iTunes Exclusive Episode Clarkston

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Exclusive.
Welcome.
My name is Rob.
I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast, and I think of myself as cultured.
But I'm not alone for this particular episode.
Joining me across the desk is my co-host.
And a man who has more culture in his little finger than other people have in their
little fingers.
He is chat.
Welcome, sir.
Okay.
I'll roll with that.
Also joining us for this particular edition is the official fact-checker of this show.
And a man who can spell culture.
You may know him as Fondon Go, but his mom and even Don Ford, I'm going to call him
Don Ford.
Welcome, sir.
K-U-L-T-R-E.
You nailed it.
You absolutely nailed it.
As long as he has a dictionary apple in his phone, he can spell it.
Spontana English, remember?
Whatever we do, one of these particular iTunes.
Exclusive.
It is to review something, and this particular episode is no different.
Today, Don and I, with Chad's help, are going to be reviewing a stage production.
Now, Chad was unable to join us for this, but we are here to have him here to...
I mean, some moral support, maybe some intrigue on his part.
Moral support.
It is currently being featured at the Wiley Theatre Center in their studio theater
of there on the 9th floor.
It is called Clarkston.
That's in the 6th floor?
That's in the 9th floor.
6th floor.
It is called Clarkston.
It's been written by Samuel D. Hunter.
This one here has been directed by Dave McCallum.
This is the world premiere run of this particular play.
It's an hour and a half long with no intermission.
And here's what you need to know.
It takes place in a Costco in Clarkston, Washington,
which is right around the Snake River near Idaho.
And it deals with, basically, three people in the entire cast.
You have Chris played by Sam Lilja.
Then you have Jake played by Taylor Trench.
It is Jake's, as the play opens, it is Jake's first night on,
as an overnight stalker with the Costco there, working with Chris,
who's worked there for a minute.
And they get to talk in and becoming friends.
And what they realize is that they have quite a bit in common.
And they kind of go through all of the things that friends tend to go through.
But there's a lot going on here.
That's all I'm going to say.
But we also have Trisha played by Heart Heidi Armbrister,
who is Chris's recovering addict mother,
who is just trying to get him to come back home and move in with her,
when he is trying to get her to get off the drugs.
That's about how far I want to go into this.
Before we get going, dear to this.
We got a Katherine and everybody at the Dallas Theatre Center
and everybody at the Wiley Theatre.
Yes, thank you so much.
Part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center down there in downtown Dallas.
But thanks again, Katherine, for the interview.
Yes, thank you so much.
You do more for us than you ever have to.
And we appreciate that.
The difficulty in reviewing this and challenging you to follow me on this.
Okay.
It's like I just said a moment ago, there's a lot going on here
and you don't really want to go too far down the rabbit hole.
Understood?
Because if you start talking about what's going on here,
it tends to snowball into an hour and a half long discussion of the actual production.
For this play to be having its debut in Dallas is a very...
I don't want to say...
risky?
But dice are being thrown.
Dice are being thrown here because as progressive as Dallas tends to be,
it is still in Texas.
And Texas is one of the very definitions of a red state.
There is a lot of things in this particular production
that if you are someone who sits on the right side of the bird,
probably not going to be for you.
There are some very dark themes, some very adult themes.
And that theater, the way it's configured right now,
probably I estimated about 100 people could be held in there.
Is that about right for you?
Yeah, I probably say something like that.
There was about probably 80 people in there.
There weren't a ton of empty seats, but there were a few.
A couple.
Don and I were some of the youngest people in the theater.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So when certain elements are brought into play and discussed or described
or things of that nature,
I was looking around to see who was going to walk out.
Because it was a mostly older crowd.
Because don and I remain in a certain age, as is Chad.
And if we're the youngest people in the room,
I was interested to see how this was going to happen.
Because the description of the production doesn't really tell you much,
even on the website.
Now when I was reading the program,
there's an interview with the writer in the program
and in the byline of the interview,
I was kind of prepared for some of it.
Okay.
But nothing can compare you from some of the things that happened in this particular production.
It's in your face without being in your face if that makes any sense.
Yeah, there were a couple scenes that kind of got uncomfortable agree to me.
And one thing I want to add,
and this is really kind of being spoiler.
So some people make it an idea.
I just like to say that between Jake and Chris,
their friendship really, really grows.
Put it that way.
Let's just, yeah, let's leave it away.
So people get an idea.
You know, I think that impart deserves to tell us.
And there's also multiple layers within the characters themselves.
Oh, yeah.
That are revealed as the production moves forward.
I will say Samuel D. Hunter makes no apologies for the subject matter that he deals with.
On multiple levels.
But it's not one of those shock value for shock values.
Sake kind of things if that makes any sense.
You know, I'm saying that's exactly.
There's, it's done for a reason,
but I wasn't always sure that the reason was necessary.
I mean, it would definitely have been a completely different production without it.
But I think there, there was a couple of moments that I think could have been left out.
Yes.
And it's some got, I think, two personals.
For the sake of content, or for the sake of pacing.
Content.
I thought it was a pacing.
I think Daniel agreed.
The pacing on this was fine.
Oh, yeah.
I thought the pacing was fine, too.
It didn't really seem like it.
It's always, it's always interesting.
When you have a stage production that doesn't have an intermission,
especially when that runs 90 minutes.
Because you're asking an awful lot of your actors,
because your actors don't get a chance really to breathe,
especially Liza and Trent,
because they're in just about every scene.
Yes, exactly.
Now, you also add in the,
the angle of the character of Trisha,
Heidi Armbrister, who I'm just going to say it up front.
She out acted both of them.
Yeah.
And with about half the stage time.
If you go to my room and be at the clubhouse.com,
that's our website.
She, well, you look at a resume.
I'm on IMDB.
She's been in a lot of stuff.
Yeah.
She has skins in the game.
But she was my shining star, the whole thing.
Agreed.
Because she, you know,
we're not taking away from the other two.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.
But she absolutely brushes this thing.
My point is, is that, you know,
in my past career,
I've dealt with addiction a lot.
Yeah.
And then there's always a part of that.
We're dealing with addiction with this.
She played the recovering addict perfectly.
Well, and now that she played it perfectly,
I thought it was a road at well.
Yeah.
Like it wasn't like she was making the best out of what she had.
All three of these characters are written very, very well.
And it's these aren't these aren't the kind of roles that you get somebody fresh out to do.
You have to have some skins on the wall to play any of these.
And they chemistry between the three really showed it.
Absolutely amazing.
I thought all three of them did a very, very good job.
With the limited amounts of stage room that they had,
they made very, very good use of the real estate.
And I mean, they made use of all of that real estate.
And I also put there that when it came to the sets,
it's a very simplistic set.
There's only a couple props is one of those, you know,
product racks that you see like a glass go.
And a couple of products are caught,
but carted in on a crate.
Right.
Maybe on that there really is no where you have to use the imagination for this,
for the sets.
Now, you're not going to get a full, you know,
Broadway quality fandom of the opera set on this thing.
And you don't need it.
Right.
I don't think you did need it.
The lighting, I thought, really enhanced what was going on.
Agreed.
But it set the mode of where they were at.
Were they in the Costco the whole time?
No, but were they outside by the river or were they,
there are times where they're outside in the parking lot.
But you can imagine that.
And you didn't need all the sets.
Right.
And that's the way, that's how the actors work with what they had.
They did very well.
And they did it very well.
We also want to talk about the fact that the character of Jake is a descendant of William Clark of Lewis and Clark.
Yeah.
And that plays a huge role in this as well.
It's just very well put together,
but it's not for everybody.
Oh, and I think that's where you have to draw the distinction.
I don't, there was nothing about this particular production that I thought,
but I can't in good conscience say everybody go right now.
Because there's going to be subject matter in this film that A is not for the whole family.
And B is going to offend people on a basic level.
You mean in this production of film.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, absolutely right.
This one.
I'm old in the memory.
Sorry to go.
But my thing is I, let's say they did it in the intermission.
Like 45, 50 minutes in.
I wonder how many people would actually come back.
Because some people aren't going to walk out perduction to assist.
That's a fair point.
I don't know that there's an answer to that question though.
Because of the subject matter.
Because I was not expecting the subject matter that we had.
You know.
Agreed.
That's a good description is very, very vague.
Exactly.
And we don't want to give away too much.
No, we want to make sure that we're being responsible in our review to say.
This is very progressive.
This is very liberal.
There are very adult and mature things going on.
And some language too.
Also a lot of language.
Quite a bit of language.
The dialogue I thought was well written.
I'd never at some point thought of the dialogue was too heavy.
But then again, I'm also a Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino fan.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Take that for what you're paying for it.
But I mean, I really don't have anything bad to say about it.
I don't think that this thing dragged at all.
I didn't see anything that really needed to be cut out.
You could say just that just one part.
If you were trying to market it to a bigger audience.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But yeah.
I was really satisfied with it.
But anyway, we'll see that there's there were some uncomfortable scenes for me.
But at that way.
Agreed.
Yeah.
But I think as we were saying before we get to the final analysis.
No, I don't think so.
The way we do the final analysis on this show.
We don't give you thumbs up thumbs down.
We don't give you letter grades.
No rankings.
No stars.
Our audience whom we affectionately refer to as the empire is better than that.
We're going to ask two questions.
One.
Would you see this again?
The answer is no.
Then we're done here.
If the answer is yes.
And a theater setting.
I want to know where you want to sit.
Are there any questions that you have to have before we go into this?
Don't I remember how uncomfortable.
A production that we saw in the same room made you.
Well, given the question that you asked a few minutes ago, if they had an
intermission, if we didn't have to review it, would you have come back for the second act?
And this one?
No.
No.
In bold.
Maybe not.
Just to put that in your upper context.
But it's a different kind.
Yeah.
I mean, it just.
There were some a couple of scenes in this, I thought.
But no, I would.
If there was an intermission.
And I wasn't reviewing.
Oh, I'd still come back in a heartbeat on this one.
Yes.
Okay.
So, Tom, would you see this again?
Okay.
Just different levels of pushing that envelope of what you're comfortable with.
Yeah.
What I mean is what I was wondering.
It wasn't a couple.
Wow.
They're going on the edge on this.
Yeah.
No.
Not like what's like this is getting me mad.
Totally opposite of that.
No.
What I see this again.
Yes.
Where would you think you need to sit for it?
I would say something like kind of where we sat.
Upper high.
You know, like the back.
It's basically.
Unfortunately.
It's the old building in bleachers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because there's a general mission.
You know.
And it's just open seating.
But I would say.
Because, you know, how do we.
Give that review.
I would say.
Like the top two row center.
Because I want to want to be download.
Because I think you got a better view in the upper seats.
I would agree with that.
I think it's.
But I'd still recommend this in a heartbeat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you can handle the subject matter.
Absolutely check this out.
It's a very well written.
I'm about the same as you.
I mean, I'm not really sure that there's a preference.
Because again, with general admission.
You're going to sit where you want to sit anyway.
But there isn't a bad seat in the theater.
No.
Very well presented.
They make amazing use of the space.
Which I thought was great.
With minimal props.
Yeah.
Minimal props.
Wonderful performances all the way around by all three.
Just the lighting worked.
Everything worked for this.
But I recommend it with caution.
Especially if you can't handle the subject matter.
Exactly.
Anything else?
Yeah.
For we head out.
Absolutely.
We got to thank Catherine.
Catherine.
Thank you so much.
Everybody at the.
We're going to ask the theater center for a minute.
Thank you so much.
We appreciate you.
Performing arts center in general is so good to us.
And we thank them so much.
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I'm Rob.
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The preceding was a sooner or later production.
Why?
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