Life and Trust

Posted on April 22, 2026 by RegenAxe

Life and Trust is a spin on the Faust story by Emursive, the immersive theater company that reworked Macbeth in the style of Hitchcock for Sleep No More. The German legend of Faust tells the tale of a dissatisfied alchemist who makes a pact with the devil for success, riches, and love. But when your soul is for the taking, the deal is bound to go sour. In Life and Trust, Faust is Mr. Conwell, a banking magnate. On the evening of a big celebration at Conwell Tower, a bank built upon the fortunes of a magic syrup that cured his ailing sister, the wearied executive learns the stock market has plummeted. His entire fortune disappears in a blink, delivered to the audience members in his office with a mix of casual venomous disdain. Before he tries to take his own life, one of Satan’s minions offers him the chance to return to his original sin. From there, audience members follow various characters in their pursuit of pleasure, power, and legacy.

Automatons

Posted on April 10, 2026 by RegenAxe

Dan’s Masquerade Gloves

Dan’s Masquerade Violin

Dan is considering going to LA next month. Specifically, UCLA to give a talk on automatons. Leveraging his work last year for the immersive theater musical¹ Masquerade, which is still running. This show is a retelling of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera using the immersive theater format. Immersive theater is a performance style that breaks the fourth wall, placing the audience directly inside an often site-specific, 360-degree environment where they can become active participants in the show, rather than just passive observers.

For this show Dan made six automatons that were designed to augment the musical. While still in development two of them are shown operating above, mechanical hands wearing opera gloves clapping and a violin playing itself. It is on the strength of this work that Dan has this opportunity to go to Hollywood.

For Dan, this work is a labor of love, as shown below with one of his 40K models. Whether the theme is steampunk or plain out gothic, his talents lend themselves to creating these devices. It was serendipity for him that he scored his first gig in immersive theater, Life and Trust. He did set construction for it for almost a year, many times longer than the show actually ran. Most of that job was carpentry, but he also made some automatons there too. That gig led to Masquerade, which now appears to have opened the door to this UCLA visit.

Warhammer 40K Kharadron Ironclad Automaton Under Construction

Masquerade now bills itself as the first immersive theater musical.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead

Posted on April 5, 2026 by RegenAxe

Formerly a Woolworth’s, the Kranzberg Arts Center on Grand is a venue that we have visited many times before, for art shows that have been displayed in its gallery. I never knew that it also housed a theater. Located at the intersection of Olive and Grand, it acts as a gatekeeper between the midtown theater district, with the Fabulous Fox and the ever-expanding St. Louis University campus. The so-called SLU-ification of midtown. Its location reminds me of a Saint Louis centric joke that I heard when I first moved to town: Did you hear about Popeye when he came to town? He went down on Olive and thought that it was Grand. After fifty years it now qualifies as a dad joke, because I had to explain it to you.

This play by Tom Stoppard centers upon two minor characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In that play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are courtiers and former college alums of Hamlet and they become tasked to escort Hamlet to England by his uncle, who after making too much of a nuisance of himself, his uncle orders executed. On the boat ride to England, Hamlet steals the note from his uncle instructing the King of England what to do with Hamlet and substitutes another that names Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as the ones to be killed. In Hamlet they both die, giving this play its title.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is an absurdist comedy that Anne aptly likened to Abbott and Costello meet Cheech and Chong. It is what you get when two minor characters think that the world is all about them. There’s an old joke about the actor who is hired to play the gravedigger in Hamlet. “What is the play about?” his wife asks. “It’s about a gravedigger who meets a prince.” Frankly, I could not tell you what this play is about. Maybe, like the TV show Seinfeld, it is about nothing. Other than dialog not much happens. Even this becomes fodder.

We were on time for the show, which started late anyway, but with a sold-out house, we had to climb the rickety stadium seating to the far corner, for the last two available seats. Once seated, the woman sitting next to me offered her assistance in the event of an emergency. Getting up at intermission to use the restroom, I noticed other less adept patrons having to crawl out of their seats. My other complaint had to do with the lighting or lack thereof. Even to get to the seating, we first had to navigate a “stage” littered with props. Thank God that there was no emergency during this show, even if one of the actors yelled fire in the dark. Compared to the rather staid experience of the Rep with its audience full of stuffy old doctors and lawyers it felt quite avant guard.

Ring of Fire

Posted on March 27, 2026 by RegenAxe

Dinner and a show last night, but first Gyro. Amber Alert! Amber had some gossip, just days before the streets and parking lot outside the studio were the scene of a shootout and highspeed chase as two cars circled each other guns a blazing. Apparently, no one was hit and all that was left was a massed cop car callout. Her news and the workout she put us through were enough to lead us to dueling couch naps in the afternoon. We awoke in time for dinner and the show.

Anne had the cioppino, a seafood medley and I had the walleye. The theater was a madhouse. Two productions were being performed. There was the hot new show that is all sold out now and ours, Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire. Ring featured almost thirty of his songs strung together with the story of his life. The tunes were good. Afterwards, the cold front had arrived, driving the days record high temperatures down, down, down. Summer is over and winter is back.

Primary Trust

Posted on February 13, 2026 by RegenAxe

Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Eboni Booth’s heartwarming play, Primary Trust offers up a modern, tiki-lit homage to slices of Americana. Kenneth’s predictable life—Mai Tais at his favorite bar, Wally’s, and a steady job at a local bookstore—unravels, forcing him to confront a childhood loss amid the uncertainties of adulthood. With guidance from an imaginary friend, a kind waitress, and a splash of liquid courage, he discovers that trust, love, and friendship—much like the perfect Mai Tai—are best mixed in unexpected ways.

Primary Trust is about Kenneth dealing with change—his only job, ever is going away. When you first walk in, you are immersed in his upside-down world—quite literally. The set itself appears upside down, a creative decision meant to mirror the main character’s turmoil. Kenneth doesn’t really know how he fits in this world. He’s dealing with trauma and trying to figure out how to heal. His coping mechanisms—including relying on an imaginary friend, Bert—seem strange, but as his story is told, you see the deep roots of his emotional survival.

Primary Trust is set in the mythical town of Cranberry, New York, located forty miles east of Rochester. It is a small enough town that everyone knows everyone else, except for Kenneth. That is because his circle of friends is so small. Expanding that circle is the journey that is made in this play. Although the playwright and most of the cast is black and this is Black History month, the play is not really about race. Primary Trust is the name of the bank where Kenneth gets a job after the bookstore closes, but as the name of the play, it signifies the deep level of trust that Kennith needs to develop with other people.

Hamnet

Posted on January 30, 2026 by RegenAxe

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children. One of them, their only son was named Hamnet. In both the movie and the book, it is asserted that the names Hamnet and Hamlet were considered interchangeable in Elizabethan times. Hamnet died at age eleven. This is all we know about him.

In Hamnet, Anne Hathaway is called Agnes because that is the name her father, Richard Hathaway, used for her in his will, in which he referred to “my daughter Agnes”. This name change indicates that Agnes was likely her baptismal name, with the two names being interchangeable at that time. And I thought that only Elizabethan spelling was all loosie-goosey.

Pictured above is Agnes as a groundling at the Globe. She has come to London for the first time and is watching Hamlet be performed. This scene comes at the end of the movie, a movie where Will and Agnes first meet in the forest, fall in love, then marry and have three children.

This is a very sensual film, with much of the “action” being supplied by childbirth, then followed by death. In-between these traumatic turns daily life is composed of happier times, the couple teaching their children, Agnes, daughter of a forest witch, instructs them about plants and their uses and Will, the storyteller, about make-believe. Other than in these childhood games, absent is Shakespeare’s art, as absentee as he is while away working in London.

Like Hamlet, Hamnet is a tragedy. Unlike Hamlet, where in the fifth act everyone dies, in the ending of Hamnet we are treated to a spiritual rebirth. Shakespeare uses Hamlet to grieve for his son and when Agnes sees this a reconciliation occurs. By this time there is not a dry eye in the house, so bring plenty of tissue when you come to see it.

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