Since its inception in 2002, FUSION Theatre Company's professional artists have had as their primary mission presenting New Mexico audiences the finest works in fresh new stagings. Here's a quick sampling of our visitor reactions.....

"As always with FUSION productions, expect to be dazzled
by some of the most polished theater in town."
-Weekly Alibi

"Be very proud. This was far better than the original
production I saw in New York."
-Audience Member

"...an evening of powerful drama and surprising staging,
a first-rate production...."
-Crosswinds Weekly

"Classic American entertainment at a beautiful theatre."
-TVI Times

"It's almost a shame we live in New Jersey, because
now we really want to see the rest of your season...."
-Audience Member

"...without a doubt, this play is theatre at it's finest..."
-KJOY-AM at Buried Child by Sam Shepard

The Long Christmas Ride Home
by Paula Vogel

presented December 1 -- December 18, 2005

Director: Jacqueline Reid
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Man/Narrator: Michael Finnegan
Woman/Narrator: Anna Felix
Claire: Jessica Barkl
Rebecca: Jen Grigg
Stephen: Colin Jones
Minister/Dancer: Roberto Codato
Puppet Constr.: Justine Krueger

Reviews

"The holiday theatrical season started at The Cell with Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home. The play showcases the strengths of the Fusion Theatre Company. There is fine ensemble acting and moving monologues under the crisp direction of Jacqueline Reid.

The handsome set introduces the play’s Japanese ties. Large screens, decorated with delicately painted leaves, become scrims when backlighted. Dennis Gromelski’s Zygote Pro-Creations, who also did the imaginative lighting design, built the set. And Justin Krueger constructed three large Japanese “bunraku”-style puppets.

The narrative of this one-act play begins and ends with a family-- mother, father, and three children-- on their way to Grandmother’s for Christmas turkey dinner and gifts. The parents also narrate, and the children in the back seat are puppets skillfully manipulated by actors who soon portray them as adults.....Choreographer Desiree Lang cleverly mixes...cultures in a rollicking dance number. Think “The Small Cabin of Uncle Thomas” meets “Avenue Q.” ....The play’s many influences, its recurring themes, and its evocation of the landmines that lurk beneath the surface of families and holidays all contribute to its complexity. The cast is excellent. Jessica Barkl portrays Claire, the youngest child whose Christmas gift precipitates the chain of events. Jen Grigg plays Rebecca, the eldest, who is on the cusp of adolescence at the play’s opening. Colin Jones is Stephen, the sensitive son who enjoys watching other boys run. Jones’s character has the fullest adult story. We see his rejection by his love, Joe, and his impetuous sex with a stranger who infects him with HIV from which he dies. He performs a powerful modern dance with a handsome lover, the multi-talented Roberto Codato, also memorable as the offbeat minister. Michael Finnegan brings passion to the philandering father. His character’s dissatisfaction is palpable. Anna Felix presents a touching portrait of the mother. Growing in every role, Felix gives the mother an angry exterior while conveying the heartache inside. Playwright Vogel does not actually want this play performed at Christmas time, but she can’t object to its Albuquerque opening on World AIDS Day."-- ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL review, Barry Gaines

"Along with all the carols, the shopping, the decorations and the fat, jolly old guy in the unflattering red suit, you can bet your last dollar you'll be subjected to a big pile of whining this Christmas season. Something about the holidays brings out both the best and the worst in us. Many people choose this time of year to write checks to charities, donate cans to food banks and generally direct a little extra kindness toward their fellow humans. Others get mean drunk and bicker idiotically for hours on end with their families. Some are so estranged from their relatives they skip Christmas altogether.

A play by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paula Vogel that's currently running at the Cell Theatre sticks its hands into this mucky pot of holiday misery. The Long Christmas Ride Home, though, is more than just your standard glimpse at the dark side of Christmas. Inspired by Japanese puppeteering (Bunraku) as well as Japanese theater (Kabuki and Noh), Vogel's play is a peculiar examination of Western Christianity's major holiday viewed through a distinctly Eastern lens....

The style of the play is considerably more interesting than its storyline. As is true of most Fusion Theatre Company productions, the details of this performance are immaculate. Two large screens ornamented with Japanese prints are back-lit during certain sections of the play to allow brief glimpses into moments in the characters' lives. Wooden step-bleachers form the central unifying aspect of the stage, with two moveable wooden boxes allowing for simple, elegant scene shifts.

I especially enjoyed that the children are all embodied by puppets; the three puppeteers take over the stage in the flesh once time shifts forward to focus on the kids' adult lives. The puppeteering here is excellent and often hilarious. Likewise, the elaborate choreography is very impressive.

Vogel's play itself, however, didn't really click with me. I liked the ambiance. I liked the performances. I loved the puppets. Yet I didn't feel like I could really connect with these characters.

The play felt much stronger during its first half. The scene in the church is especially amusing. During the second half, though, Vogel's cleverness seems to get the best of her. The time shifts seem excessively intricate, and the drama feels overwrought.

This Fusion Theatre Company production has many strengths. It's certainly very pretty to look at. Ultimately, though, the infusion of elements from Japanese art forms appeals more to the head than to the heart. For this reason, I think, I just couldn't fully invest myself in Vogel's overly clever script." --Albuquerque Alibi review, Steven Robert Allen

The Unexpected Man
by Yasmina Reza

presented September 1--September 25, 2005

Director: Jacqueline Reid
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The Man: Gary Houston
The Woman: Laurie Thomas

Reviews

"...The quality of [FUSION's] productions is abundantly displayed in their present staging of The Unexpected Man by Yasmina Reza who is famous for her highly acclaimed and often produced play ART....Reza has placed two strangers in a railroad compartment traveling between Paris and Frankfort. In the written script of this dual monolog there is only one stage direction which comes in the final minute: He Laughs. What a challenge for any director....The two are strangers in actuality but not in intellect. The Man is a successful middle-aged novelist of popular fiction whose last book is entitled “The Unexpected Man.” We discover early on that the book is being read by The Woman. He knows The Woman only in what he conjectures he knows. These conjectures are verbalized from his rambling mind. The Woman, as many readers do, know authors vicariously through their writings. In her mind Fate has placed her in this compartment and she would like to say to him, it was a “... great stroke of luck (for you) to have known how to make yourself loveable to me.” By the end of the 70 minutes of verbalized thoughts each character has become known to the audience but not to each other. As written it does not truly become a play until the final 5 minutes when there is actual interaction with emotional intensity.

Theater production is a collaborative effort. To judge a staging on the play’s merits of construction or content is unfair. So it is with The Unexpected Man. The total production is a complete success. Director Reid has insisted that The Man (Gary Houston) and The Woman (Laurie Thomas) must be opposite one another unlike the usual staging of sitting side-by-side facing the audience. The seats are further apart then actually found in railroad compartments to assure a physical as well as an emotional “separation” between them....Reid has overcome the challenge presented by no stage directions. Greek philosopher Heraclitus says you cannot step twice in the same river. But Reid has deftly supported the author’s concept that we can in our minds step into the river of our past. We are a compilation of what we were and are at any moment of time.

Her concept is enhanced by the set and lighting designer Richard Hogle. The floor of the set has white lines suggesting both railroad tracks and a music page with a few notes painted in pastel shades between the dual seats to emphasize the common bond of time, art and music between the characters. There is a suggestion of Bergson’s philosophy that life is a continuum and out of this continuum springs the elan vitale. In that philosophy is the concept of relative time. The rails and the trip are that continuum. Music is softly played (Brahms?) before the show begins. Two LCD TVs, one above each set of seats display actual railroad schedules shown and announced in French.

And then we come to the actors. There is always a fine line between directorial conceit and brilliant acting but in this production the difference is blurred and complimentary. Houston is highly respected, popular Chicago-area product, an original member of Steppenwolf with extensive credentials. Thomas’s credentials are legion and her acting equally superb. Houston and Thomas have a charisma that should be bottled and taken on the road."--THEATREWORLD INTERNET MAGAZINE review, Dr. Kedar Adour

"At the top of my Christmas wish list is a piece of imaginary technology I like to call the Thought Machine. It basically consists of a set of headphones connected to a kind of ray gun. When you aim the gun at people and press the trigger, it shoots out an invisible ray that allows you to listen to their thoughts. I'm hoping that 20 years from now I'll be able to pick up one of these babies at Target for $39.95. In The Unexpected Man, a play currently running at the Cell Theatre, playwright Yasmina Reza uses a similar sort of theatrical technology to crack open the silent thoughts of her two characters.

On a train traveling between Paris and Frankfurt, a novelist (Gary Houston) somehow ends up in the same cramped compartment with a woman (Laurie Thomas) who deeply admires his books. The play is only 70 minutes long. During most of this brief run-time, these two characters don't speak a word to each other, but Reza allows the audience to hear every word they're thinking.

The novelist spends a lot of time kvetching about his family, friends and health, and his fears that he's turning into a bitter man. He eventually notices the woman seated across from him. When he does, his first thought is how pathetic it is that she isn't reading a book.

Ironically, the woman has been aware of the identity of her traveling companion from the first moment she stepped into the compartment. That irony is quadrupled by the fact that she's carrying his latest novel, The Unexpected Man, in her handbag. Throughout most of the play she dissects the novelist's profound impact on her life while at the same time nervously toying with various methods for engaging him in conversation.

The beauty of Reza's play is that although these two characters don't know each other, they can't accurately be described as strangers. The first half of the play is extremely frustrating, largely because it's difficult to have respect for a woman who feels so deeply about a writer, yet when she finds herself in the same compartment with him can't muster the courage to reveal her admiration.

As the play progresses, though, you begin to understand that this woman isn't just some starry-eyed literary groupie. As Reza switches back and forth between the inner worlds of her two characters, you begin to understand that this woman might very well have a deeper understanding of the books in question than the author himself. Gradually, the awkward conventional relationship between artist and fan shifts toward a rarer, almost utopian bond that transforms the creator and his admirer into absolute equals.

In this FUSION Theatre Company production, designer Richard Hogle has created a highly stylized set that places the audience on both sides of the train compartment. This creates the illusion that we're voyeurs peering through the windows of the moving train.

The way the playwright exposes her characters' thoughts and personalities creates a surprising amount of dramatic tension, especially considering the limited interaction between the pair. Waiting to see if she'll speak, if he'll speak, if she'll pull the book out of her bag, if they'll somehow develop the bond you want them to have—all this makes you squirm in your seat.

Thomas is one of our better local thespians, and Houston, who back in 2003 performed brilliantly in [FUSION's] production of Enda Walsh's Bedbound, is a veteran Chicago stage and screen actor. Under the direction of Jacqueline Reid, their chemistry makes this simple production boil over with an appealing sort of awkward energy.

It's worth noting, too, that this is the perfect play for the Cell. I'm sure part of the reason Fusion selected it is because the Cell's location on First Street next to the train tracks fits the play to a tee. Trains roll by outside the theater, and the racket of their passing melds seamlessly into the drama of the story." --Albuquerque Alibi review, Steven Robert Allen

Hedda Gabler
by Henryk Ibsen

presented April 28- May 22, 2005

Based on a staging by: Joe Feldman
------------------------------
Hedda: Jacqueline Reid
Eilert Lovborg: Vic Browder
Thea: Laurie Thomas
Tesman: Ross Kelly
Judge Brack: William Sterchi
Aunt Julie: Ninette S. Mordaunt
The Maid: Catherine Gordon

Reviews

"The story on Hedda Gabler when I was in college was that it was a realist tale of withered idealism and intellectual elitism brought to tragic ends by circumstances beyond the protagonist’s control, except, of course, for her final act. Henrik Ibsen’s best known play comes to the boards of Albuquerque’s Cell Theatre one hundred and fifteen years after its European debut, with principal player Jacqueline Reid rendering a significantly different character in the title role. No Victorian gowns here. Hedda spends the entire evening in a negligee. And no elegant Victorian sitting rooms. Joe Feldman’s staging features six straight back chairs, several vases of flowers, assorted flower stands and tables, and a glowing brazier into which a man’s life work and a woman’s “pure soul” disappear.
    Reid’s Hedda, whose maiden name is distinctly pronounced “gobbler” here, is a woman with appetite sufficient to gobble up those around her verbally and morally in the endless pursuit of a life with more meaning than that she shares with her new husband, a musty academic with whom she has just returned from a six-month honeymoon. The thought that “the honeymoon is over, but the trip will go on and on” has thrown Hedda into a funk she wears on her sleeve without those around her seeming to really take notice. In a series of duets that move around the furniture like pieces in a board game, Hedda and her friends and household reveal a back story designed to explain her duress in bits and pieces of conversation and innuendo. A new translation by Douglas Hughes keeps the dialogue fresh, while Reid and company play the lines for darkly comic effect, nearly winking at the audience, which knows how disappointing 1890 must have been for a woman seeking release and freedom.
    The underlying academic envy and sexual tension are played out while Hedda takes confidences, offering little in return, and uses the information she receives to manipulate the lives of those around her, hoping for the excitement of a duel, an act of courage, or even a political career for her husband, but knowing all along that her “time [is] up,” she has “danced [herself] out.” The six members of the supporting cast, among whom Hedda nearly dances barefoot for the play’s two hours, are variously bland and broad in their performances, universally preoccupied with their own concerns, but leaving the final stage light upon Hedda as the play ends. It is a stunning moment of theatre." --Roy Durfee, review May 17, 2005, KUNM Evening Report

"Hedda Gabler ... [is] the kind of woman who's easy to fall in love with as a theatrical character, but if she were a real person, you'd be wise to flee at the first sight of her. She's vindictive. She's moody. She's an obnoxious, aristocratic snob. She's spends money like there's no tomorrow. Worst of all, she loves to play with guns. A new production of Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece Hedda Gabler recently opened at the Cell Theatre. Presented by FUSION Theatre Company... this is wicked fine theater performed by some of the best actors in town.... Ibsen's plot, as translated by Doug Hughes, is a streamlined, well-oiled machine that streaks toward its target like the latest classified piece of deadly military engineering. The dialogue is fast and funny, and the story is riddled with surprising twists and turns. Best of all, this talented cast and crew live up to the ingenious material. Kelly is ideal as the obtuse academic. He has some of the play's funniest lines. Sterchi brings a sinister edge to most characters he plays. Equal parts charm and rottenness, he'd make an excellent Satan. As the vaguely slimy Judge Brack, he's pitch perfect. Browder brings a cool, mysterious strangeness to Lovborg. Ninette S. Mordaunt is genuinely sweet as George's doting Aunt Julia. Laurie Thomas takes a nervous neurotic turn as Thea, a lower class woman who makes the mortal mistake of confiding in Hedda that she loves Lovborg. Even Catherine Gordon as Berta, the maid, melds seamlessly into this carefully composed universe of deceit. Reid plays the key role, though, and in the end not much else matters. It's Hedda who pulls the strings, even the ones attached to her own wrists and ankles. Reid is so perfect for this character. To say her performance is nuanced doesn't do justice to how deeply she digs into Hedda's alluringly apocalyptic personality. Hedda... wants the world, and especially her own life, to be filled with passion and beauty, even if these things can only be brought about through inexcusable acts of violence and destruction." --Steven Robert Allen, review May 5, 2005, Alibi

"Hedda Gabler a Powerful Drama: Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler is a classic nineteenth century drama, and the FUSION Theatre Company production at The Cell reminds us why. The show is based on a staging by Joe Feldman and uses Doug Hughes' excellent translation. After 115 years the play remains a powerful study of an unhappy woman who wishes to have power over another, but who learns that the only destiny she can control is her own.... The supporting cast is strong. Tesman is the 'last of the truly simple souls,' and Ross Kelly captures Tesman's naiveté and sense of astonishment at having married the beautiful and aristocratic Hedda. Tesman is an academic, a specialist in the textile industry of 14th century Brabant, but Kelly avoids stereotype in portraying this clueless innocent. Laurie Thomas provides Thea with just the right degree of incipient hysteria, yet for all her diffidence, Thea has had the courage to leave her unhappy marriage and follow Lovborg, the man she loves. William Sterchi is ideal as the predatory Judge Brack. Suavely costumed in a formal frock coat and vest with cravat and pearl stickpin, Sterchi displays a chilling tight-lipped half-smile. Vic Browder makes a fine Lovborg, brilliant but weak. His character provided Hedda vicarious excitement in the past, and now she tries to manipulate him to her distorted notion of a glorious, romantic end. I have concerns about Jacqueline Reid's portrayal of Hedda— not her acting but her appearance.... Despite her costume, Reid projects Hedda's palpable ennui, her coquetry, her desire to control and finally her despair." --Barry Gaines, review May 1, 2005, Albuquerque Journal :

A Lie of the Mind
by Sam Shepard

presented February 10 - March 6, 2005

Director: Jacqueline Reid
------------------------------
Frankie: Ross Kelly
Jake: Vic Browder
Beth: Laurie Thomas
Mike : Dean Eldon Squibb
Meg: Shelley Epstein
Baylor: John Hardman
Lorraine: Kathy Mille-Wimmer
Sally: Anna Felix

Reviews

"FUSION Theatre Company [opens] this month its fourth season with a strikingly well played and directed production of Sam Shepard's three-act and three-hour work, A Lie of the Mind.... Laurie Thomas, Kathy Mille-Wimmer and Shelley Epstein [are] especially fine in the difficult roles of spouses struggling variously with co-dependency, abuse, abandonment and neglect.... "--Roy Durfee, KUNM Evening Report, 89.9-FM

"Performances ring true in A Lie of the Mind.... FUSION Theatre Company begins its fourth season at The Cell with Sam Shepard's seldom-performed three-act play A Lie of the Mind, directed by Jacqueline Reid. The large opening night crowd responded warmly....As Lorraine, Kathy Mill[e]-Wimmer is simultaneously outrageous and frightening. Her dialogues with her children about their father are seething with resentment. Beth's mother, Meg, is less threatening, but no less crazy.  Shelley Epstein delivers her strange observations with a disarming comic lilt. As her husband, Baylor, John Hardman is impressive. His eyes suspicious slits, his voice raspy, he pontificates from his favorite chair when he is home. His macho paean to deer hunting is fine.... Vic Browder as Jake and Laurie Thomas as Beth are at the broken heart of the show. Browder sensitively portrays the brutish Jake with smoldering violence always close to the surface. Yet there is also perverse tenderness and perhaps even a mutant form of love. Thomas skillfully presents the tangled language of Beth's aphasia and produces sympathy for her character without resorting to sentiment. She understands Shepard's men: 'Look how big a man is. So big. He scares himself.'"--Barry Gaines, Albuquerque Journal

"This isn't the Montagues and the Capulets. It isn't even the Hatfields and the McCoys. The battle between two seriously screwed-up families in Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind is even darker and more deranged than either of those infamous feuds..... Lorraine, played with easy perfection by [Kathy] Mille-Wimmer, is a swirling tornado of maternal neurosis. In other local productions, Kelly often plays a smart-talking pretty boy. It's a character he plays very, very well. Here he plays against type. With his bad haircut and trailer park wardrobe, he does a nicely understated job as Frankie, a backward, soft-spoken dimwit.... With his penchant for gratuitous violence against wildlife, Mike-played with hilarious energy by [Dean Eldon] Squibb... is the kind of backwoods lunatic you wouldn't want to cross paths with while alone in a forest.... The set for this FUSION Theatre Company production is a work of beauty. A lot of Shepard's dialogue is extremely funny, but you might feel bad about laughing during some of the darker bits. I know I did... If you're in a appropriately twisted mood, FUSION's A Lie of the Mind might be a worthwhile experience. At the very least, it'll make you feel a lot better about your own life."--Steven Robert Allen, The Weekly Alibi

A Lie of the Mind a Theatrical High.... By every measure of dramatic art, this presentation is in a class by itself, again illustrating the highest standards of professional excellence for shows performed by FUSION, the theatre company-in-residence at the Cell Theatre... In addition to superb acting and directing, this production is noteworthy from [the] standpoint of its off-stage staff (those handling lighting, sound, set, costume, makeup, etc.), together with stage manager Maria Schmidt. In a word, the presentation is "dynamic." This entertaining play opened this past weekend to full houses for all performances, evidencing the mature recognition this theatre has justly attained.--LiveArtsToday.com

Interview with Jacqueline Reid
and KUNM's Spencer Beckwith
(mp4-check Apple for free player
if link above doesn't work for you)