and on it was written “you are thinking 56.”

Some hairs stood up on my neck...then I though in that moment I said the number I had looked away a second before he held up his paper. Just enough time to quickly write what I had just said?

Told him so.

He sighed...and asked me to think of the first name of a close friend. I told him I was going to watch him like a hawk, maybe not even blink my eyes, during the process. And I did.

Out of his mouth next. “You are thinking of two people.” OMG, I was. “Concentrate on just one.” I did. And then  he wrote on a piece of paper, “Susan.”

Not Sue -- she hates that.

Susan.

The hairs were really standing up on my neck now....and then he bent and twisted a spoon as I watched.

This was a mere warmup to the Horizons Town Talk show before 1,000 or so people -- during which he fiddled with playing cards and time, bent some more spoons, and picked up random thoughts among the audience members. None of us had met him before.

Ostetlind looking more relaxed

There were some telling comments. “I create my stunts when I am on the road,” he told his audience. His bio program referred to skills in magic and in creating inventions which are now a part of the arsenal of mentalists everywhere . Both imply fakery.

But he also pointed out in Saginaw  he uses no assistants roaming in the audience with microphones, to pick up on what people are saying and then relaying them back to him in some way. No mirrors --- besides 56 and Susan were not reflecting anywhere; they were only inside my mind.

With the 1,000 in the Horizons Town Talk  audience he had them write special  dates, places they had been, family members or pet names on a piece of paper, and then place them in an envelope on each table. “Mix up the categories you write down.”

He did not collect the envelopes or even go near them.

“Feb. 7, 1969 ...” he said and a hand went up. OK, lucky guess. But then he proceeded to tell the person her husband’s first name and the first names of her daughter and son.

Over and over he did this with other members of the audience, with 100 percent accuracy on names, hometown, pets. “You have these messages in your head and I pick up thoughts like a radio picks up signals.”

In the interview the 64-year-old said he has been doing this professionally for nearly 40 years -- starting for just fun when he was a child growing up in P.T. Barnum’s home town of Bridgeport, Conn.

“My dad used to take me to the (Barnum and Bailey) circus. I loved the side shows. The fortune tellers, the magicians. I was interested in the mystery of it.”

He took a deck of cards early on, he claimed,  asked some  childhood friends to pull some out, and then told them what they were holding. His parents wanted to know where he had learned that card “trick.” What trick, he asked. He just knew what they were holding, And a career began.

Now he performs worldwide, for major corporate meetings and town halls. Before Gerald and Betty Ford, where he told the president the name of a childhood dog he had 60 years ago. Before 600 Chinese in Beijing. On Fox and Friends in the U.S. and on  “Good Morning Helsinki.”

He is, however, banned in casinos if he he recognized.  But he did “drive a car blindfolded in Japan” since he could “see” where he was going.

“You know there is no more wonder and mystery in the world today,” he said in talking to me. “When I was a kid I could imagine there were some places in Africa where dinosaurs still existed. Now kids can Google it and see there are no dinosaurs in Africa.”

But apparently there are mind readers in America? Google Osterlind and it is impressive. He ranks among the best. But the articles about him and his ilk are always kind of cloudy on the uses of magic vs. real ESP.

I started doubting again.

Then I thought of the two times in my life when I woke up in the dead of night, got up and stood next to the phone in the kitchen because I knew it was doing to ring with bad news, and both times it did. Within a minute or less.

Both callers remarked  that it sounded like I was wide awake when they called.

“I use abilities we all have,” Osterlind had said. “I have just refined them. And everyone has it (ESP) to some degree. They just don’t use it.”

So is he the mystery in our world ....or its magic...or maybe a little bit of both?

"The 39 Steps" at Bay City Players filled with sight gags and spies

review and photos by janet i. martineau

Imagine a 1935 Alfred Hitchcock spy movie taken from a 1915  novel and  married to a 2005-penned Monty Python style  script and you have Patrick Barlow’s “The 39 Steps,” playing this weekend and next at the Bay City Players.

From left, Trevor Keyes, Kurt Miller, Nathan Cholger

And yes, the play directed by Leeds Bird is as crazy a caper as that sounds -- so many bits of business amid the mystery that it boggles the mind.

Also it is superbly directed and superbly acted by a cast of four with  seven Zanies backing them up -- and three members of that cast plays, oh, maybe 20-25 characters. Cops, spies, train conductors, newspaper sellers, a memory performer, a sheriff, hotel owners, aged politicians, a murder victim, a farm couple.

With varying Scot, British and German accents to boot (and some needing translation, which also is provided)

Farcical comedy is playing well this winter in mid-Michigan. Pit and Balcony Community Theatre in Saginaw had us laughing with “God of Carnage” and Saginaw Valley State University with “Moon Over Buffalo.” And now this delicious treat.

The plot concerns an unmarried Canadian man visiting England and attending a show at the famed Palladium. Quicker than quick he gets blamed for a murder following a shooting there, and the madness to track down the real killer while keeping ahead of the police ensues.

Bird has directed with a minimal set. Yet involved are cars, planes and trains, and escapes through windows, with the actors involved in not only dialogue but hilarious mime and/or movement connected to carrying them off. 

Two Zanies and a window escape

We do not want to spoil too much of that fun, but the airplane scene and one of the  window escape scenes left us in stitches. And if you know your Hitchcock films, they were even funnier.

Nathan Cholger plays the Canadian, Caitlin Berry three women he runs across, and Kurt Miller and Trevor Keyes everyone else. All are superb actors with a wonderful physicality, expressions, timing and line delivery. Truly, there are times we forget there are only four of them and think other actors have  joined them on stage.

Miller in particular is captivating -- in one place alternating two characters by just spinning around. He also has the most fun with the varying accents. But even straight man Cholger gets an outstanding sight gag early on when the murder victim has fallen across his lap in a chair with arms and he can’t lift her off so he .....well, never mind.

Earlier we mentioned the cast included seven Zanies backing up the cast. This was Bird’s addition to the show, and a brilliant one. Dressed in black, they are ....how to explain it. Well, they are costume changers who usually do their work backstage but in this show do it in view of the audience, a herd of bleating sheep, the holders of the windows involved, the set piece changers. With body English of their own.

We can’t imagine this show without them and their ever presence, especially when it comes to the costume changes -- in particular when  Miller does that busy interchange of two characters with Keyes also engaged at that point.

Another Zany moment or two involves the use of a fog machine....with a Zany delivering the fog literally into the faces of the actors. Thought I would die laughing.

Other bits of fun business include one the actors doing battle with the sound man, and troubles getting a set piece  on in time for the lines. There are, in this play, many places where is the sound person has to be spot on -- and always is.

Great costumes also in this 1935-set play.

Like we said earlier, what a delicious treat -- for movie fans, Python fans and theater farce fans. The only problem is, methinks, there is so much to take in we are sure we missed things.

SVSU's "Moon Over Buffalo" charms with its words and physicality

From left, Keith Schnabel, Amanda Moths, Cassidy Morey, Lexee Longwell and Isaac Wood

review and photographs by Janet I. Martineau

Frank Capra meets William Shakespeare.

Half the cast performing “Cyrano” and the other half “Private Lives.”

Backstage shenanigans galore and four doors leading to it.

Yep, Ken Ludwig’s Moon Over Buffalo,” which opened Wednesday at Saginaw Valley State University, sounds like a farce and is a farce -- one that also is ode to the love of theater and movies.

The more you know about theater, and to a lesser degree movies, the more charmed you will be with this production directed by Richard B. Roberts -- like one set of dialogue using the titles of Capra movies, with the music playing pre-show, and with the Jerry Dennis set design and all of its 1950s era artifacts. 

Rusty Myers

Playwright Ludwig leaves no stone unturned into mining everything into farce -- a hard-of-hearing woman, a veteran acting couple involved in affairs, a mistaken identity, confusion on which play is to be performed, their  daughter with two boyfriends. And it all goes faster and faster, and gets more and more involved, until it in one fell swoop  rights itself.

Rusty Myers and Cassidy Morey play the veteran acting couple, and there is a HUGE amount of physical activity on the part of Myers. He must be exhausted at the end of the show having been beaten by his wife with a copy of Variety, gotten drunk and devoid of most of his clothes, fallen off the stage, fallen onto the couch, wandered in and out of all the doors. 

This is his show, really...he is the driving force with it more than the rest of the cast... and he delivers 100 percent.

Another goody in the cast is Amanda Moths as the hard of hearing and elderly mother of Morey’s character. She has a tart tongue, totters around the stage, and is a hoot with  what she heard vs. what was really said because of her suffering ears. Moths, though she is but a collegian, plays elderly well.

The rest of the cast handles the slamming doors section with a spot on sense of timing as well as the  other cuckoo demands of the script very well -- in particular Morey, Lexee Longwell as the visiting daughter and Dakotah Myers as one of her two boyfriends.

Many farces are more about physical action than the words spoken. This one is different in that, since it is spoofing theater and movies, the words actually play an equal role. Thankfully all the cast members speak them with clarity and conviction, making the words almost funnier that the play’s physical action.

At one point the Rusty Myers character mutters that his company is the House of Usher Repertory Theater. So make sure you hone in on every word in the script .

Can’t say much more than that so as not to spoil the fun of the storyline and action. Suffice it to say well directed, well acted, well costumed and staged, and a great light night  of madcap fun at the theater.

“Moon Over Buffalo” plays through Sunday.

Landscapes a varied view at Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra concert

review and photos by janet i. martineau

Landscapes was the theme of Saturday night’s Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra concert at the Temple Theatre.

And, oh, what a varied picture the three works on the program provided -- chirping birds, thunderstorms, an Appalachian hoedown, countryside peacefulness.....and a constant shimmering noise throughout the orchestra that allowed each listener to create his or her own landscape.

That shimmering comment refers to the first piece on the program conducted by Brett Mitchell’s -- a minimalist one by John Adams, titled “Common Tones in Simple Times.”

Tones is the operative word here. As Mitchell said at its outset, the piece has no melody, no theme, “just listen for color...and maybe with your eyes closed.”

To describe it is impossible. To hear it was a challenge but a rewarding one. Although contemporary minimalist compositions tend to leave this listener cold, this one did not.

Angela Fuller and Brett Mitchell

Suffice it to say that virtually every instrument shimmers in sound -- that is the only word I can muster.

 There are the  ebbs and flows (pulses, modulations) of various instruments as they are the primary sound and then fade as another instrument rises over ever so slowly. There are very low sounds and high ones. A marimba here and and two pianos there.

A sameness of sound yet differences...the color Mitchell referred to. Yet, also, a small sense of rhythm to it all.

Adams defines the work as if one was seeing the surface of a continent from the window of a jet plane, and says the piece is influenced by long camera pans and  film techniques. 

Perhaps for him but this listener remained earthbound, eyes closed with images of nature in all its variances sparking so much it became overwhelming.

This piece made if difficult to settle into the rest of the program, for some reason, as the mind kept processing it (and thinking what a nightmare it must be to play, and we would LOVE to see what the score looks like).

The second piece on the program was also composed by a contemporary American -- one steeped in classical music but who is known for collaborating with country music folks.

Nothing minimalist here at all. Even a hint of two of Aaron Copland. And with true guts, a two movement piece played without pause and encompassing both classical music violin playing and country music genre fiddling. This is the Appalachian hoedown referred to in the second paragraph.

Edgar Meyer, a bass player, is the composer, and he created the piece in 1999 for the Grammy-winning American violinist Hilary Hahn. Playing it in Saginaw was Angela Fuller, principal second violin with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

It too was a work of much color -- but also the more traditional melodies and themes. At  the outset, Fuller’s violin was whisper quiet and simple; tranquil. But then came that second fiddling movement, a retreat, some bassoon intervention, and then more high energy from the soloist.

People laugh at me when I say my two favorite kinds of music are classical and country (or country and classical, depending on the mood of the day). Thank you Edgar Meyer for proving they can share a piece together and make it work.

Concluding the evening was Beethoven’s No. 6 (Pastoral), a true oldie and goodie, which Mitchell conducted without a score before him.

Its five movements are titled “Awakening of Cheerful Feelings on Arriving in the Country,” “Scene by the Brook,” “Merry Gathering of the Country Folk,” “Thunderstorm” and “...Thankful Feelings After the Storm.” It totality it is peaceful and relaxing, even with the storm.

Premiered by the master in 1806, it also proves mankind across the decades and  miles across the ocean are linked by its love of simple things as the piece celebrates moods evoked by the weather and nature.

It is the “Brook” movement with the chirping birds -- nightingale on flute, quail on oboe and cuckoo on clarinet. Great stuff perfectly played, as was the entire piece under Mitchell’s baton.

Pit and Balcony's "God of Carnage" snortingly funny

From left, Erica Tatum, Bill Federspiel, Erinn Holm and Dave Ryan (on his cell phone) in "God of Carnage"

review and photos by janet i. martineau

Beat line in  the show at Pit and Balcony’s “God of Carnage” production: “Puking seems to have perked you up.”

Simply written and read here it does not seem all that funny, right? But coming out of the mouth of actor Bill Federspiel with all the sarcasm his voice can muster, and following what has just transpired on the stage, it is snorting funny. So funny you can easily slip into a giggling fit.

Which is to say, this comedy of bad manners -- translated into English by Christopher Hampton from the French original by Yasmina Reza -- is hilarious and hits close to the bone on behavior we’ve all been guilty of displaying,

The storyline: The son of Annette and Alan (Erinn Holm and Dave Ryan) has, in a school fight, knocked out the two front teeth of the son of Veronica and Michael (Erica Tatum and Federspiel).

Erinn Holm in a fit of barfing

Both couples are well to do, and are meeting at the tony home of Veronica and Michael, at their invitation, to try and work things out in a civil discourse. It all starts out well, but rapidly decays into a battle of wills which grows funnier and funnier and even more physical.

And it’s not just the one couple against the other either. The spouses often turn on each other. Nor it is just about the school fight and missing teeth -- in fact, it rarely is.

Brilliantly written, an innocent comment or physical action early on in the play will crop up later in another guise. Everything, even a word, is a prop. Among them: tulips, a cell phone and a land line, rum, a hamster, a picture frame, a blow dryer, names of endearment the two couples have for each other, a queasy stomach, superhero heroes, a purse.

The cell phone and land line are particularly funny. Ryan’s character is an attorney who is constantly answering his cellphone for long-winded business calls -- increasingly annoying the other three and even the audience (a wonderful lesson the play delivers are the rude use  of cell phones).

As for the land line -- second funniest dialog of the show. The mother of Federspiel’s character calls frequently on it over medical problems. At one point in the show, when the two couples are going at it full tilt, it rings, Federspiel goes over to it, grabs the receiver in anger and barks into it, “Who the fuck is this! (pause) Oh, hello mother.”

While the script is a gold mine of lines and situations, it needs a cast who can deliver it with the body English and voice inflections required. Fine line between character and caricature. And it needs a director to keep it interesting since it is a one-set, conversational piece that runs 90 minutes without an intermission.

All four actors are delightful -- delivering characters we can love and hate at the same time, flawed ones but human too. They work as one, making it an ensemble piece, and their comedic (or anger) timing is spot on.

And director Robin Devereaux-Nelson keeps them moving -- often with false moves to leave by the visiting couple or another trip to the bar.

Another plus of the show is its gorgeous set designed by Suzy Reid and lavishly furnished. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but the couple whose son lost his teeth (supposedly the good couple),sit in red chairs while that bad couple with the loutish son occupy a black sofa.

 Whatever the case, fun fun fun show. And listen closely...Ryan will explain its title.

Saginaw Choral Society's Broadway Showcase tickles the funnybone

review and photos by janet i. martineau

Feathers flew on Saturday during the Saginaw Choral Society’s annual Members’ Showcase....and artistic director/conductor Glen Thomas Rideout made good use of it!

When last year the choral society announced it was no longer going to do this program after nearly a decade, many of us were heartbroken. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed and it returned this year with a program titled “The Bright Lights of Broadway.”

Suellen Estes in "To Keep My Love Alive"

Perfect theme .. who does not love Broadway show tunes. And into that mix of the usual heart-tuggers like “On My Own” from “Les Miserables,” “Hello Young Lovers” from “The King and I” and “Make Them Hear You” from “Ragtime” -- all of them beautifully performed by, in order, Kathleen Scott. Mary Walk and Ah Templo! -- the members got silly with their selections.

Wonderfully silly.

Not all Broadway show tunes are serious.....they spew venom, arrogance and jealousy too, as well as an ode sung by a woman to her many, many husbands. So it was that laughter filled the sanctuary of First United Methodist Church on Saturday (and hopefully Sunday with the second performance).

Alto Suellen Estes was a woman dressed in red (boa included) and rings galore, oozing of high class wealth and with hilarious vocal and facial inflections, to sing of an odd collection of husbands who met their early.demise in “To Keep My Love Alive” from”A Connecticut Yankee.”

A few of her boa’s feathers fell to the floor in the process -- which was early on in the program. 

Tenor Jim Smerdon, dressed to the hilt as the arrogant “Very Model of a Modern Major-General” from “The Pirates of Penzance.” entered from the back of the sanctuary, harassed partons along the way and then barked at the chorus. He always showcases such wonderful acting skills.

Sopranos Kathy Bocade and Cole uglied up as much as they could to sing “Stepsisters’ Lament” from “Cinderella,” with lots of jealous inflections, as the beautiful prince and Cinderella danced before them.

And alto Betty Mayor and baritone Matt Zielke got in each others face in “What Is This Feeling” from “Wicked.” Starts out sounding like they love each other then gets more and more full of bitter dislike.

Robert Hart, who always delivers a flute solo at these affairs, served up a surprise with incidental music from “Death of a Salesman.” Who knew? And he served it up with dialogue from the drama.

Betty Mayer, Matt Zielke in  "What Is This Feeling"

Later he and his daughter, Catherine Hart, teamed up on the title tune from “Beauty and the Beast.” This also has become a hallmark of these annual showcases -- children joining their parents.

Another highlight was soprano Nancy Stevenson dressing up like Carol Burnett’s charwoman to sing “Broadway Baby” from “‘Follies.” Gosh she has a beautiful voice.

We cannot list the entire performance crew -- there were 21 numbers in all. And sorry, more serious singers, that  you are being slighted. Suffice it to say it was a totally satisfying program.

Besides, we have to leave room for the dessert reception/kitchen crew -- from which we caught hell Saturday since apparently last year we did not mention them. 

Part of the Members’ Showcase tradition is a HUGE dessert buffet for patrons. Enough good stuff prepared or brought by choral society and church members that you could feed all of China. Bravo to marshaling it crew.

Oh, and that opening graph reference to Glen Thomas and the fact Estes lost some of her boa feathers. Well, at some point he must have picked up one of them somehow -- or plucked one from her -- because he used it in his closing comments to issue an invitation to the next choral society concert in its season of a “Colors” theme.

(More photos from the concert are on the Arts Saginaw Facebook page.)

Bay City Players "And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little" offers fine performances

Denyse Clayton,  left, and Cathie Stewart

review and photos by janet i. martineau

Remember that old Bette Davis line “hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride”?

Well, it certainly applies to the play “And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little,” which opened Friday at the Bay City Players.

We have no idea what playwright Paul Zindel was trying to say in this 1967-penned dark comedy, let alone make sense of its ending.

But what an evening spent with three dysfunctional sisters who finally get on each others last nerve and let it all hang out -- along with an intrusion by a neighbor couple with issues of their own..

Oooh the anger, the bitterness, the jealousies, the grudges, the long-simmering thoughts, the habits that annoy...they all bubble to the surface when snooty and estranged Ceil (played by Jessica Booth of Saginaw) returns to the family home in hopes of convincing Catherine (Debbie Lake of Saginaw) to commit their deranged and super vegetarian sister  Anna (Cathie Stewart of Midland).

All three are educators -- teacher, assistant principal, superintendent -- as is the wife (a guidance counselor) of the neighbor couple. So much of the humor in the script comes from their careers (in particular from Catherine, a stickler for proper usage of words).

Much fun fodder is provided by Anna’s zealous vegetarian bent and abhorrence of anything made from animal skins. Catherine serves up the most outrageous of meals, with full commentary,  all the while snacking from a box of chocolates which is not what it advertises. The shared humor of what the audience knows but not all the other characters know is very much a part of the fun.

Thee also are a couple of reallllly sick stories told within the script (and yes, we were laughing at them ...it’s that kind of play).

And then there is this gun ....

While we wish director Susan Meade had created a show with a little more energy and movement overall, there is no denying her cast rises to its part in the process.

Stewart in particular delivers a wonderful performance as a woman on the edge, maybe even in the middle of, a nervous breakdown. Her face is an ever-changing array of twisted expressions. In a flash she goes from relatively calm to a screaming rage. She is unkempt  and always in pajamas. Wonderful performance and a stretch for Stewart in her acting career, the demands of which she reaches.

From left, Debbie Lake, Cathie Stewart and Jessica Booth

Lake is the title character. 

Driven to distraction by living with her mad sister, both of them damaged goods thanks to their mom who has recently died, and to Catherine’s own deep unhappiness due to Ceil, she hits the drink pretty hard throughout the show.  -- but oddly never really acts tipsy. 

What Lake does act, however, is the inner rage that boils like a tea pot as the day progresses and the sarcasm in her voice is delightful. She also can get pretty red hot angry.

Booth has the straight man role, in a sense. She is the uptight and upscale sister who has been gone from Catherine’s and Anna’s life and who, by her reappearance, opens the long-festering wounds and is usually the brunt of the verbal barrage. But from start to finish Booth maintains that aloofness, making her the character we love to hate.

Things kick into high gear when Fleur and Bob Stein (Denyse Clayton Midland and Tom Osborne of Auburn) arrive from the neighboring apartment -- all dressed up and with tons of skeletons rattling in their closet which are set loose.

Clayton is spot on as always, playing a woman with a large ego that barely hides her insecurity, And Osborne, gone too long from the local theater scene, is a top notch  as a jerk of a businessman, a crude and bullying human being with the sharpest tongue of all. But worry not, the sisters will prevail.

All of the cast members also deliver top-notch diction and projection -- a growing rarity. And they also sport body language and voice inflections that further sell their characters.

The set is gorgeous, and food real -- even a drink blended on stage.

So make of it what you will, its script and message. Maybe is just meant as a dark comedy. Perhaps instead it is saying we all are a little bit mad, have skeletons hiding in our closet, let the past too much influence the present, are as dysfunctional as the next person -- and that a little bit of humor can help us with all that. Or maybe a good stiff drink.

Dunno. Weird show but fun.