This is the sixth article in a series about community theaters located throughout and adjacent to Rhode Island.
With its 2024 production of The Lucky Chance — a 17th-century comic farce about the perils of arranged marriage, written by the first professional female playwright in England – Providence’s Head Trick Theatre “showcases what it does best,” writes Broadwayworld.com theater critic Jessica Tabak. And what it does best is “staging nimble productions of classic plays that cast stark light on the slim distance between ‘then’ and ‘now.’”
According to Marilyn A. Busch, in a 2018 article about the company’s production of God of Vengeance, the folks at “Head Trick Theatre, under the helm of artistic director Rebecca Maxfield, [are] making quite a name for themselves by staging some of the more controversial, challenging, and politically fueled scripts on the local scene.” The play – written in Poland in 1907 by Sholem Asch, originally in Yiddish, and revolving around the story of a brothel owner – featured Broadway’s first lesbian kiss when produced in 1923, which led to the entire cast being arrested on charges of obscenity.
“I’d been wanting for some time to do a Jewish play, but the [current] anti-Semitic political climate made it feel particularly urgent,” said Maxfield. “I do enjoy that all or most of the characters are morally ambiguous or ambivalent in some way.” And she re-installed some of the original Yiddish as well.
Yup, “controversial, challenging, and politically fueled” seem appropriate descriptors for Head Trick Theatre’s productions, and just the thing to lure post-pandemic audiences back to live community theater.
Maxfield’s company, which she founded in 2014 after graduating from Brown University (tickets are free to Brown students, faculty and staff), is in residence at AS220 in Providence – “A rented space the size of one of those corner stores that says, ‘two customers can come in at a time,’” she jokes.
Given its inspiring artistic mission and 40-seat performance space, Head Trick Theatre is clearly fighting above its weight in Providence’s theatrical ecosystem, which has its challenges.
One is rehearsing in spaces that are even smaller and a different shape than its venue, and then descending on AS220 four days before opening for a really quick tech process. Also, “Parking downtown really sucks when PPAC or the Dunk has something going on.” But, adds Maxfield, “It’s also an interesting exercise to have to deal with plays written for theaters that looked different and had different technology from ours, for audiences with different expectations and assumptions about dramatic conventions and character types.”
Another challenge is purposefully side-stepping the more popular, modern-day plays put on by other local theater companies, and finding under-performed classics that might still be relevant or relatable today. “I’ve actually ended up boxing myself out of stuff I’d really like to direct, because it’s too contemporary,” she admits. It’s also challenging to market under-performed classics.
But such bold choices have led to creative accomplishments and no shortage of accolades.
Take the recent production of Arthur Miller’s 1964 drama Incident at Vichy, a one-act play that depicts a group of men who have been detained in Vichy France in 1942 to undergo racial inspection by German military officers. Head Trick Theatre chose to strip the show to its bones which, according to Broadwayworld.com’s John G. McDaid, “delivers a visceral punch.” “What distinguished this production from other agit-prop theater,” noted Motif’s Mark Binder, “was a superb ensemble cast, nearly invisible direction, and an unrelentingly complex script.”
That’s pretty much become the norm at Head Trick Theatre.
Next up, Dr. Korczak and the Children. A metatheatrical drama about four actors who try to tell the true story of a heroic Polish pediatrician who refused to abandon the orphaned children in his care. Aug 15 thru 24. •