On Stage
Thorsten appeared in many stage productions at the Hilberry Theatre, a unique graduate repertory theater in Detroit. Reviews of some of these producations are available here.
Above: As Eilert Loevborg in Hedda Gabler
Main Section
As Christian, with Tami Evans
and Peter Toran.
The Detroit News
by Kenneth Jones, Published February 15, 1993
A seemingly untrimmed Cyrano de Bergerac at the Hilberry Theater runs three hours and fifteen minutes, but delivers a moving finale under Margaret Spear's direction. Edmond Rostand's romantic verse drama is set in 1640 France, the era of the Musketeers, but the "heroic comedy," as it is called, was actually written in the late 19th century in response naturalism.
Audiences wanted lyric dialogue, grand heroes, and fetching inamorata, like Roxanne, who was so emotionally deep she fell in love with men's souls, not just their looks. The attractive Hilberry production is drenched in a literal romantic glow by lighting designer John S. Montgomery, who enhances the poetry of theater's second most famous balcony scene.
A silhouetted Roxanne (Tami Evans) is perched in the light of her yonder balcony window, as deformed Cyrano (Peter Toran) speaks love, standing in for the handsome but unversed Christian (Thorsten Kaye).
Since Kaye and Toran rush it a little, under-realizing the scene's situational playfulness, there's more pressure on Cyrano's 11 o'clock farewell, when his unrequited torching for Roxanne is finally revealed.
Toran, in a putty nose, masterfully plays tender and tenacious throughout the evening, and his adieu is a rewarding emotional knockout.
That final scene is delicately underscored by composer Michael Richard Plowman, and witnessed by the strong Evans, Michael S. Ouimet and Arion Alston, remnants of a company that overflows with panache.