Radiation sickness: Living a half-life

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Marie Curie was among the first to learn that exposure to high doses of radiation can stunt organisms’ growth and cause premature death. In The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, a budding female scientist takes a different route to the same lesson.

Tillie Hunsdorfer (Chelsea Cook) is a bright student whose mother, Beatrice (played by Annette L. Bourque), is jealous of her success. While she doesn’t actually hit her daughter, Beatrice is emotionally abusive and often prevents Tillie from even going to school, instead making her do endless chores around the house. Tillie’s sister Ruth (Andrea Wickham) is allowed to go to school, but seems not to make much of the opportunity.

It becomes clear, though, that Beatrice sees herself in her smart non-conformist daughter, and fears for Tillie’s future. When Beatrice learns the students laughed at Tillie during a science assembly, she turns on her. "They laugh at you, they’re laughing at me," she says, remembering the scorn she endured in her school days, just for being different. That radiation has seared Beatrice, and she in turn irradiates Tillie and Ruth.

Beatrice confesses her feelings in a conversation with Tillie about a science project. Tillie is planting marigold seeds that have been exposed to cobalt-60, a radioactive isotope with the relatively short half-life of 5.3 years.

Beatrice, she tells her daughter, knows all about half-lives. She is "the original half life," she says, and launches into a brief soliloquy offering a view into another world, the inner corridors of "the other half"’s lives: Beatrice has one daughter — the panic-suffering Ruth — with "half a mind," the other — science-brained Tillie — "half a test tube," her house is half full of the droppings of the family’s pet rabbit, and she shares a living space with half a corpse, the elderly Nanny (Ellen Thomas), whom Beatrice cares for to earn extra money.

It is a speech that could be both heartbreaking and pathetic. Bourque, however, only gets to the pathetic part of Beatrice’s character. The play is written to be slow-moving, and Bourque’s Beatrice properly sucks the life out of each scene in which she appears. But even in moments of redemption and openness, Bourque draws only pity from the audience.

Cook’s Tillie is a far more sympathetic character, playing her middle-woman role strongly, and showing the promise of youthful enthusiasm in scenes without Beatrice. When faced with Beatrice, Cook immediately adopts deferential tone and bearing, though keeping sparks alive under the bushel.

Ruth is more stereotypical, and is played well by Wickham, a newcomer to USM’s main stage. First a flighty teenage girl, she morphs into a younger version of her mother, but one more bitter and with less hope.

The characters are complicated and conflicted. It is their depth that earned this play both a Pulitzer and an Obie. Beatrice’s grudging acceptance of duty, dashing her own dreams, is briefly inspiring, when she is made to understand that Tillie’s finalist status in the school science fair is not a chance for people to mock Beatrice but to celebrate Tillie.

In the second act, the effects of the radiation become clear. As Tillie’s marigold experiment showed, seeds with a little radiation were normal; moderate radiation resulted in mutants. Seeds that endured large amounts of radiation were stunted or killed.

Beatrice, boosted by pride in Tillie’s accomplishments at the science fair, starts to heal and face her fears. But her radiation has ruined Ruth, who turns on her mother and destroys what remains of the life in Beatrice’s soul, triggering a rapid decay of spirit and turning Beatrice into a shell of her former self.

While the show is billed as a redemptive story, there is little hope left at the play’s end. Despite Tillie’s claim that "some of the mutations will be good ones," the spectre of radiation sickness lingers in the theater after the lights go up.

The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
Written by Paul Zindel. Directed by Minor Rootes. With Annette L. Bourque, Chelsea Cook, and Andrea Wickham. At University of Southern Maine, Russell Hall, through Oct. 12. Call (207) 780-5151.

Backstage

• The Public Theatre in Lewiston recently received two grants: $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to support educational outreach programming, including ticket-price subsidies for students and local community organizations, and student internships at the theater; and a $5000 unrestricted grant from the Shubert Foundation, the charity arm of a company owning 17 Broadway theaters, recognizing general excellence at the Public Theatre.

• Need a great Halloween costume? Check out the Maine State Music Theatre’s costume shop sale October 11, from 8 a.m. to noon, at MSMT’s new building, 22 Elm Street, in Brunswick, across from Hannaford. Most items will sell for $5, and all proceeds benefit the theater. Local theaters can get first dibs by calling Crystle Martin at (207) 725-8760 x15.

• A group of 10 Boothbay Harbor residents has purchased the town’s Opera House and plans to restore it. The 20,000-square-foot building will house gallery space, dance studios, a banquet hall, reception areas, and a 350-seat main theater. The first event, a concert by Jackson Browne, will be November 3. To learn more, visit www.opera-house.org

Standish man found guilty of murder

Published in the Current and the American Journal

A Cumberland County Superior Court jury Tuesday afternoon found Santanu Basu of Standish guilty of murdering Azita Jamshab to get the proceeds of a $100,000 insurance policy.

In closing arguments Tuesday morning, the prosecution told jurors there is “overwhelming evidence” that Basu was guilty.

Basu was listed as the beneficiary on Jamshab’s life insurance policy, which he had sold to her. In addition to Jamshab’s blood in the car Basu rented that day, and a “to-do” list preparing for the murder in Basu’s handwriting, prosecutor Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese said Basu had confessed to the crime, in detail, to a friend who then told police elements of the crime that had not yet been discovered.

The defense countered that Basu and Jamshab had instead been kidnapped at gunpoint by Jamshab’s “jealous boyfriend,” Amhad “Khoji” Khojaspehzad, who then murdered Jamshab.

Basu’s actions after the killing, which the prosecution called incriminating, were instead because Basu was trying to protect his family from Khojaspehzad, defense attorney Neale Duffett told jurors.

Jamshab, who lived in Westbrook, was shot to death after stepping out of a rental car – similar to one Basu rented that day – in a gravel pit just over the Windham line in Cumberland March 6, 2002. Her body was found the following day by a Windham man who lived nearby.

Marchese said Basu was “deep in debt and going further,” with high credit card balances and his job in jeopardy.

When Jamshab came into Basu’s office in January 2002 to buy car and health insurance following her divorce, Basu saw his chance. He sold her life insurance and persuaded her to name him as the beneficiary, Marchese said.

“He had all the information he needed to make Azita’s parents the beneficiary but he didn’t because he didn’t want to, because then he wouldn’t get the money,” Marchese said.

Instead, he put himself on the policy and then began to plan Jamshab’s murder, she said. In late February 2002, Jamshab told Basu she was moving out of the area and wanted to cancel the policy.

“Within two weeks Azita is dead,” Marchese said.

After the murder, Basu confessed to a former Navy buddy, but pleaded with him not to tell the police about any of it, prosecutors said.

That friend, Dexter Flemming, told police intimate details of the crime before the medical examiner or police were able to uncover them. Later discoveries supported what Flemming said Basu had told him, Marchese told the jury.

Marchese also described the killing, saying Basu drove Jamshab to the gravel pit in a rental car and told Jamshab to close her eyes because he had a “big surprise” for her.

“She holds out her hand and he pulls out the gun and shoots her,” Marchese said. The first shot was in the hand and arm. Then Basu shot her twice in the chest, and she fell to the ground.

“For some inexplicable reason he needs that coup de grace shot and shoots her in the back,” Marchese said.

The defense story that the pair was kidnapped by Khojaspehzad was invented recently and first told to investigators when Basu took the stand last week, Marchese said.

Khojaspehzad was the secondary beneficiary of Jamshab’s insurance policy and would only get the money if Basu were dead or convicted of killing Jamshab.

Speaking for the defense, Duffett disputed each of Marchese’s claims, saying Basu was not in financial trouble, would not have killed Jamshab for any
money, rented a car to hide an affair from his wife and made the to-do list to plan a “romantic date.”

Duffett said Basu did not dispute Flemming’s testimony about the confession because Basu was trying to cover for Khojaspehzad, for fear his family would be hurt if the police investigated Khojaspehzad.

Duffett said Khojaspehzad was a “jealous lover” who murdered Jamshab in a “crime of passion,” because he feared Basu and Jamshab were having an affair.

Marchese dismissed that explanation as “nonsensical.”

Baring it all: To push honesty over all else

Published in the Portland Phoenix

As Naked in Portland begins, playwright, composer, and lyricist Jason Wilkins strums his guitar and sings a ballad setting the scene: Young artists gather in Maine’s largest city and hope to find themselves. They are, he sings, "experimental people, sampling everything they see, wondering which is ‘the way life should be.’ "

Wilkins’s play is a love song to his own existence, in many ways, with main characters of artists, musicians, struggling creative types, arts critics and vertices of the love polygons that develop among them. (Wilkins is a musician and former theater and music critic for the local daily and the other alt-weekly in town, before the latter began publishing unedited press releases.) A number of the characters make ends meet, not surprisingly, by working in a coffee shop that becomes home to their dreams.

While the "daily specials" remain "regular" and "decaf," the real treats are the clever characters who make the play a rollicking ride through Portland’s art scene. (The Phoenix appears on stage — a nod to its sponsorship of the production.)

A theater critic is present, and begins the music — for this is a musical — with an ode to the hottie artists, the ones who through no fault of their own look like supermodels. (Infatuated, he later tries to diss another artist by making up quotes, gets himself fired, and ends up delivering pizzas. A warning to all journalists, indeed.)

There is a lovely and talented artist (Deni, played by Nancy Brown) with an electric gaze and a stolen heart; a mercurial artist who refuses to change for fame (Janine, Lisa Muller-Jones); a boring but reliable banker (Aaron, Keith Anctil), the love interest of a go-getter art graduate (Donna, Tavia Lin Gilbert); a couple from Presque Isle (Gina, Christine St. Pierre; and Wayne, Ryan Gartley), both of whom want constant orgasms, but only one of whom has figured out how (he works the late shift at the local porn shop). There’s also Donna’s mom, Linda (Monique Raymond), newly divorced and looking for love.

The most fun characters are a sex-crazed art teacher (also Muller-Jones); and the show-stopping Josh (Jeremiah McDonald), the nice guy from Jackman, who cuts loose into ’50s doo-wop and frenetic nude portraiture, drawing peals of laughter from the cast as well as the audience.

The show is a great way to spend an evening, and is performed solidly by some of the best and hardest-working actors in the area. Some of the roughness is Wilkins’s doing: On stage as a guitar player and extra, he gives visual and audible cues to the actors, and occasionally wanders awkwardly around the stage.

Happily, the usually cramped studio theater felt absolutely spacious, with chairs on the floor — not the usual bleachers — and spaced apart a bit. The play was on a raised stage, an excellent modification to the room that I hope will stay for future shows.

The music, composed by Wilkins, had identifiable riffs from "Hotel California," "Stairway to Heaven," and "Should I Stay or Should I Go," and was clearly influenced by the Barenaked Ladies, Led Zeppelin, the Kinks, Catie Curtis, and Cheryl Wheeler, among others. Local folkie Abi Tapia made a cameo appearance — or at least her phone number did — and was possibly a further influence.

The lyrics and dialogue are peppered with universal truths, witty wordings, and heartfelt confessions. Sex is never far from the lips of any cast member. Themes of nudity, bareness, and truth are intertwined cleverly, as in Gina’s plea to herself — and the audience — not to be too judgmental when she drops her robe and takes her first real look at her nude body.

It is this theme that remains constant: honesty to self and others. It carries the show through high and low points to a feel-good conclusion that brings all the jokes and innuendo neatly together. Gina’s character development in this area drives the main plot, while subplots show her the lives she could have had, if her choices were different.

There are a couple of glitches in direction, unusual for R.J. McComish, usually a skilled and sensitive conductor. At one point, when Donna is listening to her mother lament lost love, McComish has actor Gilbert fidget, changing facial expression and body position from time to time, to continue "looking sympathetic."

In a later scene, Deni rushes off stage. The line accompanying her exit is delivered by Gina: "I’ve never seen Deni so upset before." Fine, except she didn’t look upset in the least, just like a person who had a bladder emergency.

Generally, though, the acting was right on, and the laughs came at all the right times. Most remarkably, while humor often relies on stereotypes, there weren’t many to be found here. Wilkins came up with his own sense of comedy and created characters — and found actors — who could pull it all off in a successful portrait of arts life in this mortal city.

Naked in Portland
Written by Jason Wilkins. Directed by R.J. McComish. With Christine St. Pierre, Tavia Lin Gilbert, Jeremiah McDonald, and Nancy Brown. At Portland Stage Studio Theater, through Oct. 5. Call (207) 774-0465.

BACKSTAGE

• Help build a theater! Join the staff, board, and friends of Pontine Movement Theater and New Hampshire Theatre Project to finish construction of seating platforms and a lighting booth. Meet at 9 a.m. Saturday, September 27, at the West End Studio Theater, 959 Islington Street, in Portsmouth, NH.

Standish man tried for murder

Published in the Current and the American Journal

Santanu Basu of Standish is on trial for the murder of his girlfriend to allegedly collect on a life insurance policy. The trial started Monday in Cumberland County Superior Court, with prosecutor Lisa Marchese telling jurors that Basu, 34, had killed Azita Jamshab, 29, a resident of Westbrook, to get money to pay off large debts.

“Santanu executed Azita Jamshab by plotting and planning her death for the insurance proceeds,” Marchese said.

Marchese told jurors Basu made a “to-do” list the day he sold Jamshab her insurance policy, on which he was listed as the primary beneficiary, according to the Associated Press. The items on the list, including ammunition and a rental car, were directly related to Jamshab’s death two months later, Marchese said.

Jamshab, who prosecutors allege was in a romantic relationship with Basu, was shot to death and dumped out of a rental car – similar to one Basu rented that day – in a gravel pit just over the Windham line in Cumberland, March 6, 2002.

Her body was found the following day by a Windham man who lived nearby.

Basu asked a friend to tell police they were together the night Jamshab was killed, Marchese said, and later told that friend he had killed a woman for life insurance money.

Defense attorney Karen Dostaler told jurors the prosecution had to presume that Basu is innocent until they were convinced otherwise. She said the prosecution’s case was based on unsubstantiated theories and urged jurors to “test the evidence” by deciding for themselves if they thought testimony and other evidence was truthful.

Kate Bailey, a friend and coworker of the murdered woman at the Smart Styles hair salon at the Scarborough Wal-Mart, testified Monday that Jamshab had planned to go out to dinner with Basu on the evening of March 6, 2002.

Basu, a salesman for Nationwide Insurance, was Jamshab’s insurance agent, Bailey said. “She was trying to tie up some last minute things for her move” to Las Vegas, planned for the following week, Bailey said.

Jamshab did not turn up at work the following morning, and Bailey became worried. Also worried, Bailey said, was Jamshab’s friend, Amhad “Khoji” Khojaspehzad, who began calling the salon that morning, asking where Jamshab was.

Khojaspehzad denied that he was Jamshab’s boyfriend, but said they had a sexual relationship. Both were divorced, and they and their ex-spouses still lived in Southern Maine and were in the small Iranian expatriate social circle here, said Khojaspehzad, who lived in Windham until earlier this year.

Khojaspehzad was named as a contingent beneficiary on Jamshab’s life insurance policy. Basu was the primary beneficiary, who stood to collect
$100,000 if Jamshab died, according to testimony Monday.

Both men had debts far larger than their incomes, according to testimony.

Under questioning by Dostaler, Khojaspehzad said he had filed to collect on the life insurance “March 8 or 9,” very shortly after Jamshab’s body was found. He knew that the only way he could collect was if Basu was convicted of murdering Jamshab or was himself dead, Khojaspehzad told the court.

He hadn’t wanted to be on the policy and had urged Jamshab to make her parents, who live in Iran, the beneficiaries. Monday he said he would give the money to Jamshab’s family if he received any.

Khojaspehzad last spoke to Jamshab at about 8 p.m., March 6, 2002, he testified. He tried to call several times later and again the next day, but was unable to reach Jamshab.

Worried, he went to Jamshab’s apartment in Westbrook and saw her car there. He broke into the apartment, thinking he might find clues about her whereabouts, but “there was no sign of her.”

From her apartment, he took a videotape he had taken of Jamshab the previous week, in which she called him “honey,” because he didn’t want anyone to see it, Khojaspehzad testified. He also took a note with Persian and Farsi writing on it, again because he wanted to keep it private, he said. He later gave both to police.

The trial is expected to continue all week.

Corpses and darkness: Recurring theater themes this fall

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Dead bodies, darkness, nighttime, ghosts. Now that fall is here and the days begin to shorten, Maine’s theatrical offerings have taken a black turn, bringing more death and despair to the stage than in recent years. Were producers, directors, and actors really that depressed in the spring and summer? Is the state of the arts truly that dismal?

The Phoenix is well aware of Maine’s recurring budget "gap," the skyrocketing costs of Bush’s war on terror, and Ashcroft’s war on the Constitution. They are not calls for despondency, though. Rather, this is a time for the arts to shine, to call out to the masses and ignite our passions, not to darken our hearts with doom and death. This is not to say we need more frilly, happy pieces. We need to be disturbed, alerted, cattle-prodded into action by theatrical performances, galvanized as a community, a society that takes charge of its fate and does not dally in the pits of despair. In the meantime, be sure to catch glimpses of the high notes, like those below.

BEST SPOT FOR A GOOD SHOW

To get a good start, drive to Portsmouth regularly. The Players’ Ring is putting on some amazing shows there. Full of local actors end energy, the performances are always enjoyable and offer a much needed break from the mainstream of theater. (Because how many productions of Proof does Maine really need? We had one last year, two this summer, and one coming up. QED.)

At the Ring, Rhiannon Productions will ask Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, September 25 through October 5. Examining truth and illusion through a Cold War lens (or is it a "War on Terror" lens?), the play follows an evening of self-destruction by professors and their wives.

October 10 through 26 will see Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, continuing Shepard’s incisive investigations of the American family.

Then comes The Cask of Amontillado, October 30 through November 9. It’s a Halloween tale, adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, inspired by something he saw in a basement at West Point, before he got kicked out. A wine cask, a dark confined space, the glittering coats of arms of ancestors . . .

Finally for the fall, trading on the Tolkien resurgence of late, from November 13 through 30, The Hobbit brings the One Ring to the Players’ Ring. Oh, and there’s this guy called Bilbo, a cave-dweller called Gollum, and a fire-breathing dragon. Is there any more to say?

Speaking of the Ring, last year’s best original script, Not on This Night, by Kittery’s Evelyn Jones, will return to the Seacoast in late December, with two showings at Seacoast Repertory Theater December 21 and 28. Amid the Battle of the Bulge in World War 2, soldiers try to commandeer a home, finding all the things a home offers, including humanity and love.

BEST STUFF WE USUALLY DON'T COVER

There’s a lot of theater going on at Maine’s colleges. Colby College, for example, will have a number of fascinating offerings, starting with a 10-minute play festival October 3 and 4.

Moving into November, Shenandoah Shakespeare Express will visit the campus to explore what it is to be English, performing Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest November 5, and Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One (November 6), along with Two Gentlemen of Verona (November 7).

Colby’s fall season will finish November 14 with a 21st-century reinterpretation of the 17th-century comedy The Man of Mode, exploring the cultivation of wit and manners as opposed to morality.

Also along the cultivation theme is USM’s The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, a Pulitzer Prize-winning and Obie-winning play slated for October 3 through 12 in Gorham. Find out what can grow from even a barren landscape.

From November 7 through 16, check out the timeless tale of Shakuntala, an ancient Sanskrit piece revived by Assunta Kent. It includes music and dance to tell the story of a king who finds his perfect match but must elude a curse to win her.

Rounding out the fall semester at USM will be two student plays, Ghosting by Michael Thomas Toth and Goin’ to Graceland by M. Calien Lewis, performed together December 5 through 13 at the St. Lawrence Arts Center. Ghosting is a peek inside the lives of performers in a city theater, while Graceland is a set of character studies linked in a pilgrimage to Elvis’s home.

BEST STUFF WE USUALLY COVER

The Public Theatre in Lewiston earns top billing with two strong and intriguing fall pieces. First there’s Red Herring (October 10 through 19), of which director Christopher Schario says, "Imagine Sam Spade meets I Love Lucy." This 1950s noir comedy will have to be done well to work, but the Public Theatre is great at finding the best actors for the roles.

Then comes The Belle of Amherst (November 7 through 16). Based on the life of poet Emily Dickinson, the play stars Ellen Crawford, who was last onstage in Lewiston in the same show during a break from E.R.

Good Theater has also picked a strong starting pair. First, September 25 through October 19, is Baby, a Tony-nominated musical following three couples, in their twenties, thirties, and forties, each of whom is having a baby. Explore that life change with GT regulars Stephen Underwood and Kelly Caufield, and musical director Beth Barefoot Jones. Second (November 6 through 30) is Loot, by British comic playwright Joe Orton, a black comedy deftly twisting corpses into money and cops into robbers.

Penobscot Theater Company has updated its schedule. No more Moon Over Buffalo; instead put A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters on the calendar (October 1 through 12). It’s a picture of a friendship painted in the letters two people write to each other over the course of their lives. And from November 5 through 23, William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker will take the stage, telling the story of Annie Sullivan and her famous student, Helen Keller.

Mad Horse will have a fascinating production about starting over on September 12, 2001, in The Mercy Seat by Neil LaBute. Facing their true identities, two New Yorkers (played by Craig Bowden and Christine Louise Marshall) dive into themselves. Keep your eyes on the Portland Stage Company Studio Theater October 16 through 26.

Down the hall at Portland Stage Company proper, the season begins September 23 with Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors, in which mistaken identities nearly shipwreck a reunion of people split years ago by, well, a shipwreck.

NEW STUFF WITH BEST POTENTIAL

Jason Wilkins’ Naked in Portland is an original musical by a former theater reviewer for the other alt-weekly and currently a reviewer for the city’s main daily. Having crossed the line into being reviewed, Wilkins is mixing love, sex, and art, following three young women "as they learn how to become the people they want to be." Directed by R.J. McComish, who knows how to guide a cast towards even a strange vision, and featuring Lisa Muller-Jones and Tavia Lin Gilbert among others, the show should be worth a look, though it’ll be a challenge to shoehorn a full musical into the cramped PSC Studio Theater (September 19 through October 5).

Emerging from their own secure, undisclosed location are Castle Theater Productions’ Tony Cox and Anthony Pizzuto. After a three-year silence, the 22-year-old Tonys are back with Agency (November 20 through 23) by UMaine-Machias theater professor Lee Rose. It’ll be a world premiere, but in all the hoopla about their personal career developments in the past 36 months, the Tonys — who won’t even be in the show — neglected to say what it is about.