Theatre Kapow and their new season
Marco Notarangelo is the Vectorborne Disease Surveillance Coordinator at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in New Hampshire. He spoke to the Hippo about Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus (EEEV), what it is and what people in the Granite State can do to stay safe. Visit dhhs.nh.gov for more information.
Theatre Kapow will be starting its 17th season with Life Sucks, a play described as a “brash and revelatory reworking of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.” The show will run Friday, Sept. 20, and Saturday, Sept. 21, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 22, at 2 p.m. at the Bank of NH Stage (16 S. Main St., Concord, ccanh.com). The Hippo spoke with Director Matthew Cahoon and Managing Director Carey Cahoon about the upcoming performance and season. Visit tkapow.com.
How have the last 17 years been for Theatre Kapow?
Carey Cahoon: It both seems really fast and kind of unbelievable. I would say that everything in life feels like it’s broken down into the before-Covid years and the with-Covid years. We’ve been going back because we’re redoing our website and looking at photos and reminding ourselves of what shows we did in those early seasons and it’s really been a lot of fun and reminds me of how far we’ve come. Also, it’s a good reminder of why we started doing what we do and what we really love, and I think we stayed true to that.
Can you expand on this year’s season theme of ‘Conversation’ and what it means?
Matthew Cahoon: We like to do shows, we have done a few over the course of 17 years, that have an element of meta-theatricality where there is no fourth wall between the audience and the actor. As we were reading shows this year that theme just kind of kept floating to the surface. All three of our shows this season are very heavy in terms of the audience’s impact on the piece. In the first show there are direct questions to the audience that need to be answered. In the second show there’s actually audience members who are pulled into the show and help the storyteller tell the story. In the third show, again, the veil between the audience and the actors is very thin and there’s this interactivity. When we have conversations with one another we better understand each other. I think that we are in a polarized time and place in our society but when we actually just treat each other like people and have conversations we find we have a lot more in common than we do have differences, so that was the impetus for this season.
Why was Life Sucks chosen to start the season?
CC: Life Sucks is an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. We really like working with pieces of quote ‘classic theater’ unquote. Sometimes that literally means classic theater like from the ancient Greeks but also Strindberg, Ibsen and Chekhov, who are these great European masters of drama. We had done Stupid [F-ing] Bird before, which is another of Aaron Posner’s adaptations of Chekhov, that’s an adaptation of The Seagull. Uncle Vanya is seeing a resurgence, it is everywhere right now. I think there were at least two productions on Broadway this past season; one of them might still be open. There were several productions in London and I think that speaks to that show being very relevant to what’s happening right now in our times and this kind of existential dread, ‘Who am I? How am I going to get through my life?’ The reason I really like Life Sucks is that it’s a contemporary adaptation. The language is very accessible, the language is very funny and we were really drawn to this breaking of the fourth wall that Posner does in this script.
Are there any particular acting schools of thought or disciplines that you all employ?
MC: We really pride ourselves on training being a part of our process. I think what makes us a little bit different is that all of our company members come from different disciplines. Carey has done a lot of work in practical aesthetics and in viewpoints work. Peter, who’s a company member, does a lot of work in Michael Chekhov technique and a little bit of Uta Hagen too. Myself, I came through Double Edge doing some Grotowski-based movement work and more recently some work with the Tectonic Theatre Project and what they call moment work. We kind of play in this witches’ brew of different approaches to making theater, and we hold these open training sessions once a month during which one of us will lead and really explore different approaches. That’s kind of what differentiates Theatre Kapow a little bit, because our actors in the space may be approaching the work from their own comfort zone, from their method. As a total company we’re really trying to incorporate all these different pieces to make the whole stronger.
—Zachary Lewis
Life Sucks
Presented by Theatre Kapow
When: Friday, Sept. 20, and Saturday, Sept. 21, at 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, Sept. 22, at 2 p.m.
Where: Bank of NH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $33.75; $26.75 for students and seniors
Info: tkapow.com and ccanh.com
Note: The show contains “Strong Language, Adult Situations, Gunshots. Recommended for ages 13+.”
Featured image: Courtesy photo.
