By Albert Goodwyn

Emiliano and his daughter Marina


















Photo courtesy of Barbara Michelson-Harder

Symbolism reigns supreme in the plays of Nilo Cruz, and Off Broadway West Theatre Company pays close attention to his use of metaphoric representation in their lively current production of Beauty of the Father. In a southern Mediterranean setting, four characters, with the help of a ghost, meet to resolve a love triangle between an eccentric Spanish artist, his estranged American daughter and her Moroccan boyfriend. In the end, the ghost of Federico García Lorca chooses to take the bullet meant for the bisexual lover. "It only takes a few seconds," he tells us.

Lorca was an avant-garde poet, playwright and theatre director who was assassinated during the Spanish Civil War. In Cruz' play, the Lorca character talks only to the patriarch artist Emiliano, unseen by everyone else, except -- inexplicably -- during a picnic. Through his lines he gives background and narration to the audience, as well as counsel to Emiliano. Director Richard Harder's use of stage freezes during the highly symbolic eclipse sequence naturally provides a physical interpretation of Lorca's monologue where he states that everything "can be arrested when the moon passes between the sun and the earth."

In the opening of this production -- after some explosive Flamenco dancing by Shannon Botts -- father Emiliano (Durand Garcia) is painting at an easel stage right and his daughter Marina (Natasha Chacon) Is standing stage left bemoaning an empty birdcage. We only visualize the free bird, and we only see the painting at the end. This two-edged allegory about creation and loss, freedom and sacrifice gives a foretaste of further deft weaving of interlocking, visually depicted tropes.

Harder smoothly and unobtrusively develops the meaning of these stage turns. Michael Carlisi enters as Lorca in his ice-cream suit and white shoes, looking pale as a disembodied spirit, and taunts Emiliano about the death of Emiliano's first wife and the arrival of their daughter with Karim (Chris Holland), his former lover. Emiliano is disturbed to see his little bad boy Moroccan perfume salesman again, especially with his daughter. The scent of jealousy and betrayal reeks through the Andalusia hacienda. Emiliano wants to be rid of Karim and drags out a long shotgun. Even Marina is innocently taken aback. "I didn't know that my father and Karim were …" She trails off, unable to formulate -- or face -- her thoughts. Emiliano's second wife Paquita (Jeanette Sarmiento) begs to light the fire and burn the demons.
 
Harder's pacing steadily develops and intensifies the tension. The actors provide workmanlike but uneven portrayals. The ghost mumbles in a vaguely Castilian accent, but his smooth insouciance toward mortality is charming. The histrionic artist is too obviously waiting for his next line cue, but warms up in Act II. The second wife shifts from being completely in character to staring into the middle distance in search of her next line. The daughter actress stays halfheartedly in character, creating half of a charming young woman when she displays reserved contact with her father. The lover boy is low key and can't seem to muster up any sense of old affection for the father, but his consistent eagerness to please all sides strongly drives the production. The sense of place is well realized by Director Harder's set, and the minimal use of props concentrates the focus on the interactions of the characters themselves, be they live or dead.

This romantic production speaks Cruz' poetry eloquently on many different levels. The show is technically flawless. Presenting but not overemphasizing the philosophical implications of the compelling story adds mystical dimensions. The dramatic spectacle alone, the sense of eavesdropping on a real incident, is a grand engrossing show, regardless of the many layers of interpretation.

Beauty of the Father continues through March 13 at The Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($30) are available online at www.offbroadwaywest.org or by phone at 800.838.3006.

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Wozzeck Sung as Film Noir

By Albert Goodwyn

Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck, derived from Georg Büchner's play, takes the hapless title character through moral depravity, weird science, illegitimacy, jealousy, infidelity, and murder. The music of the early Twentieth Century opera, just produced at Yerba Buena Center by Ensemble Parallèle, is modern with aggressively atonal passages perfectly suited to the brutal happenings on stage, tempered by lushly romantic passages. On a set with shapes as biting and angular as the music, accompanied by video projections, a stellar cast of local artists gave a performance to rival any other opera company in The City.

Set in a small garrison town in Germany about 1835, Wozzeck is a lowly army barber. As he is shaving his Captain, the officer chides him for having an out-of-wedlock child with a prostitute. Marie the mother dotes on the preadolescent child, but she and Wozzeck no longer get along. In fact she has her eye on a new conquest, the pompous Drum Major. After he rapes her, Wozzeck's jealousy can no longer be contained. He kisses her one last time by a moonlit pond, then stabs her. Searching for the knife, he comes to a bad end.

Berg's hybrid style of avant-garde music was sensitively performed by an ensemble of musicians from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the energetic conducting by Nicole Paiement, Artistic Director and Founder of the Conservatory. She describes the score as being "at turns terrifying, serene, transparent, and then obscured." The singers were all ably articulated the nuances of Berg's jumps and slides into and out of melody and dissonance.

As the half-mad Wozzeck, bass-baritone Bojan Knezevic never fails to thrill and elicit sympathy with his rich, highly trained voice. The recent graduate of scholarship programs at San Francisco Opera is also a skilled actor, projecting his emotional plight with an internal consistency of facial gestures. His intensity is matched by SFOpera compatriot bass-baritone Philip Skinner as The Doctor who experiments on Wozzeck and finds his dead body. Having worked together in several other operas, the two play off of each other with genuine character and both produce flawlessly rich, entirely different voices. But tenor John Duykers as the bumptious drunken Captain tended to overawe them with his comic interpretation and assertive voice. Mezzo-soprano Patricia Green as the tragic Marie sang the high notes of her soaring plaintive pleadings with a pure sustain.

Ensemble Parallèle's cinematic-style staging made elaborate use of large-scale video projections of live singing and prerecorded clips to set scenes and to highlight the action. The monochrome projections and the steely dark set gave the show a nourish style. Seeing the singing faces enlarged on screen at the same time as watching them live made for a different operatic experience. The show brought together grand opera and theatre. The Ensemble has a lengthy history of ambitious, greatly successful operatic productions, the last being Lou Harrison's Young Caesar. They will next participate in the Pacific Rim Festival in April with an all-Varèse concert.

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  Doubt: A Parable

  By Albert Goodwyn

(l - r) Roselyn Hallet as Sr. James, Scarlett Hepworth as Sr. Aloysius and
Andrew Nance as Fr. Flynn


Photo by Lois Tema

The conflict of John Patrick Shanley's play Doubt, now at New Conservatory, is between certainty and suspicion. This intensely intimate production starkly illuminates the themes of pederasty and guilt within the Roman Catholic Church. The severely economical staging in the black box Walker Theatre brings the erring priest and the vindictive nun right into the laps of the audience. The effect is thought-provoking, heart-rending and sometimes humorous.

Sister Aloysius (played with an almost vicious self-righteousness by Scarlett Hepworth) is the disciplinarian principal of a school for difficult boys. She has been looking for the chance to bring down the over friendly Father Flynn (Andrew Nance paying close attention to the nuances of a weak holy man), and she gets it with the help of a naïve young eighth-grade teacher Sister James. Roselyn Hallett, in the most consistently inhabited performance in the play, enacts her with a palpable sense of compassion.

A major character is never seen: the altar boy who seems to be Fr. Flynn's pet. We only get to meet the boy's mother, who wants the situation left alone because she knows the boy is "that way." Pamela Smith's black patois and her act of indignity is forced at first, but as she warms up to the part she becomes intensely involved and vehement, expressing a mother's acceptance and love

Sr. Aloysius' overbearing strictness looms over the cleverly lit play even when she is offstage. Fr. Flynn's inner turmoil becomes more pathetic as the doubt of his guilt slowly changes to certainty. Sr. James presents an ideal of purity and innocence.

Shanley's writing deftly interweaves a number of very specific themes with ambiguous propositions and Ben Randle's direction highlights both sides with a highly developed sense of aesthetic sensibility.

Doubt: A Parable continues through February 28 at New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. Tickets ($22 to $40) are available online at www.nctcsf.org or by phone at 415.861.8972.
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Tim Barsky and his Bright River combo on stage







Photo courtesy of Laird Archer





The Bright River flows through Iraq, the afterlife and South Berkeley. Tim Barsky’s critically acclaimed musical has reopened in a larger venue, Brava Theater Center. Barsky as narrating musician of his hip-hop opera sings about his search for a girl named Calliope, his meeting with a raven and his confrontation with an Arab who says, “Please do not give us any more democracy.” As he moves around a stage set with urban detritus, he is accompanied by drums, a cello, a human beat box, and himself on flutes. He plays more than one to accompany his story as the music builds to a crescendo finale.

From the moment he enters through the house to the stage, his flute and piccolo playing repeatedly punctuate his narration. His playing is at first discordant, but by the time he reaches the stage, his command of musical artistry informs the show. At first it looks like a lone piper piping through the wilderness with naïve expectations for his trek to the big city. Then he becomes the leader of a smoothly synchronized musical production with sophisticated themes.

His unerring sensitivity to the rhythms of street argot and the casual fluency of his person-to-person impressionist attitudes create distinct, richly detailed but brief glimpses into everyday struggles of specific societal groups, such as mystics, super-naturalists, Jews, and Arabs. His enthusiastically animated delivery takes the show beyond the club scene -- clubs would be thrilled to present such an ambitious act -- and into the leading thrust of contemporary performance styles. The imagery and cadences of his language are reminiscent of Beatitude poetry, and the gritty landscapes he depicts recall the critical observations of Kerouac or Ginsberg. The music he has written gives an up-to-date texture to that ancient style. He shifts characters with major changes in his voice. Sometimes he speaks as himself, setting up the story of Calliope. Other times he speaks in a raspy Tom Waits-like voice. He interacts in this way with a detective and the raven. The people he describes range from an Iraqi to a social worker. His meanderings take him across the set and to a rooftop, all the while earnestly and effectively engaging the audience.

Onstage, his backup trio plays with an edge. Percussionist Kevin Carnes hits his drum kit with a lively, forceful beat and provides some preprogrammed riffs. Cellist Alex Kelly provides a solid bass foundation, usually bowing the strings but sometimes plucking them. His solo is a weepy, discordant plaint. Carlos Aguirre plays himself as a human beat box. His ability to create and mimic sounds with his voice is impressive and distinctive. In his solo he enacts a club bouncer checking cards. When he mimes opening the door occasionally, he creates loud party sounds. Also, in his trainers, he does a soft-shoe with tap sound effects.

During the show, Barsky thanked the large opening night audience for coming out on a Wednesday night to promote independent Bay Area theatre. He deserves our thanks for daring to take risks, using a thoroughly credible contemporary setting and putting on a good show.

The Bright River continues through February 20 at Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($15 to $25) are available online at http://wwwbrownpapertickets.com/event/90226 or by phone at 800.838.3006. More information can be found at http://www.thebrightriver.com.
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By Albert Goodwyn

Don Reed








Photo by Keith Leman

Oakland's East 14th Street (now International Boulevard) was a crime-ridden major thoroughfare in the 1970s when comedian Don Reed was growing up there.  Reed's enacted tales of depravity humanize the neighborhood experience of becoming a player there and then. In his show East 14th, now reappearing at The Marsh after a successful off-Broadway engagement, he offers true tales of a reluctant player. He energetically portrays differing people he ran across in his teenage years. He shifts effortlessly and distinctively as he tells of living with his father the pimp and of his seeking sex while lacking in balls. He admits he had only nuts. His father tries to help, and his brothers guide and protect him from manipulative thugs and harlots.

With a brief but densely informational set-up about where he lived and what his father was like, Reed follows the timeline of his quest to lose his virginity. His self-assured brother, who does break-dance moves every time he speaks, tries to instruct him on how to be a player, but Don is too nice a guy to shove women around the way his brother does. His brother's illustration of those methods involves a demanding ultimatum on the phone. When Don tries it he winds up with a joint and $2, far different from the terms prompted by his brother.

Don's mother and father were separated; the mother gets very little time on stage. Don moves back into his father's house on East 14th. He closes Act I with a cliffhanger about how his father plotted to get him to lose his virginity. "Y'all ain't gonna believe this shit," he says as the stage blacks out and he exits.  Later, left alone in the house with his father's sly benefactions, Don takes a phone call. It's Merle "from up the street" who wants to suck his dick. He says ok, but when she arrives his torturously slow reaction to her at the door is exquisitely performed. He takes his time with this one, making it obvious that he can't believe his eyes, then allowing himself a response. He describes graphically her missing front teeth -- which becomes one of several running gags -- and he convincingly mimes her jiggling overweight. He thinks she moves too fast. Then when he is confronted with the opportunity to pick up on his brother's girlfriend, he mimes himself as a vulture, scavenging the remains of a painful death, except that his brother is none too pained by it; he just wants to be rid of her, as is evidenced by Don's one-man enactments of a three-person car altercation on the Bay Bridge.

There are many other incidental characters, such as Steakface and Troutmouth with strongly vivid faces -- on Don -- who enrich the texture of his tapestry of life in an ethnic neighborhood where he faces sexual confrontations largely initiated by the woman. His writing is mostly free of black patois, sticking largely to standard English. Reed has a strong track record of stand-up and comedy writing, but his artistry shines in his quick shifts between characters and his skillful verbal and physical introduction to each one. His mime and characterizations, along with clever and striking vocalizations, bring to life his reminiscences of being the son of a pimp growing up among tough guys. His distinctive facial contortions artistically animate the characters he displays. East

14th true tales of a reluctant player continues through January 16 at The Marsh, 1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco. On January 22 (through February 13) the show will move to The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. Tickets ($20 to $50) are available online at www.themarsh.org and www.brownpapertickets.com or by phone at 800.838.3006.

By Albert Goodwyn

In “Astounding Conviction,” a lone man in Tiananmen Square opposes an oppressive government.

Photo courtesy of New Tang Dynasty TV






The Year of the Tiger is approaching. In the Chinese calendar, the current year of the calm and dependable Ox will give way to the rebellious, unpredictable Tiger. Shen Yun Performing Arts' spectacular New Year celebration on the Opera House stage features song and dance from classical Chinese culture. They recount tales of simple pleasures or derring-do in scenes ranging from a celestial kingdom with angels in clouds to the Great Wall. A large company of dancers performs perfectly synchronized choreography to live orchestra with elaborately constructed traditional costumes, different for each act. Shen Yun's guiding principle thematically informs the show; to promote humanity's divinely-inspired cultural heritage in the face of a repressive society. The uplifting spirit of hopefulness shines through beautifully in each of the twenty-one acts.

The individual acts include an ethnic dance routine to a Chinese fairy tale to a pilgrimage in search of Buddhist scriptures. The northeastern folk dance "Handkerchiefs" captures youthful energy flourishing and blossoming as the maidens twirl and toss their napkins. "Tibetan Dance of Praise" expresses the spirituality of Falun Dafa principles, which Shen Yun follows. "In a Miao Village” is a folk dance from one of China’s oldest ethnic groups. In their ornate costumes -- with bells -- the dancers move in front of a stunning moving backdrop on a stage-wide, technologically advanced projection screen. With rice paddies in the background, they use a “unique Chinese posture” as the dancers feed through each other in precise choreography, taking them through staggered entrances in smoothly alternating rows. "Wu Song Battles the Tiger" tells of a village hero who -- after drinking much sake -- chases a ravaging tiger onto the projection screen in clever animation. Then he returns to the stage with his quarry hanging from a stick.

The costumes are a show in themselves with elegant detailing and historical accuracy. “Mongolian Hospitality” presents dancers in persimmon dresses with broad gold hues and thick royal blue piping. They use household plates as castanets. In “Flowing Silk” young maidens in green, white and fuchsia colors wave their over long “water sleeves” as they dance against a backdrop of a lake with cherry trees and a pavilion. All the costumes are gorgeous, and the dancers make them move with graceful symmetry.

Shen Yun's orchestra uses modern western and traditional Chinese instruments. For a solo “Saving the Predestined,” Xiaochun Qi plays the erhu, a two-stringed, bowed instrument, with grand piano accompaniment. The tune is sweetly melodic with a wailing weeping quality. Tenor Hong Ming's “Calmly Take a Look” uses pure highs to offer an optimistic message with words he composed. His thin voice but well controlled voice has good sustain and a beautiful vibrato: just the right amount to impress but not enough to overwhelm.
 
The political message is clear. In “Nothing Can Block the Divine Path,” figures fly on from the screen, leading to well coordinated physical entrances. Police persecute citizens. The announcer informs us that, “The injustice we just saw is still happening in China today.” Baritone Qu Yue sings “As the Red Regime sinks” with a strikingly pure voice and a well controlled tremolo.

Shen Yun continues through January 7 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. The touring show then moves to San Jose and Sacramento. Tickets ($40 to $160) are available online at www.cityboxoffice.com or by phone at 415.392.4400. For more information please visit www.Shenyunperformingarts.org.

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By Albert Goodwyn

(l – r) Katie Guthorn, Carol Bozzio Littleton and Darby Gould as The Coverlettes

Photo by David Allen

Cover band interpretations frequently provide new insight to the original works. Local rock band artists “The Coverlettes” dig up their material from the glorious days of the late Fifties. This trio, all members of noted Bay Area contemporary bands, don their slinky sequined mini dresses and giant bouffant hairdos to recollect the Christmas songs of the doo-wop era, a style of heavily synchronized stage choreography and group harmonizing. They pay tribute to such singing idols as The Shirelles, The Chantelles and Martha and the Vandellas. Aurora’s Artistic Director Tom Ross has remounted his conception for this year’s holiday season show The Coverlettes Cover Christmas with a few new boughs and decorations. On a seasonally decorated stage, backed by a trio on piano, bass and drums, the three ladies with a high tolerance for hairspray give marvelously rousing interpretations of rock Christmas songs that were widely popularized by such performers as Brenda Lee (“Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree”), Jimmy Boyd (“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” with a heavy rock beat, like The Ronettes' top-40 hit) and their own softly harmonic take on the traditional carol with “We Three Queens of Orient Are.”

In a lively, non-secular show, Darby Gould of Jefferson Starship sings and dances with Carol Littleton and Katie Guthorn of the twelve-piece rock and soul band Big Band Beat. Their harmonized vocalization of familiar tunes is exquisitely rendered with no missed notes or inappropriate vocal stretches. When not choralising they swap off lead parts; each one has a strong, distinctly different performance personality. Their occasional solos demonstrate their professional versatility as they merrily deliver classics. The artfully enacted song selections range from “Leader of the Pack,” “Da Doo Run Run” and “Hanky Panky” to “Set Me Free,” “Silver Bells” and “White Christmas.”

In this holiday show, the trio sings perennial favorites for a family audience, while wearing provocatively tight-fitting mid-thigh gowns and moving suggestively in traditional rock and roll blocking. This is an intimate show with no dramatic staging techniques – such as Aurora’s Artistic Director Tom Ross has paid ample attention to in typical productions. The Coverlettes sing together as a group in a rock choreography style with well-coordinated arm movements and hip sways. The untrained voices and "garage" sound of 1950s recordings are addressed in these women’s performance, and their coy subtext speaks loudly of sexual desire. Their sensuous undulations while performing “Santa Baby” leave no question about what that chimney means.

The production seeks – and finds – the nut of the doo-wop style, actually improving on the melodic style of blended pop. The lyrical innocence of the genre, combined artfully with the yearning emotional directness of gospel singing and rhythm and blues comes through forcefully from these sexy ladies. The simple and guileless lyrics enhance their demure combination of girl-next-door wholesomeness and torrid vamp. The three women sensitively recreate the angelic, mellow style of more superficial musical forms. With a subtle understanding of the musical style, they have completely rendered the seminal event in the history of Twentieth Century pop music, the merging of R & B into rock and roll, without diluting its power. In this show you will find well-known feel-good holiday music presented in subtly new ways by appealing, accomplished singers.

The Coverlettes Cover Christmas continues through December 27 at Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley. Tickets ($28) are available online at http://www.auroratheatre.org or by phone at (510) 843-4822.

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by Albert Goodwyn

Prince Albert (Rupert Friend) and Queen Victoria (Emily Blunt) take an ill-fated carriage ride.

Photo courtesy of Apparition and GK Films

Queen Victoria of England rose to the throne because of her father’s lack of a male heir, this much is true. In the movie The Young Victoria, her possible reactions and growth are dramatized in a lushly romantic costume drama of epic proportions. This film explores the development of a young woman as she rises to an extraordinary level of power and tries to shed hereditary bonds that would keep her from exercising her free will. Producers Sarah Ferguson and Martin Scorsese have paid amply close attention to historical fact.

With Emily Blunt as the Queen, the movie delineates the early years of England's longest-reigning monarch. The story begins before her accession to the throne, details her surprisingly passionate, politically motivated love affair with Prince Albert of Germany (Rupert Friend) who married her and became her Royal Consort, and ends before the royal couple complete some of the major accomplishments of the Industrial Age.

Blunt's portrayal of a privileged woman who, dominated by well-meaning but oppressive family and ministers, finds her own voice and mature confidence as she takes the throne. During the film's story Blunt exhibits first naïveté then recognition of the effects this immense worldwide power is having on her and her relationship with her lover.

Friend as the Consort does an admirable job of acting the difficult part of a bedroom companion with no constitutional status or power, but who has significant influence over his spouse. He is devoted to her, and being of royal background himself respects her power. Friend is able to show Albert’s love for his wife and to keep his stiff Teutonic spine in the face of her queenly demands.

The compelling story of Victoria’s coming of age is richly detailed with glorious costuming and site-specific location settings. She was the first English sovereign to live in Buckingham Palace; the new rooms look lovely. All dressing, props, makeup, and attitudes seamlessly interweave to evoke a bygone age. The compelling cinematography moves effortlessly from grand spectacle through palatial rooms to intimate encounters. Aside from the accurate historical narrative, the movie presents a deeply moving insight to a young woman’s ascendant struggle to fulfill her destiny as a country’s most powerful figure.

The Young Victoria opens in theaters on December 18.

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Aurelia Thierrée has used the ecclesiastical, usually vocalized oratorio form to physicalize her own religious tribute to her surreal imagination. She uses her mime, dance and acrobatic skills to perform a series of mysterious, quirky fantasies set to an unpredictable score that ranges from chamber music to jazz, all on mostly bare stage with a minimum of props. Her show, conceived for her by her mother, uses three assistants and features works by dancer Jaime Martinez. She is fascinating to watch and he gracefully enacts some bizarre situations. Co-producers Crying Out Loud UK seek to present material that is appealing to audiences of all ages.   From her opening as a contortionist inside three dresser drawers at once to her untimely demise in the sands of an hourglass, she encounters collapsing draperies, a giant ogre, a vicious gnome, and malevolent animals. Her sense of humor and sense of invention are woven tightly into the visual texture of this wordless show. To operate a small set piece she bends a rope and mimes a crank. One skit uses skewed angles and warped perspectives. She lies on the stage deck and pretends to walk across, as though she walked parallel to the Earth's surface. Then she flies a kite, but it stays on the ground and she holds the string from a flying position above the stage.   Jaime and she work together on some acts, but his solo pieces continue the theme of altered perceptions with good-natured surprises and persecution by ill-willed inanimate objects. He does amazing stunts as a three-legged man, and his fling with an empty overcoat is amusing. Then it turns comically dark when the coat turns around and tries to strangle him.   This is a great family show, ideal for the season. Aurelia is lithe and energetic. Her focus on the part at hand is lovingly intense, and she presents a strong stage presence. Jaime's modern-dance styles are refreshingly quick and he uses them succinctly to depict the theme and actions of each story. The seventy minute one-act leaves the audience ready for a second act. Seeing more of Ms. Thierrée would be an aesthetically pleasurable treat anytime of the year.   Aurelia's Oratorio continues through January 24 at Berkeley Repertory TTheatre, 2015 Addison Street, Berkeley. Tickets ($33 to $71) are available online at www.berkeleyrep.org or by phone at 510.647.2949.

A Victorian Christmas Carol in SF


This season's remounting of A Christmas Carol by ACT brings a different life to the production. Director Domenique Lozano has added some clever fillips to Carey Perloff's original stage adaptation of the Victorian novel by Charles Dickens. This retelling of the familiar story of Scrooge confronting Christmas ghosts is fast and lively with an effectively touching performance by James Carpenter as Mr. "Bah! Humbug!" himself. Other members of the large cast, including children, comport themselves with professional imagination, but Carpenter holds stage as the central figure in this story of failure and redemption.

On a set with crudely painted sliding flats, Carpenter leads the core company members and a large group of newcomers along the path to the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge. On a cold Christmas Eve, as Scrooge settles in for his gruel in a thrifty unheated room, his indigestion -- he asserts -- causes him to visualize spirits, ghosts of Christmases past, present and future, all teaching him how he has let down his fellow man by his parsimonious cynicism. By the time the Ghost of Christmas Future visits him, Scrooge is ready to repent his anti-social attitudes.

This seasonal family show is replete with monstrous visions, music, stunning but forthright scene shifts, and children dressed as vegetables. All characters become objects of fascination for Scrooge as the spirits lead him through what was, what should have been and what to expect next. The play centers on Scrooge and his reactions, but, bemused as he is by the scenes he is in but not of -- he tries to speak to the people he knew but they do not hear him -- he stands mute among the people he has known and loved.

The dramatic highlight of the staging is the appearance of the Ghost of Christmas Future -- a striking , but the supreme excellence of the acting comes when Carpenter as Scrooge is able to become happy like a little boy that he is still alive on Christmas Day. Carpenter's performance is self-effacing; he acts with forced joy as though being happy is unfamiliar to him. He acts awkward, stilted in his newly found magnanimity, but his infectious emotionalism projects loudly and clearly throughout the house, inspiring other cast members with his buoyant optimism, even when confronted by the Ghost of Christmas Future, a two-story tall rod puppet, the folded wings of which provide for entrances and exits of ignorant and wanting children, plus Businessmen who discuss the particulars of Scrooge's death    .

Scrooge lives, and brightens everybody's Christmas Day by unleashing his purse strings. The moral of Dickens' tale is timelessly relevant, and ACT's hour-and a-half rendering of the story succinctly and beautifully depicts the enlightenment of a miser.

A Christmas Carol continues through December 27 at American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($14 to $102) are available online at www.act-sf.org or by phone at 415.749.2228.

by Albert Goodwyn

(l - r) Dad Warden Lawlor, sis Cassie Powell and mom Molly Benson; (front) son James Tinsley

Photo courtesy of Wylie Herman



With dark humor and satirical wit, Wylie Herman's play Better Homes and Ammo examines the personal interactions of a family locked in a subterranean fallout shelter for months after surprise nuclear attacks. The apocalypse has landed and the proprietor of a military surplus store has herded his wife, daughter and son below ground and locked away the outside world. They deal with paranoia, bondage, brutal sadism, deceit, and incest as the fighting sounds rage.

The despotic Sid Bosra is a right-wing extremist who keeps automatic weapons at hand and stages mock torture with his family, for preparedness training. Son Spencer is rebellious and resists his father's command. Adopted sister Sally is still obsessed with the pop culture she left behind three months ago, especially her stuffed caterpillar and Oprah. Mom Angela is part Martha Stewart at keeping the shelter tidy and part Edith Bunker in her ditziness. In the end, dad proves to be at least as deceitful as his son and daughter and mom turns out to be tougher than anticipated, but not before all go through the chaos of "mandated family game night," Weekly Bible Study and discomforting sex.

With the sounds of a full blown panic blaring, the family tries to keep their sanity while desperately maintaining some normalcy. As the play progresses the tension of frayed nerves from enforced proximity becomes more complicated. Dad Sid (H. Warden Lawlor) is very upset that his iron authority is being challenged, not only by son Spencer (James Tinsley) but also by his wife (Molly Benson) and most of all by daughter Sally (Cassie Powell). He tyrannically chains the kids to the wall. Sally shows the lengths she and Spence will go to in their games when she takes a rope and he sits in a chair for the Czechoslovakian death knot. But it turns out mom knows the death knot better. Spence shows his mettle when he short-circuits the power panel and escapes topside through the automatic door.

Herman's cramped set on a small stage gives an excellent sense of claustrophobia, with beds, kitchen and living space all in the same room. His direction keeps the show moving with only a few bits of sluggish pacing. Some stage crossings are unmotivated, but all the stage activity is well focused on narrative flow. His writing follows a pattern of classic play-building: introduction to the characters and situation, revelation of complicating circumstances, all leading up to conflict, resolution and denouement.

The actors are well suited to their roles. Lawlor as dad has a strong, commanding voice, suitable for a militaristic gun nut who attributes everything to the government's "conspiracy of fear." He uses cliché gestures and recites some lines with his eyes closed, not relating to the others. Perhaps his blind tyrannical attitude is supposed to be a parody, but his superficial stereotype seems to gloss over important aspects of the dad character, like his understated reaction to the guilt he should be feeling at what he has perpetrated. Benson as the clueless mom tends to be detached from the action, as though observing it from afar. Her face remains largely static but her eyes are lively and revealing. She hits her stride when she expresses outrage about sibling sex. Tinsley as Spencer acts self-enclosed, and does not bring anything fresh to the part, but he is very effective at portraying single-minded resentment and the need for escape. Powell as Sally is by far the strongest actor. She is very involved with her character and shows many gradations of emotions in her demeanor and especially in her face. She handles the transition from loving sister to gun moll smoothly.

Ammo lampoons the American way with broad strokes. The humor of the situation is somewhat overshadowed by the stark nature of the conflict. Killing My Lobster alumnus Wylie Herman's first full-length play and No Nude Men Productions have mined the irony of a miserably failed attempt to make the best out of a worst case scenario. The thought-provoking nature of the play tends to overwhelm the potential hilarity. These people would be funny if the circumstances were not so grim. As mom says, "Always carry ammunition."

Better Homes and Ammo (a post apocalyptic suburban tale) continues through December 19 at EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($15 to $19; $1 off with canned food donation, used to decorate the fallout shelter set) are available on line at http://theexit.org or by phone at 415.867.7970.

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by Albert Goodwyn

Wall Act
Picture by Benoit Fontaine
Costumes by  Liz Vandal
© 2009 Cirque du Soleil













The egg rules the insect world in OVO, now being presented by Cirque du Soleil. The company gives its trademark athletic, fanciful performance to live music on a stage with an organic form. The costumes portray whimsical appearances of bugs, usually; some are abstruse yet still colorful. There are Spiders, a Dragonfly, Fleas, Butterflies, Ants, Scarabs, Cockroaches, Crickets, and a Mosquito. In these costumes are tumblers, contortionists, acrobats, aerialists, a juggler, and a slack-wire artist. Rounding out the show as emcees are a fly, a foreigner and a lady bug, not as energetic as the other performers but still quite lithe. The show's theme is an exploration of the bug community faced with life and death questions in the form of a giant inflatable egg.

Flipo the fly (Joseph Collard from Belgium), Étranger the foreigner (Francois-Guillaume from Canada) and Coccinelle the lady bug (Michelle Matlock from the U. S.) introduce the various acts with distractions of comic lazzi or improvisation with the audience as the scenes are set up. Through these between-the-scenes episodes, they encounter the egg and make peace with its metaphorical importance. Flipo falls in love with Coccinelle and tries to woo her. They argue and she stalks off stage. Later she returns and kisses Étranger, who is crushed. In the end the entire cold-blooded community gathers around a table for a banquet, featuring the egg. The story is plain enough, but the addition of the acrobats provides thrilling visual interludes amidst its telling.

The opening community scene, complete with egg, is set to background sounds of insect chatter. Music is provided by a banda set up stage left and right. The singer stands with the stage-right group. The sounds of Brazil are mixed with African styles to produce samba, reggae and electronic Rio funk. Cirque’s sound system is flawless, providing distortion-free amplification that fills the big tent with surround sound. Throughout the show, cricket sounds are also played on keyboard.

The invertebrates, usually the Ants and Fleas, help with scene changes. They move eighty-pound dandelions, nets, webs, and flying set pieces, all in well coordinated order. Some of them also perform circus arts. Writer and Director Deborah Colker's synchronized choreography of the community scenes, when all arthropods and arachnids are moving around on the amoeba-shaped stage, is carefully arranged and gives a visually pleasing sense of teeming activity. The upstage backdrop membrane with holes suggests a maze of tunnels or a hive.

The acts include a surprising amount of invention to spice up some standard routines, plus some innovative approaches to new material. The Creatura (Lee Brearley of the U. K. in a woven costume) has collapsing limbs like a Slinky and no head. With the size of the arms and legs, the costume suggests an elephant, but perhaps there is a bug out there that moves like that. The show opens with the egg, and a man walking on a spiral jungle-gym to elegiac music while Coccinelle looks on. Act II opens with a haunting melody and vocals, and then proceeds to a fog-shrouded web with Spiders. The inspired costuming of the Spiders here is almost scary with predatory black widows, red widows and white ones, all with hourglass shapes sewn in. The males stand by while the Spiders climb the web. Marjorie Nantel, one of the Spiders, also performs an aerial silk act in Act I called "Cocoon" where she begins inside the silk, a distinctly different approach. Foot juggling Ants twirl stuffed kiwi slices, pushing them into the air and swapping them with others. Then they manipulate corn cobs. Insect food figures large here. There is some roughness in the coordination of this act, but it is spectacular and amusing. Foot jugglers appear later as feathery legs with coconut heads sticking up from holes.

Cirque builds its repertoire to ever more difficult and stunning acts during the show. Most spectacular of all are the aerialist Scarabs. Clad in brown and gold they swing from trapezes left and right to a platform in the middle, over a net. This highly synchronized act shows off mid-air spins and tumbles with unerring catches – except once. But that’s okay; the aerialists exit their aerie by falling into the net anyway. In this and other acts, the performers who have finished their bits cleverly indicate the active ones with crouching gestures and signals to the audience.

The highlight of the show comes when the tumbling Crickets bounce on trampolines set up below a climbing wall and straight down the middle of the stage. With the trampolines' help, they pop up to the wall and walk straight up it. Their eerily insect-like ninety degree landings on the wall and repeated momentary sticking truly suggest an insect invasion; as soon as you shoo away one horde, another lands.

Gringo Cardia's set is of a largely amorphous shape, but provides for unexpected entrances through holes that open. It also provides some spaces for full-body slides. Liz Vandal's costumes are a show in themselves. Occasionally, the nature of the bug is not readily apprehended, but the Crickets are a masterpiece of engineering. When they crawl, the motion of their hind legs is effectively reminiscent of the actual insect. While there are some raw moments in this two-hour show, the performers recover adroitly without missing a beat. The visual spectacle keeps the near-capacity audience in this big tent attentive and enthralled. When the slack-wire artist (Li Wei of China) brings on his unicycle, there is audible disbelief from the house. The entire production is sweetly sensational and excitingly professional.

OVO continues through January 24 under the blue and yellow Grand Chapiteau set up near AT & T Park. Tickets for this U. S. premiere ($45.50 to $250) are available on line at www.cirquedusoleil.com or by phone at 800.450.1480.

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Linda Ayres-Frederick in Google at Fringe Marin

The edges of theatrical adventure take on many different shapes, from clever concoctions to highly experimental work. The twenty-fourth season of Fringe of Marin presents a wide variety of plays, from a darkly comic monologue to a family comedy at a MUNI bus stop. In two programs of six or seven short one-acts and solos, Dominican University Community Players enact stories of whimsy and drama from local playwrights. The six plays of Program 1 begin with In Situ by Susan Jackson, about two women who play with toys. Steve North’s farce How to Write a Play contains a surprise entrance. A Work of Art by John Robinson is billed as “A Comedy of Desire.” Wabi Sabi by Ruth Kirschner takes place under an authentic bus stop sign. Linda Ayres-Frederick’s dark comic monologue Googling for Gerson takes place on a simple set of just a table with a Mac laptop and a stool. Naomi Newman’s tragicomedy Gussie and Sam closes out Program 1. Program 2 includes seven plays: L’Amour or Less, “A Timely Comedy” by Carol Sheldon; William Chadwick’s “Twisted Drama” James Masters Is Late; Micheline Birger’s Eros and Mors is billed as a “Dramedy of Love”; Jim Fazackerly’s Dinner Memories is a family drama; The Fourth Date by Kate Gordon is a “Harmonious Tale of Modern Love”; Billie Cox’ The Bearded Lady is a “Carnaval Tale”; and Don Sampson’s What about the Couch? is a “Dark Domestic Comedy.” Program 1 plays again November 21 and 22 and December 6. Program 2 plays November 20 and 22 and December 4 and 5. Both take place at Dominican University’s Meadowlands Assembly Hall, 50 Acacia Avenue, San Rafael. Tickets ($5 to $15) are available at 415.673.3131.

By Albert Goodwyn

Jud Williford and Liliane Klein in Fat Pig

Photo by David Allen

Aurora’s current production of Fat Pig eloquently understates the ironic humor of Neil LaBute’s play. The plump girl of the title is the only one who does not parody herself. The laughs are sporadic, but the politically correct horror of the overblown plot situation is satiric and comedic because it takes seriously the agonies of these superficial people. The four actors here interact well with each other in the story, except for one, the titular heroine. She interacts only with the protagonist Tom Sullivan.

Jud Williford as Tom, the stern, efficient businessman, enacts a spectacular character shift as he becomes the shy suitor of a large woman. Tom can be firm and in control at the office but, from the guarded attraction to each other during the initial meet cute at a lunch counter to the final encounter, he is a hesitant fumble-mouth. Jud is consistent in Tom’s act of blamelessness, and he expresses succinctly a wide range of emotions, from Tom’s realization that he likes Helen a lot, despite her girth, to his barely suppressed irritation at his colleague Carter’s teasing him about the weight of his new girlfriend.

Liliane Klein as Helen Barnes portrays a woman who is comfy with her size. Her Helen is always happy and eager. The actress herself has poise and forthright posture. When her character gets into discussing her size, she heads for the cliché “big bones.” Her self-acceptance and sense of humor are a pivotal point of the play’s theme: why are you ashamed to love me just because I’m fat and why is everybody laughing at us? Klein cleverly carries into her character her own personal acceptance of having a supposedly inappropriate body mass index.

This acceptance by Liliane and Helen lucidly illustrates the ironic juxtaposition of a legitimate worry against a tongue-in-cheek send-up by the playwright – perhaps unintentional – of breathlessly earnest proclamations in favor of special rights for defined groups, in this case fat people.

Klein and Wiliford demonstrate differing types of involvement in their parts. Jud’s character shows intense inner turmoil but he holds back. Like his character he is hesitant and reluctant. Liliane indulges herself in the wantonness of Helen, just as her character does with frankfurters and ice cream.

LaBute’s play is a parody of those that try to preach and moralize, but it is one of them itself. His lines, with weight/wait puns and unintentional digs, are delivered by these actors with guileless sincerity. In interviews, the playwright characterizes himself as a troublemaker, always trying to agitate his public with the latest hot-button issue. Either he has been bottom-fishing for this theme, or he malevolently seeks to make fun of honestly sincere poets who want to better the world.

Barbara Damashek’s direction makes bold use of the Aurora’s three-quarter round stage. Sometimes the action is concentrated at one end of the stage or the other and sometimes it is spread across the entire space. This makes for succinct scene changes and a minimum of blocking problems. The sense of place -- from the office to the beach -- is distinct in each scene of this wide-ranging story. The actors have dug their teeth into these parts and portray their characters with earnest dedication to their various fatuous quests for fairness, malevolence and love.     

Fat Pig continues through December 13 at Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley. Tickets ($15 to $55) are available at www.auroratheatre.org or by phone at 510.843.4822.

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Christian Phillips as George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

 





 


   The Actors Theatre has mounted an intensely involving performance of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In Edward Albee's play, the early-morning boozing at the home of George and Martha takes its toll on the two guests, two hapless victims of the fun and games of their hosts. The acting in this production is superbly focused and well characterized. The play begins on an intimate residential living room set in an intimate performance space. George and Martha have just returned from a faculty party. During the loathing "What a dump" bit by Martha, Christian Phillips as George skillfully uses his reactions, both facial and gestural, to tell a tale of a henpecked husband. Phillips' portrayal of George is a sensitive identification with the character, keeping the seething determination for revenge just under the surface. As George is putting on his slippers, dressing down to get comfortable for home, Martha reveals that they have young guests coming over, any minute now. The languor with which Phillips wearily puts his shoes back on tells of contentment and resignation to the situation. When he later talks about their games, he delivers a thoroughly credible interpretation of a lecturing professor, as George is, when he introduces "Hump the Hostess."
       Rachel Klyce is an animated Martha. She projects a good sense of desperate self-involvement when she sits alone and talks to her daddy, who is still alive and running the University never named. This is a source of tension between her and George, and is part of her need to play biting games. George has risen only to history professor, cannot run the department and can never run the University, as had been the family plan. Martha reminds him of this fact repeatedly, and in excoriating, sadistic ways. Klyce shows personal glee when enacting Martha's bitchiness. Her intense focus on the character bears down relentlessly with exuberant gestures and a stunning stage presence. She keenly understates the exasperated depth of Martha's love for George when she says he "learns the game I play quicker than I can change the rules." The intellectual battle between the two is well and tautly waged.The hapless guests, young, upcoming Nick and his platinum-blonde bimbo wife Honey, at first are reluctant to join in the games, but in the end submit. The transition between these attitudes is well realized by Alex Alessandro Garcia as Nick. As a scientist, a biology professor, he exhibits his interest in logical observation; he studies the games for their objectives and rules, gaining a vague understanding in the end. Jessica Coghill portrays the vacuous arm-candy Honey with a great deal of self-mocking humor. Honey is the best of the four at getting drunk. When the next game comes around, she is ready to play anything. Coghill looks like shei s having fun in pumping up the part.
      George and Martha have a private game, which they inadvertently -- or not -- share witht he guests. It involves a hypothetical "son." In the end, after "Hump the Hostess" turned into a "flop," Nick is reduced to the status of "Houseboy." A tense moment of silence between him and George is timed with precision by the actors. When George and Martha have a knock-down drag-out fight about the son, the production, including lighting, set and blocking, gives a scary sense of involvement in an evening with George and Martha.
      Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? continues through December 19 at The Actors Theatre, 855 Bush Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($26 to $40) are available at http://www.actorstheatresf.org/purchase_ticketsor by phone at 415.345.1287.

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by Albert Goodwyn

        ‘Tis the season for ghost stories,and the hapless character in The Woman in Black tries to tell his onChristmas Eve, according to the script of the play now at The Phoenix Theatre.Second Wind Productions company effortlessly enthralls with their taut,gripping suspense and intense pacing. They deftly render the wide variety ofplaces and characters involved in the story.
             And for thetwo actors who tell the story, it is in a book, an actual prop. One actor, FredSharkey, is identified in the program as “Actor.” Mike Newman, the only otheractor, plays “Kipps.” The Actor reads from the book, the beginning of hishorrifying tale of the events that led up to a tragedy. His opening reading is deliberately dull and droning. Then Kipps bounds onto the stage to stop him. While directorKipps tries to pump life into the Actor’s delivery, he protests repeatedly thathe is not an actor. The stiff neophyte just wants to read the recounting of hispersonal experience with the supernatural.
             “We’ll makea Barrymore out of you yet,” Kipps repeatedly tells the Actor. As the days passwithin the play, Kipps, under the Actor’s employ, coaxes him into being abrilliant impressionist who uses distinct character shifts to portray manydifferent people. On a bare stage with a minimum of props, the situation andsetting of each scene are effectively made clear. The two characters enact asolicitor scene about the will of a reclusive widow that will lead the protagonistto her dreary house far away. Later, in that remote, spooky house, they portraynightmarish visions with a chilling sense of place. Through it all, the twoactors allow their characters to become better actors as the play progresses.
             They interchange characters with quick precision. When the author of the taletravels to a desolate, boggy coastal town, actor Sharkey does the traveling andactor Newman narrates. When he arrives at the town, Sharkey plays townspeoplewhile Newman reacts as the protagonist, the manuscript writer. The actors atThe Phoenix handled this complex set of personality changes with a cleardetermination. And it works with the actors’ well-timed entrances of newcharacters.            StephenMallatratt’s play builds on early insinuations of terror, and Director IanWalker has been sensitive to the need for the anticipation and dread to buildslowly and deliberately to the surprise twist at the end. While the logic of anactor playing an actor who becomes a better actor as a result of incidents inthe play is frightening enough, the suspense in this play makes the gruelingtension all the more scary. As written, the setting of the play is on a stage.Second Wind’s production team made great use of The Phoenix’ black-box space.The eerie setting of an empty theater combines with the fast-paced story and anominous soundscape to provide prolonged expectations in an atmosphere of doomwith effective intensity.
            The Woman in Black continuesthrough November 14 at The Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($20 - $25) are available online at http://www.theatermania.com/san-francisco/shows/the-woman-in-black_158754/or by phone at (415) 508-5614.

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by Albert Goodwyn

Jennifer Jajeh                                 Photo by Maressa Stertz

Jennifer Jajeh is a consummate impressionist, a dancer, an actress, an Arab, and a troublemaker. To be fair, trouble seems to follow her, as she recounts in her live show I Heart Hamas, just now extended at the Off-Market Theater. Jennifer herself is a single Christian American San Francisco native of Palestinian descent. Her one-woman show uses a variety of characters to detail the year and a half she spent in Ramallah, her parents' West Bank hometown just north of Jerusalem. Jennifer first went there in 2000, the time of the Second Intifada, a violent Palestinian uprising against the Israelis. She loved it and felt comfortable in the area. Her show brings to life her experiences. This is the San Francisco premiere of a show that was previewed here last summer.

On a bare stage with minimal set pieces, Jennifer assumes a multitude of identities. She uses a lectern sometimes and takes questions against a backdrop of a signboard with flashing lights. Images on a projection screen hanging upstage center provide atmosphere and further information. Her self-referential central character seems to have identity problems, at least in the eyes of others. With her non-white skin and her distinctive features, she confounds those who meet her and are seeking to learn her ethnic identity. At one point she professes to be Catholic, leading to the suggestion that she might be Irish. "I'm an American," she protests in her Arabic inflected English. Later, a crowd at a checkpoint begins chanting, "Espaniola" when they see her. She shouts back at them, "I'm not Spanish. I'm Palestinian."

Jennifer is also a documentary filmmaker. As she tells us, she was filming that confrontation at the checkpoint for Ramallah. As an actress she exhibits strong stage presence in the hour and a half show, and is especially lithe when she mimes dancing at a club in Jerusalem. In her writing, she uses humor in up-to-date situations, such as when she speaks teenage talk or when she takes her family into a club and discovers the entrance fee is 95$ for her family, but singles get in free. Her deadpan in a bit about phone mail makes rue over misguided acts seem funny. After leaving many excoriating messages, she finalizes with, "Just disregard those last messages."

Although she begins the show with static staging and gestures, she soon moves into animated impressionism, demonstrating her ranges of accents and dialects. She shows keen insight with her good facial expressions. Her bodily gestures differentiate the characters with a minimum of distraction and some inherent dynamism. They are woven integrally into the tapestry of personalities she creates. Her act gives a specific sense of place and situation, made all the more realistic by her choice of interesting subjects.

I Heart Hamas continues through November 21 at Off-Market Theater, 965 Mission St., San Francisco. Tickets ($20 to $30) are available through Brown Paper Tickets at (800) 838-3006 or online at www.ihearthamas.com.

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by Albert Goodwyn

Dan Wilson as Scoop and Leah Abrams as Heidi

Photo by Brian Katz

Wendy Wasserstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1988 play The Heidi Chronicles, now at Custom Made Theatre Company's new space, shows in vignettes the details of a woman pushing herself through a career of questioning and discovery. Also a Tony Award winner, the play follows the life journey of Heidi as she tries to reconcile her love of humanity with her desire for independence. Her travails and encounters reveal her own nature with touching precision and insightful humor. Director Brian Katz has dramatized the many layers of Heidi’s personality with deft sensitivity. 

            On a simple set with minimal but deeply meaningful props, the cast of eight, some playing multiple roles, enacts scenes of Heidi Holland’s development from teenager to mother. The path is rugged. Leah Abrams as Heidi projects an impassioned intensity in her ardent feminist beliefs, and a bemused helplessness in her relationships with men. 

            Heidi begins the play in 1989 as a forty-year-old art instructor at a lectern at New York's Columbia University talking about obscure artists, all women. The following scene takes place earlier in a high school in Chicago where sixteen-year-old Heidi attends a dance with her friend Susan Johnston (Kelly Rinehart, playing well a dichotomy of resoluteness and indecision). As the play moves forward chronologically, it takes Heidi, and sometimes Susan, through meetings with boys, then men. Around 1970, Heidi attends a dance in New Hampshire for the volunteers and supporters of presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. She joins a consciousness-raising group, where she meets some oddballs dedicated to empowering themselves and fighting the repression of women. Susan is now a law student, while Heidi attends graduate school at Yale. At a protest rally chastising a museum curator for leaving out women's art from an exhibition, she marches on the office. In 1986 at the upscale Plaza Hotel in New York, she gives an unprepared, extemporaneous speech describing the ideal housewife. She has two children now. She says we are "all in this together." In the end, she sits home with her kids and wants to marry the boy she met at the high-school dance, Peter, even though he's gay. 

The issues of feminism and sexuality play a prominent role in Wasserstein's play, but not without some droll humor. In high school, Heidi is shyly taken by Peter (played with earnest, conflicted desire by Fred Pitts), but does not want to dance. At the McCarthy rally, journalist Scoop Rosenbaum (Dan Wilson as an aggressive, hyper intelligent boor) hits on her. The sexual tension in this love/hate scene is obvious. Both males later intertwine their lives with hers. The loutish Scoop gets married and turns out to be a womanizer. He calls on Heidi at the end, when she reveals that she is dating "a Heather I seem to like." At the consciousness-raising group she encounters Fran (Jessica Rudholm in a military uniform gives a spitefully monotonal, artless portrayal; she plays other characters with more depth) an authoritarian -- to say the least -- thirty-year-old lesbian feminist who yells to get her point across, and Becky (Roselyn Hallett, also playing other parts) a seventeen-year-old abandoned by her parents and living with an abusive boyfriend. Heidi stands up to Fran's hectoring, deciding on her own whether or not to shave her legs. 

Heidi is adamant that women should get more respect in modern society and she is determined to realize her own feminine identity. She loves the gay pediatrician Peter and wants to make it work between them. She takes female lovers. And she is morbidly fascinated by the power of Scoop. The struggles among these contradictory attitudes are consistently discernable in Abrams' performance. The actress can portray simultaneously resoluteness and confusion. Other characters are more one-dimensional. 

            As insight to the difficulty of an intelligent, well-educated Baby Boomer woman attempting to succeed in a society dominated by men, the play moves Heidi from a shy teenager to one of the "Heroines of the Twenty-first Century." Wasserstein's comedic dialogue and incidents provide an excellent counterpoint to the more serious issues at hand, and Abrams is quick in her portrayals of both ardor and humor. 

            Custom Made's production uses quick, well choreographed scene changes with a clever, sequential device to denote year changes. At rise, the set walls are hung with period paintings of the latter half of the Twentieth Century, from op art to figurative, abstract, construction, and other. As it moves forward through the years, one painting is struck for each shift, denoting possibly the end of one short era and the beginning of the next. Recordings of top 40 hit songs also set the dates. The ensemble players are all distinctively recognizable in their character shifts, while the principal actors strongly define their parts. The two-and-a-half hour play is entertaining and thought provoking, with hints of sadness and easily identifiable characters. 

            The Heidi Chronicles continues through October 24 at The Next Stage, 1620 Gough Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($18 to $28) are available at www.custommade.org or by phone at Brown Paper Tickets, (800) 838-3006.

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Zachary Franczak as Tommy in Ray of Light's production

            The Who’s Tommy is a licensed stage version of the English rock group’s 1969 concept album. This popular 1992 musical, now being presented at Victoria Theatre by Ray of Light Theatre in a very professional production, features every song from the double album and follows the emotionally moving story line of the original with precision and gusto. Don’t expect a re-enactment of the movie here; this is a new show. 

            The story contains themes of betrayal, catatonia, fame, and redemption. Characters include an adulterer, a child-molesting uncle, a bullying cousin, disciples of a pinball god, and a groupie. Symbolism plays an important role in the concept. Tommy Walker, born during World War II, loses his father to the War, or so his mother thinks. When papa Walker returns alive to find his wife in the embrace of another man, he kills him. Tommy’s witnessing of this act sends him into a state of shock, rendering him deaf, dumb and blind. While his reunited parents search for a miracle cure, Tommy grows up to discover that he can do one thing excellently, always get a replay with his high scores on pinball machines. He rises to stardom and eventually overcomes his disability. The attention has gone to his head, undercutting his innate humility. He realizes he has been too caught up in the star making machinery and makes amends. Along the way to his redemption, Tommy encounters a multitude of people, most of them nefarious. 

            The staged rock opera remains true to the album, told completely in song with no recitatif, except one. When the perverted Uncle Ernie takes charge of Tommy’s Holiday Camp, he tries to sell Tommy tee shirts to the audience, saying, “Oh come on now, it’s Saturday night,” perhaps a bit of improvisation for the packed Saturday performance. Otherwise, the entire show comprises The Who’s songs. Ray of Light Director Shane Ray has staged the singers with imaginatively impeccable blocking, and Choreographer Ellyn Marie Marsh moves the dancers around in graceful and enthusiastic patterns. All the voices, especially of the principal singers, are well trained and completely right for their parts. While there is some occasional sharping of the high notes by Tommy’s mother Mrs. Walker (Emily Wade Adams, lead singer of local jazz band The Midnight Sessions and singer for SF Symphony chorus), there is no attempt to recreate Who vocals and the singers’ performances stand up very well on their own. And although the six-piece combo (2 six-strings, 2 keyboards, electric bass, and drum kit led by Music Director Ben Prince) is somewhat lacking in The Who’s thunder chords, they are good on the downbeat and the playing is quintessential rock with no inter-song patter. Who’s power chords are understated, yet the combination of classic music, energetic playing, impassioned singing, well-orchestrated staging and scene changes, and appealing actor/singers provides a hugely entertaining performance of a timeless and nostalgic art work.

            Ray’s production begins with “Overture,” a sampling of some of the songs of the album, while actors on the stage deck below the raised banda march across in military uniforms to suggest the time period. When the narrative begins, Mrs. Walker learns that “It’s A Boy” from a conception that occurred before Captain Walker (Bay Area actor Cameron Weston) went to war. For Tommy’s fourth birthday party, complete with cake, kindergartner Deucalion Martin sings the character. For Tommy age ten, eighth-grader David Kahawaii sings. Both have beautiful boy-soprano voices and when they sing trio with the grown-up Tommy (Zachary Franczak, a local singer and actor with more than twelve years of experience), the blend is mellifluous with superb overtones. Cabaret singer and performance artist Leanne Borghesi portrays The Acid Queen, a prostitute and drug dealer consulted to save young Tommy, with gusto and a big lusty voice. Franczak as grown up Tommy has a fine, well-controlled tenor voice and an appealing set of passive, dazed gestures that draw the audience into his plight and persona with fully accessible emotions and intense focus on his part. 

            Writers Townshend, McAnuff, Entwhistle, and Moon cleverly followed through on their included themes of alienation and supernatural salvation. The wartime setting sets up the scene for the violence that will send Tommy over the edge. ROL’s production concept prepares for this very well with a slightly menacing group of soldiers. The mirror symbolizes Tommy’s mystical experience and his breaking free. He has been the only one able to see himself in the mirror (here a free-standing, rolling unit), but not his present self; all three Tommys see themselves at different ages. His mother encourages him to break the mirror (“Smash the Mirror”), which he does. After that he discovers that he is no longer deaf, dumb and blind (“I’m Free”) and realizes his celebrity status. The humanization of the apotheosized Tommy is well documented and believable. 

            The ensemble singers and the principals ring out in this “cavernous” 101-year old vaudeville house. The dancers on the wide, shallow stage move about with fluid ease. Minimal set pieces are carried on with little distraction from the music and stage activity. Costume details by Mark Koss, such as an officer in an Eisenhower jacket and teenyboppers in Keds, keep the sense of time flow straightforward. Even for those not familiar with The Who, this Ray of Light production enthusiastically provides 37 songs, including overtures and reprises, in over two hours of deep and meaningful storytelling with some wry humor and a full-on rock beat. 

            The Who’s Tommy continues through November 7 at The Victoria Theatre, 2961 Sixteenth Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($25 to $36) are available at www.tommysf.com or by phone at Brown Paper Tickets, 800.838.3006.

The Catharsis Collective plays in Zombie Town

Zombie Town by Albert Goodwyn

             Zombie Town, the play now running at the Exit, is a social and genre satire. The B-movie texture is well realized, even when interrupted by self-referential asides. The production focuses not only on the ridiculous theme of reanimated corpses, but also on the foibles and closed minds of small-town residents. The five members of Sleepwalkers Theatre effectively inhabit a multitude of parts as they recount the zombie invasion in Harwood Texas.

            Tiny Harwood, in south central Texas, does not offer much in the way of excitement, so some local residents decide, "Let's go party in the Harwood cemetery." As a woman dances on a grave, she seems to sprout an extra hand on her foot, but it is a zombie hand reaching out of the grave. That unleashes from their interments other walking dead and Harwood is over-run with flesh eaters. Graves the gravedigger, who has heard it all about the connection between his name and occupation goes off to get drunk and returns to find an open grave. "Someone's already dug the grave," he declares. Dug out of the grave is more like it. Now, in disclaimer, the town's Web site declares that "the State of Texas has certified that not a single carnivorous corpse has been spotted in over nine months."
  

          In the play, some theatre majors from a college collective have invaded Harwood to interview local residents for material for a possible play. The five actors portray a broad cross-section of the locals, all the way from the sleazy used-car dealer mayor (Damian Lanahan-Kalish), a housewife (Ariane Owens), a redneck (Drew Lanning), and an Itinerant accountant from the nearest city who happens to be in town (Ian Riley, also Sleepwalkers' Managing Director). Ian becomes trapped in a room in an abandoned house to escape from the carnivorous murderers -- Shades of George Romero! -- along with Owens and Lanning, now portraying a young couple. The sarcastic accountant names them "Slut Girl" (Owens) and "Numb Nuts" (Lanning). They discover that fire is the only thing that scares away zombies, so Numb tears apart a chair and rips his tee shirt to make torches of the legs. Alas, his flame goes out. Together they attempt to fend off the flesh-seeking zombies, to no good end.

            The actors, known as The Catharsis Collective (Drew Lanning, Ian Riley, Alex Curtis, Damian Lanahan-Kalish, and Ariane Owens), use no props, miming such things as torches and broken chairs. They visualize the sight of the approaching zombies until the gory finale. Their impressionism of the locals is highly distinctive, and they are able to switch roles   effectively and with well crafted characterization. For instance, Lanning moves from a redneck in an overstuffed chair, recounting the invasion, to Numb Nuts actually battling it. And Lanahan moves from Mayor to zombie with ease. Some scene shifts involve the quick travel of bed sheets hanging on a clothes line. The rustic nature of Owens' economical set design lends itself well to the multitude of changes in time and space. During the interview scenes, the actors announce who the character is supposed to be, a necessary help to identifying the townspeople. Act II takes place mostly in the room, boarded up from the inside.


            " He doesn't run very fast. He's dead," Numb reassures Slut. This sort of tongue-in-cheek humor pervades the play. Self-referential asides also contribute to the fun of the play, such as when one actor asks what's happening, another replies, "It's a metaphor." The actors have no compunctions about making these references, sometimes even working them into the plot. When Ian does not want to continue the play, Numb encourages him by demanding an ending, saying, "These people paid good money," while gesturing toward the audience. One even expresses to another his          desire for a Critics Circle award.


          A duo of banjo and fiddle sits down stage right throughout the show, occasionally breaking into tunes and familiar riffs. The actors all have good sense of comic timing, but sometimes crack up on the blatant idiocy of their lines. The staging is well thought-out, generally. There are occasional unmotivated crosses. As townspeople they use over-done vaguely southern accents. The company's low-budget professionalism enables the actors to concentrate on their performances. They show great enthusiasm for their parts in this hour-and-a-half two-act play, delivering non-stop and excellently the witty writing of playwright Tim Bauer, just in time for a funny, pseudo-morbid romp through the Halloween season.

          Zombie Town continues through November 7 at EXIT Theatre Stage Left, 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($14 to $20) are available at www.sleepwalkerstheatre.com or by phone at (415) 913-7272.

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South Pacific by Albert Goodwyn

Photo by Peter Coombs of Carmen Cusack and Anderson Davis

   New York's Lincoln Center Theater production of South Pacific, beginning its country-wide tour in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Theatre, is replete with romance, comedy -- including sailors in grass skirts -- and many well known songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, including the one with their unsubtle racist bias. This successful new Broadway revival of the 1949 musical is lively, fast paced, beautiful to look at, and delightful to hear. How appropriate then that the show should begin its tour so near the Pacific Ocean and the Hawaiian island setting of James Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning book from which it was derived.

   The intertwining stories of United States Naval wartime occupation, sailors with too much time on their hands, love affairs between an expatriate Frenchman and a Navy nurse as well as between a Marine lieutenant and a young island girl, a covert operation, some zany follies, and miscegenation come to a heroically tragic but happy ending. Local plantation owner Emile de Becque, played with the rich baritone of a leading American opera singer from California, Rod Gilfry, gets the girl and the heroic, flawed Marine Lieutenant Joe Cable gives his life in service to his country. Amidst all this, the sailors fritter away their beach time in offhand ways until they are summoned to battle.

   Gilfry as de Becque commands the stage with a presence equal to the lush allure of his voice while he flirts with the hesitant Ensign Forbush. He sings "Some Enchanted Evening" to her, delivering it almost as a lecture. His deep voice rises from powerful chest tones with a light sustain and judicious use of a good vibrato. In her Little Rock accent, Forbush calls herself "Knucklehead Nellie" and sings "A Cockeyed Optimist." World-traveled actress, cabaret and concert artist Carmen Cusack (She played the bad witch in Wicked.) belts out her songs with a well controlled soprano voice. Her act of being an airhead country girl is belied in a later scene when she lathers up in the shower with "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair." The first hint of the racist theme comes when de Becque's dark-skin children, whom Forbush does not realize are his, mock the black servant.

   The sailors as an ensemble have great fun with "There Is Nothin' like a Dame." The choreography by Trude Rittmann and Christopher Gattelli on the set by Michael Yeargan (professor of Stage Design at the Yale School of Drama), in this and other ensemble scenes is graceful and exuberant, including flips and splits. Then they introduce Bloody Mary, the siren of Bali Ha'I, the mythical, twin-volcanoed island that is a metaphor of the attraction of romance and is off limits to the sailors. Plump and seductive mezzo-soprano Keala Settle, a Hawaiian native, has a voice that glides well into the high notes with inflections peculiar to the Islands. When Marine Lt. Cable comes along, she offers to sell him a shrunken head, but she mostly wants him to come to Bali Ha'I to marry her teenage daughter. Cable (Lousiana tenor Anderson Davis, who has sung in Broadway and regional shows) acts convincingly enthralled by Bloody Mary's daughter Liat (Sumie Maeda) when he sings to her, "Younger Than Springtime." He towers over Liat. Nothing good can come of this. Cable and de Becque wind up on Bali Ha'I on a secret mission which the local Navy officers talk them into. Some good comes of that, and some bad.

   The singing by principals and the ensemble, orchestration by Robert Russell Bennett and rigorously period costumes by Catherine Zuber are all flawless, entertaining and lovely to see and hear. Donald Holder's lighting of Yeargan's set of sandy beaches, interspersed with flies of lattice-work and the plantation porch sets a whimsical tone for the sailors' good fun, a somber atmosphere for scenes in the Navy office and romantic focus for meetings of Forbush and de Becque. Director Bartlett Shear recreates the original 1949 staging of Joshua Logan (who wrote the book along with Hammerstein) in a sensitive and unadorned way.  The play is dense with character insights, elegant where it counts and forceful where it needs to be.

   Photo by Peter Coombs of Carmen Cusack and Anderson Davis    

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The Torture Garden

by Albert Goodwyn

  The Torture Garden contains themes of capitalism,opportunism, restitution, purloined passion, mercenary mercy, bad liquor, andprostitution – and that’s just Act I. Actually, that is the first one-act inThrillpeddlers’ tenth annual Shocktoberfest, now running at TheHypnodrome. Act II is the titular play of an entirely different nature from ActI, entitled The Phantom Limb, except that they share in the GrandGuignol genre of deliberately melodramatic acting for the effect of shockhorror so extreme that it’s either awe-inspiring or laugh getting. The play TheTorture Garden involves alcoholism, racism, assassination, inscrutability,and graphic depictions of torture. During the interval audience membersvolunteer to have their heads chopped off by a guillotine.
  The torture play opens aboard an oceangoing vessel with menat the rail drinking and joking about women while the ship’s captain tries tohide his association with a frequent passenger and an inscrutable Chinamanlurks nearby. Then enter the Captain’s rival Jean Marchal and the object oftheir affection Miss Clara Watson. The Captain, admirably played by the play’sdirector Russell Blackwood, warns Marchal to stay away from her because she’strouble. And she is. Not only might she be a spy who foments minor conflictsand is in the control of the Chinese mafia, she also has a morbid fixation withimages of torture, so much so that, once on land, she leads Marchal to anexhibition depicting torture techniques, then to a retired master of torture,with gory, expected results. Her Master tells her that she “will not escape thescarlet dragon.” After the last drop of stage blood has been spilled,Thrillpeddlers’ trademark phosphorescent specters dance through the blacked-outhouse.
. This is the first English translation of the 1922 Frenchplay Le Jardine des Supplices by Pierre Chaine and Andre de Lorde.Perhaps the ever-so-sophisticated French regard this over-the-top style the wayAmericans might regard action movies, crime-scene investigations or exhibitionwrestling, with morbid fascination. There is humor embedded in this writing.These are one-dimensional characters in stupid situations, and we need notempathize with them. Therefore, we can laugh at the absurdity of theirpredicaments and fates.
  The first play, written recently, is set in a New Orleanswhorehouse just after The War between the States. Mama DuCharme formerly ran abar in Kentucky where she served soldiers liquor so bad it blinded them. Thenshe moved her operations to New Orleans where her working girls get theirclients drunk enough to steal their wallets and send them staggering out thedoor. War veteran amputees can also get their missing limbs soothed by Mama’smagic and shrapnel can be removed from bodies using vudu and chicken blood. Although this play has its gory moments, it is far moremeaningfully plotted than the sinister Chamber, which sought onlyreasons for bloodshed. The texture of writer Rob Keefe’s modern sensibilitiesweave through the play. Mama DuCharme has no compunctions in repeating that sheworships money. She does not proselytize about the War and who lost, but statesthat country unity is her philosophy. No implicit condemnation of the girls’work habits is made. Athough Mama DuCharme gets hers in the end, the girlssurvive. Humor lies in the broad characterizations by the actors and the lazzibits when the rolled johns stagger back onto the streets. The company ensembleactors all make dramatic character changes between he two plays.
 The Torture Garden continues through November 20 atThe Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($25general admission; $69 for a private “Shock Box” seat for 2) are available at www.thrillpeddlers.com or by phone at (415) 377-4202.

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By Albert Goodwyn

 

 

 

All the whimsy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is accentuated in the current Cal Shakes production, and the director brought out the warmth of the human love, even for those blinded by magic herbs. The fairy world opens up on a fanciful stage. The actors present strong, definitive characterizations. The outdoor Amphitheater seating under tall trees is a perfect setting for Shakespeare’s play in the woods. The strands of the story line, tangled with comic complications, all weave together by the end.

The Duke of Athens is about to wed Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. His daughter Hermia (Erin Weaver) is eloping. She and her man Lysander (Avery Monsen) go to the woods. The suitor Demetrius (Richard Theriot) her father has chosen also goes to the woods, along with her friend Helena. Some local rustics are preparing a play to entertain the ceremony. They rehearse in the woods at night. At the same time, the king and queen of the fairies and their mischievous sprite Puck are also in the woods.

King Oberon, playing a trick on his queen Titania, commands Puck to squeeze some magic pansy juice on her eyes, so that she will automatically fall in love with the first person she sees upon awakening. He also should squeeze the juice on the eyes of the chosen suitor of Hermia. Puck gets it wrong and uses the magic on the wrong person. In his bad boy way, he puts an asses head on Nick Bottom, one of the rustics. So, Demetrius and Lysander both profess their love to Hermia. Titania wakes up to see Bottom with an ass’ head and falls in love with him. Oberon manages to correct the situation with another magic flower, and the rustics put on their play for the Duke’s wedding. It all makes perfect sense in this production.

 They use many anachronisms. The costumes are modern and whimsical. Hermia dresses like goth punk. Others wear suits and robes. A microphone stand serves for a rock song to a ukulele. The comic lazzi bits abound, including a plastic hammer that squeaks when bopped against a character’s head. At one point, Puck is upstaged by a mechanical toy dog. The many scene changes are quick and well choreographed. The broad stage of the Amphitheater is cut down to size with a small set and light stands on the deck. The set is like a skateboard ramp with a colorful mosaic design. Steps lead up to the top, where a wooden moon hangs. Puck occasionally enters from the top by the moon, singing his songs.

 The casting decisions were excellently made. Some core company members, along with some actors from other cities, provide strikingly distinct portrayals. Singer, dancer and actor Doug Hara is outstandingly energetic as the narrator Puck. His portrayal of confusion when he enchants the wrong set of eyes is a masterpiece of direction by Aaron Posner. Danny Scheie as Bottom obviously loves his buffoonish part, and plays it convincingly. Lindsey Gates as Helena provides a bemused character with a serious case of the giggles. Keith Randolph Smith plays both Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Oberon. As Theseus he is overly histrionic, but works very well as Oberon. Elegantly tall Pegge [sic] Johnson plays both Hippolyta and Titania very well.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream plays through October 11 at Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd. at Hwy 24, Orinda. Tickets ($20 to $68) are available at www.calshakes.org or by phone at (510) 548-9666.