The Arthropologist

Two fresh faces with pitch-perfect voices: Life Could be a Dream for Next toNormal theater duo

Mark Ivy as Henry and Rebekah Stevens as Natalie in Stages Repertory Theatre'sproduction of Next To Normal
Photo by Bruce Bennett
Adam Gibbs as Denny, from left, Rebekah Stevens as Lois, Mark Ivy as Eugene andDylan Godwin as Wally in Life Could be a Dream at Stages Repertory Theatre
Photo by Bruce Bennett
Shelley Calene Black and Mark Ivy in Stages Repertory Theatre's production ofRabbit Hole
Photo by Bruce Bennett
Mark Ivy in Little Shop of Horrors offered by Theatre Under the Stars
Photo by Christian Brown
Rebekah Stevens is as Scheherazade in Elizabeth Egloff's Ether Dome at AlleyTheatre
Photo by Jann Whaley
From left, Cameron Bautsch as Skip, Dylan Godwin as Wally, Adam Gibbs as Denny,Mark Ivy as Eugene and Rebekah Stevens as Lois in Life Could be a Dream atStages Repertory Theatre
Photo by Bruce Bennett

Wandering through the halls where Houston Arts Alliance meets Stages Repertory Theatre, I heard the voices of angels. OK, so maybe they were actors. Angels, actors — does it really matter when they sound that good?

The cast of Life Could be a Dream was rehearsing their pitch-perfect crooning from the musical review factory of Roger Bean, who gave us the long running The Marvelous Wonderettes. When I found out that Mark Ivy and Rebekah Stevens were in the show, the very couple who blew me away in Stages' recent production of Next to Normal, I thought it might be time to sit down with these up and coming actors, who have been wowing me and Houston audiences for over a year now.

Oh to be young, good looking, talented and able to belt out "Rama Lama Ding Dong" with oodles of finesse.

Young actors staying in Houston is always a favorite subject; two uber strong performers, even more reason to get excited. Many leave, and for good reasons. New York does look fun, until you get there.

After graduating with her musical theater degree from the University of Northern Colorado, Stevens did head to New York, where she discovered waitressing and not enough auditions. Since being in Houston, she's been on stage nonstop.

"It's the best move I've ever made," Stevens says. "You can really build your resume in a city like Houston, which has a terrific regional theater scene."

And build she did, making a name for herself in such standout plays as The Little Dog Laughed and Reasons To be Pretty at Theatre Lab Houston, followed by Ether Dome and The Seagull at the Alley Theatre. Then came her knockout performance as Natalie in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal, where she made her Stages debut, and I discovered that she also has a lovely singing voice.

Ivy grew up in Houston, studied at the TUTS' Humphreys School of Musical Theatre and was as a regular audience member at Stages.

"I take pride in the fact that I'm cultivating my career here and building a nice resume in the fourth largest city in America," he says. "I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have worked with a few reputable theaters before going off to the big city if that's what I choose to do."

Ivy made a stunning professional debut at Stages in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole as Jason, the teen who accidentally kills a tiny boy running out from behind a car. The TUTS alum performed in Stages' Panto holiday productions and other shows before he graduated from Sam Houston State University.

"I take pride in the fact that I'm cultivating my career here and building a nice resume in the fourth largest city in America," Ivy says.

"I was already in working at TUTS in Little Shop of Horrors," says Ivy, about his seamless transition from school to the professional stage.

Ivy and Stevens have survived a whirlwind couple of months, which included rehearsing their current show, while still performing the gut-wrenching emotional roller coaster of a musical Next to Normal. Their lives were day and night sing-a-thons. The two bonded early on in the rehearsal process.

"I'm here for you, you are here for me, let's do it," says Stevens, about her working relationship with Ivy. "We had to give it everything we had every single night."

The transition from super serious Normal to Bean's lighthearted review wasn't as easy as it looked. Life Could be a Dream may have a scant plot, but it's a non-stop song extravaganza, featuring a collection of best loved songs from the 1960s.

"It's vocal Olympics for me," says Ivy, who is a tenor by training. "It's really challenging in terms of the range of vocal styles."

Stevens, an oldies fan, sounds just like Anita Humes of The Essex when she spills her heart out in "Easier Said than Done." Ivy, who is also a dancer, gets to play the klutsy comic role of Eugene, where he really had to work on not being his coordinated self. "It's been fun to leave the audience laughing instead of sobbing," Ivy quips.

The rest of the Dream cast, Cameron Bautsch, Adam Gibbs and Dylan Godwin also deserve a shout out of their terrific performances.

Life Could be a Dream keeps a dreamin' until Sep. 2. After that, Stevens can be seen at the Alley Theatre in Death of a Salesman, and Ivy will be taking his first break in a year in a half. As with all artists, futures are uncertain. Ivy and Stevens may leave for other theater pastures. For now, you still have plenty of time to catch two of Houston's freshest faces doo wopping their hearts out and sounding great in the process. "Sh-Boom" rarely sounds this good. Don't miss out.

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Movie Review

New horror movie Faces of Death puts a modern twist on cult classic

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy — in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks — is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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