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Orange County Premiere!

Coyote On A Fence
by Bruce Graham
Directed by Patricia Ansuini

Back Stage West Critic's Pick
SqueezeOC.com Pick of the Week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THEATER ARTICLE

Provocative Play
by Pat O' Brien, The Press-Enterprise

August 10, 2006

One of the most provocative issues of our times, the death penalty, is the subject of "Coyote on a Fence." The Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills is giving the award-winning drama its Orange County premiere.

Written by Bruce Graham, the piece won the Lois and Richard Rosenthal award in 1998 for Best New American Play and received Obie and Drama Desk nominations.

Graham wrote "Coyote on a Fence" after corresponding with a Texas inmate, James Beathard, who published a death-row newspaper. Beathard was executed and later exonerated.

There are four characters: an educated inmate who protests his innocence and puts out a newspaper, his cell neighbor who is a mass murderer, a female prison guard and a reporter.

Casey Long, who plays the psychotic mass murderer, said the show has challenged him emotionally and shifted opinions that were black and white to shades of gray.

"As the play evolves you see different perspectives," said Annie Mezzacappa, who plays the reporter.

"The playwright has not argued one way or the other. It leaves it to the audience to come to its own decision."

Every Sunday, the play will be followed with a discussion between cast and audience. Sometimes there will be guest moderators, including an assistant public defender, Denise Gragg, of Orange County.

Directed by Patricia Ansuini, the show runs through Sept. 10. 4 p.m. Saturdays and 6 p.m. Sundays. 5552 E. La Palma Ave. 714-777-3033, 800-838-3006, www.chancetheater.com

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THEATER REVIEW

Coyote On A Fence
by Eric Marchese, Back Stage West
Critic's Pick

August 17, 2006

Bruce Graham's 1998 drama examines death row in a penitentiary in Everytown, U.S.A.-and, by extension, the nature of death penalty cases everywhere-by looking at two inmates with disparate personalities: John Brennan (Richard Comeau), the editor and publisher of the Death Row Advocate, and Bobby Reyburn (Casey Long), a racist Southerner who burned down a church, killing 37 black men, women, and children.

Director Patricia Ansuini's tight, intermissionless staging of the play's Orange County premiere invites us to feel the claustrophobia of confinement while we observe the ways the two men interact. The drama delves into their personalities, reflecting on a series of contradictions that cause us to forgo any conclusions about either. John, who detests all manner of bigotry and crudity, writes obituaries of executed prisoners sanitized to reflect whatever good he can find in each man's personality. He professes innocence of the crime he's accused of (a drug dealer's murder); Bobby admits his guilt, insisting he deserves to be executed. The well-educated John has the superior intellect but is arrogant and aloof; Bobby had a horrific upbringing that explains his personality without trying to excuse the bigotry motivating him, yet he delights in doing playful impressions of animals.

Superb characterizations by Comeau and Long heighten the characters' ambiguities and the script's realism. John and Bobby neither hate each other nor, in false, feel-good fashion, become friends. They reach a détentelike understanding, though. Comeau's John is stoical, masking sarcasm and anger, scarcely able to conceal his distaste for Bobby. Long is more good-old-boy than detestable white supremacist, a slow-witted redneck who cheerfully owns up to his hate crime, saying it was God's will. Karen Webster's fierce, foulmouthed, beer-swigging corrections officer and Annie Mezzacappa's inquisitive New York Times reporter, who challenges John's methods, provide alternate lenses through which to view Graham's focal duo.

Presented by and at the Chance Theater, 5552 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim. Sat. 4 p.m., Sun. 6 p.m. Aug. 6-Sep. 10. (800) 838-3006.

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THEATER REVIEW

Taking Lives
'Coyote On A Fence" gets all nuancey about capital punishment
by Dave Wielenga, O.C. Weekly

August 17, 2006

The convicted murderers who are dispensed the ultimate, irreversible punishment in Coyote on a Fence may or may not have received justice. After seeming to dissect that question-the justice of capital punishment-for more than one and a half hours, it turns out that's not what Bruce Graham's award-winning play is really even about.

The Chance Theater is presenting the OC premiere of Coyote on a Fence eight years after its debut, but it's lost none of its topicality. In fact, feel free to extrapolate the relevance of its sticky scenarios about the U.S. criminal justice system to the new frontier of international terrorism, where due process, torture, incarceration and execution are being redefined at notorious Guantanamo and a rumored archipelago of secret CIA prisons worldwide. Thanks to director Patricia Ansuini's deft use of a four-actor cast and the cramped conditions of this small venue, it isn't that big a stretch.

Coyote on a Fence is set on the death row of an unnamed prison, where inmate John Brennan (a mostly good Richard Comeau) publishes a small newspaper-complete with obituaries-that has attracted mainstream media attention. He tries to humanize the condemned and not-so-secretly hopes to elicit public sympathy that will spare him the executioner's needle. But humanizing his fellow murderers becomes, oh, awkward when he's faced with eulogizing Bobby Reyburn (the promising Casey Long), an unapologetically racist, although sweetly simple-minded, mass murderer who moves into an adjacent cell.

Long has the play's most difficult role, and not only because the portrayal of people with mental handicaps so often sucks actors into cliché. He's also tasked with showing Reyburn's pathological hate while sympathetically revealing how this mindset came to make perfect, loving sense to him. Although there are a few rough patches, Long ultimately pulls it off, and his success is the production's success.

By the time it reaches its conclusion-which is more or less where it began- Coyote on a Fence has moved beyond polarized debate over the same old subjects. Justice? It's as subjective as objectivity . . . as innocence . . . as guilt . . . as determining what weight to assign to the cold, hard facts vis-à-vis the mitigating ones, which are frequently still warm and malleable and very, very sad and creepy. Simply choosing a side-either side-on the issue of capital punishment is just taking the easy way out.

COYOTE ON A FENCE AT THE CHANCE THEATER, 5552 E. LA PALMA AVE., ANAHEIM, (714) 777-3033. SAT., 4 P.M.; SUN., 6 P.M. THROUGH SEPT. 10. $22-$25.

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THEATER REVIEW

Death penalty not a black and white issue
by Anne-Margret Bellavoine, Anaheim Hills News

August 17, 2006

Bruce Graham's "Coyote on a Fence" exposes the shades of gray inherent to the superficially black and white issues of capital punishment. Patricia Ansuini makes her directorial debut at the Chance with this award winning piece, with a superbly strong cast of four company members.

Inspired by real life Texas Death Row inmate James Beathard to whom the piece is dedicated, the play revolves around the relationship between John Brennan (Richard Comeau), a middle aged arrogant intellectual and writer, and Bobby Reyburn (Casey Long), a young, naive and psychotic racist. They are neighbors on the Row, yet sitting on opposite sides of a moral divide over issues such as guilt and innocence, and religious beliefs.

Sam Fried (Annie Mezzacapa) is a liberal Pulitzer Prize journalist who is intrigued by John's eloquent inmate advocate newspaper. Shawna DuChamps (Karen Webster) is a hardened correctional officer who is just doing her job, tough and uncaring in one of the most deprecated but necessary professions whose very duties foster callousness.

For anyone who has worked in the trenches of the profession, the deft treatment resonates as true to life. Humanness and humanity are found in the face of dehumanizing situations on both sides of the fences, even in the most heinous of criminals.

The moralizing debate continues to focus on black and white issues engendered by the very finality of the punishment. As John and Bobby's relationship evolves toward its inexorable termination, it becomes clear that hues of gray dominate this shady issue. The mentally ill and psychotics' crimes become almost understandable.

This powerful drama grips at every level and forces us to revisit our own prejudices and preconceived ideas.

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THEATER REVIEW

Inmates on each side of the 'Coyote on a Fence'
In Orange County premiere, 1998 drama is more character study than social treatise
by Eric Marchese, Orange County Register

August 18, 2006

At first glance, Bruce Graham's "Coyote on a Fence" is an examination of death row and, by extension, of capital punishment.

The 1998 drama may in fact be a harsh, even unforgiving look at our penal and correctional systems, but Graham never seems as interested in raising questions about the system as in taking a close-up look at two death-row inmates pushed together by fate.

His interest, as indicated by the drama's Orange County premiere at the Chance Theater, is in the moral choices individuals make, and how those choices affect those around them - specifically, those of prisoners John Brennan (Richard Comeau) and Bobby Reyburn (Casey Long).

The guarded, cynical John uses his education and writing skills to edit and publish The Death Row Advocate, a prison newspaper. His specialty is writing obituaries of executed prisoners, which he sanitizes to reflect only the good in each man's personality rather than his crime and its impact on its victims and upon society.

Bobby, the new prisoner in the adjoining cell, is a racist Southerner who burned down a church, killing 37 black men, women and children worshipping inside. His reason for doing so? God, he insists, told him to.

The drama delves into the personalities of both men, reflecting on a series of contradictions which cause us to forego any hasty conclusions about either. John detests all manner of vulgarity and bigotry, and is tough, resourceful and stubbornly principled - but while of a superior intellect, he's aloof and arrogant.

We gradually learn that Bobby had a horrific upbringing that explains his personality without trying to excuse the bigotry motivating him - yet unlike John, he has a playful side, doing coarse animal impressions. He feels no remorse for his crime, yet is more at peace with the world than John.

"Coyote" uses just two additional characters to lend insight into John and Bobby's personalities and motives: Shawna Duchamps (Karen Webster), the career corrections officer who patrols death row, and Samantha "Sam" Fried (Annie Mezzacappa), an inquisitive New York Times reporter determined to interview John.

Snaring several meetings with John, Sam casts aspersions on his journalistic double-standard. The obits he writes, she says, are too selective, striving to "un-demonize" the executed inmates. The public, she notes, perceives death-row inmates as universally professing their innocence.

Ironically, John is one of these, maintaining that there are two sides to every story and that "the truth" lies somewhere in between. He sees himself as a passionate advocate for his fellow inmates who are absolved of their sins just by virtue of being incarcerated. He scorns Sam's liberalism as shifting with the political and social winds and blasts her for digging into his past.

Bobby may be uneducated, but he's shrewd. His many tattoos, including a swastika on his neck, back up his proud statement, "I am an Aryan." He's just as proud of his racism, which runs to derogatory remarks about blacks and statements like "the Jewish cabal runs the courts." Adding to the moral fuzziness of "Coyote," he freely admits to his crime and says he deserves to be put to death for it.

Director Patricia Ansuini's staging is tight and darkly lit, evoking the claustrophobia of confinement while observing the two men's interaction. The script's ambiguities only heighten its realism: Though John dislikes Bobby, the two eventually come to an understanding. John may hate what Bobby stands for, yet can forgive him his crime.

Comeau and Long deliver superbly layered characterizations. Comeau's aloof, detached John can scarcely conceal his distaste for Bobby, yet he's determined to dig up as much information on him as he can. His voice communicates John's weary sarcasm and anger, his face alternating between profound sadness and the stoicism masking it.

The pained look on Long's face reflects Bobby's slow thought processes. He makes the detestable white supremacist a strangely likable good old boy who cheerfully owns up to his hate crime, chalking it up to God's will.

Webster's prison guard is a fierce, foul-mouthed, beer-swigging veteran of the penal system who despises "murderers, lawyers and reporters" - yet she can tolerate John who, despite being both a killer and a journalist, poses no danger to society. Mezzacappa downplays the reporter's stridency, her character striving to understand John and treat him fairly while making no secret of her disgust for Bobby.

John Robinson's abstract-style set approximates the prisoners' cramped quarters, while Long's sound design echoes TV and radio broadcasts and the noises of crowds gathering outside the prison to cheer the latest execution of a convicted killer.

CONTACT US: Freelance writer Eric Marchese has covered entertainment for the Register since 1984. He can be reached at emarchesewriter@gmail.com

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PICK OF THE WEEK

'Coyote on a Fence'
by SqueezeOC.com

August 18, 2006

A fictional exploration of the unlikely friendship between neighboring death-row inmates: John, an educated man who proclaims his innocence, and Bobby, a self-confessed racist mass murderer. Playwright Bruce Graham wrote the script following his two-year correspondence with death-row inmate James Beathard, who was executed in 1999 and later exonerated.

Through Sept. 10 at The Chance Theater in Anaheim. 4 p.m. Saturday, 6 p.m. Sunday. $22-$25.

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