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Jeffrey R. Smith

LIFE X 3

By Jeffrey R. Smith, Uncategorized

LIFE X 3

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

The award winning Off Broadway West Theatre Company is currently presenting LIFE X 3, an intelligent comedy for audiences who enjoy simultaneous thinking and laughing.

Cecilia Palmtag directs this non-linear, domestic comedy crafted with thought provoking creativity by Yasmina Reza (also known for her acclaimed: CONVERSATIONS AFTER A BURIAL, ART and GOD OF CARNAGE).

LIFE X 3 explores the theme that every decision, even the seemingly trivial, is pivotal, changing the course of events downstream in time and fanning out, like a plume of smoke, in its sphere of influence.

Like RUN, LOLA, RUN, this play resets itself, three times, to demonstrate how seemingly insignificant factors exert major influences on life’s meandering, cause and effect, trajectory.

Cerebral audiences may sense that LIFE X 3 is a staged exploration of both Chaos Theory—as postulated by Henri Poincare in 1890—and the Butterfly Effect as encapsulated in a short story by Ray Bradberry in 1952, and couched in scientific language by Edward Lorenz in 1961.

With the introduction of super-computers, this trope has gained wider recognition in the scientific community; its most famous application was in prognosticating the erratic track of Hurricane Sandy.

According to this scientific theory, the down draft stirred by a fluttering butterfly wing can change the course of meteorological events and ultimately result in a level 5 hurricane, like the one that caused New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie to reach across the aisle to accept federal hurricane relief funds from a Democratic President (momentarily opening his opportunity in the next presidential election).

Politics aside, Sonia’s decision to wear a bathrobe to entertain guests, versus donning appropriate evening apparel, sets her husband Henry’s career on a whole new trajectory.

Sylvia Burboeck—wonderfully cast as Sonia—uses subtlety and nuance in retracing her steps in the three versions of the soiree; to her credit, Ms. Burboeck is able to accomplish the re-enactments with only small variations in detail yet side-step a tedious sense of repetition or haunting deja vu.

Aren Haun—marvelously cast as Henry—likewise uses high energy and creative expression, to not only keep the play out of the slough of redundancy, but to introduce new elements of comedy during each permutation and to clearly differentiate the branches.

Sylvia Kratins—as the ever petulant Inez—elects to attend the party in a pair of runny panty hose; the enormity of her petty decision casts an irritant pale over all that follows.

Peter Fitzsimmons—who plays the pivotal role as Hubert—effuses the energy of a power broker: seemingly a nice guy but with a full set of carnivorous choppers behind his glib condescending smile.

Combined, Cecilia Palmtag and Yasmina Reza, set forth a beautifully articulated demonstration on how initial conditions, in which a “small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later states.”

Reza, being French, also borrows from Sarte’s NO EXIT in her depiction of the group dynamic; quickly shifting alliances and sudden betrayals add spontaneity to this multifaceted jewel.

LIFE X 3 is sophisticated theatre topped with two scoops of intelligent comedy.

For tickets go to www.offbroadwaywest.org or call 800-838-3006.

LIFE X 3

By Uncategorized

LIFE X 3

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

The award winning Off Broadway West Theatre Company is currently presenting LIFE X 3, an intelligent comedy for audiences who enjoy simultaneous thinking and laughing.

Cecilia Palmtag directs this non-linear, domestic comedy crafted with thought provoking creativity by Yasmina Reza (also known for her acclaimed: CONVERSATIONS AFTER A BURIAL, ART and GOD OF CARNAGE).

LIFE X 3 explores the theme that every decision, even the seemingly trivial, is pivotal, changing the course of events downstream in time and fanning out, like a plume of smoke, in its sphere of influence.

Like RUN, LOLA, RUN, this play resets itself, three times, to demonstrate how seemingly insignificant factors exert major influences on life’s meandering, cause and effect, trajectory.

Cerebral audiences may sense that LIFE X 3 is a staged exploration of both Chaos Theory—as postulated by Henri Poincare in 1890—and the Butterfly Effect as encapsulated in a short story by Ray Bradberry in 1952, and couched in scientific language by Edward Lorenz in 1961.

With the introduction of super-computers, this trope is gained wider recognition in the scientific community; its most famous application was in prognosticating the erratic track of Hurricane Sandy.

According to this scientific theory, the down draft stirred by a fluttering butterfly wing can change the course of meteorological events and ultimately result in a level 5 hurricane, like the one that caused New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie to reach across the aisle to accept federal hurricane relief funds from a Democratic President (momentarily opening his opportunity in the next presidential election).

Politics aside, Sonia’s decision to wear a bathrobe to entertain guests, versus donning appropriate evening apparel, sets her husband Henry’s career on a whole new trajectory.

Sylvia Burboeck—wonderfully cast as Sonia—uses subtlety and nuance in retracing her steps in the three versions of the soiree; to her credit, Ms. Burboeck is able to accomplish the re-enactments with only small variations in detail yet side-step a tedious sense of repetition or haunting deja vu.

Aren Haun—marvelously cast as Henry—likewise uses high energy and creative expression, to not only keep the play out of the slough of redundancy, but to introduce new elements of comedy during each permutation and to clearly differentiate the branches.

Sylvia Kratins—as the ever petulant Inez—elects to attend the party in a pair of runny panty hose; the enormity of her petty decision casts an irritant pale over all that follows.

Peter Fitzsimmons—who plays the pivotal role as Hubert—effuses the energy of a power broker: seemingly a nice guy but with a full set of carnivorous choppers behind his glib condescending smile.

Combined, Cecilia Palmtag and Yasmina Reza, set forth a beautifully articulated demonstration on how initial conditions, in which a “small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later states.”

Reza, being French, also borrows from Sarte’s NO EXIT in her depiction of the group dynamic; quickly shifting alliances and sudden betrayals add spontaneity to this multifaceted jewel.

LIFE X 3 is sophisticated theatre topped with two scoops of intelligent comedy.

For tickets go to www.offbroadwaywest.org or call 800-838-3006.

STOREFRONT CHURCH

By Jeffrey R. Smith, Uncategorized

STOREFRONT CHURCH

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

As Oscar Wilde once said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.”

Artistic Director Bill English and Director Joy Carlin took Wilde’s aphorism seriously when they envisioned their production of STOREFRONT CHURCH.

Starting with a script by one of America’s premier living playwrights—John Patrick Shanley—it only gets better.

Shanley is probably best known for his Academy Award winning screenplay MOONSTRUCK and his Pulitzer Prize winning DOUBT—outside of Stockholm, you cannot earn higher accolades than that.

A stage design by Bill English defies all of Euclid’s Postulates; it spins; it slides and it looks like it belongs in an Edward Hopper or a Gottfried Helnwein painting—when the show closes, he should auction it off at Sotheby’s.

Joy Carlin skimmed some of the West Coast’s best stage talent from San Jose to Ashland.

Rod Gnapp, a stalwart of Bay Area stages—most memorable for TRIPLE X LOVE ACT by Cintra Wilson at the Magic, MAD FOREST by Caryl Churchill at Berkeley Rep and most recently BURIED CHILD at the Magic—is very moving as Reed, even if only half of Rod’s face actually does move in the play, (you’ll have to see the show to understand why) he’s highly animated as he comes to a slow explosive boil.

Carl Lumbly—most recently seen at the SF Playhouse in THE MOTHER F_ _ KER WITH THE HAT—is not only one of the Bay Area’s finest, Carl has strutted and fretted his hour upon New York City stages; Carl plays the forlorn Pastor of the Storefront Church who has yet to find his pastor voice, a pastor message or some pastoral sheep; needless to say the felt is showing in the bottom of his collection plate and the rent is overdue.

Gabriel Marin—an actor who works a frantic 54 weeks a year—is one of the Bay Area’s two funniest comic actors. Gabriel, who can ladle out a Napolitano accent as thick as Pasta Fazoo, reaches energy levels on stage that are best measured in mega or gigawatts. Excitement, high anxiety and rapid fire talking are Gabe’s strongest suits; give him a minor crisis and he can turn it in Vesuvio the Comedy.

STOREFRONT CHURCH is a feel good play; ideal for the holidays; it has that Frank Capra “life is only good because people do matter” theme that is guaranteed to lift your spirits, warm your heart and make you want to sing Christmas songs as you sit in gridlock traffic, look for parking and feed your VISA statements into the document shredder.

Get tickets online at www.sfplayhouse.org or by calling 415-677-9596

BURIED CHILD

By Jeffrey R. Smith

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

The Magic Theatre, which was once home to playwright-in-residence Sam Shepard, is presently staging a “Legacy Revival” of what is arguably his greatest opus: BURIED CHILD.

If you can temporarily transcend your sensitive understanding, liberal guilt and human compassion for a wacked-out dysfunction family, then you can laugh until to reopen your liposuction scars watching this superbly crafted comedy.

This is a hyperbolic parody of a dysfunctional family: a total shipwreck of a family: beyond therapy, possibly beyond industrial strength psycho-therapeutic drugs and beyond shock treatments from even a Van de Graaff Generator.

It is a stygian comedy about five people who are only identified as a family because they happen to share similar DNA strands.

The patriarch, Dodge, is addicted to prescription drugs, cheap whiskey and television; he has abandoned the battlefield, or cornfield, of life and now reclines on a moldering living room couch.

The matriarch, Halie, still has a functioning endocrine system—although winding down from the warp drive of earlier years—and she is making the most of it with the pastor of her church: Father Dewis.

Tilden has retreated from the jarring realities of the outer world in lives deeply submerged beneath the sutures of his sagittal crest; rarely is he cognizant of such external stimuli as people; he is bereft of both audio processing and cognitions.

Brother Bradley, who shortened his leg with a Homelite, is weak but vicious; however, take away his prosthetic and he is a lamb chop: as weak as Samson after a coif.

Grandson Vince is the canopic jar: the living vessel of the toasted family’s ashes; genetically predisposed to settle-in to the family paradigm of booze, television and the couch; self-determination is merely an abstraction to Vince.

The nearest brush anyone in the personae dramatis has with sanity is Shelly: Vince’s girlfriend; and even she finds herself temporarily drawn into the family flame although she has the sense to pull the chocks when the action cranks up.

Rod Gnapp, is no stranger the Magic Theatre (Remember Cintra Wilson’s TRIPLE X LOVE ACT? That was Rod playing Artie Jay Mitchell).

Rod Gnapp plays Dodge as if he were Dodge.

Having seen Rod on Bay Area Stages for the last 25 years, one could easily say that this is his finest hour; this is an award winning performance.

You may have missed Led Zepplin at Knebworth or Hendrix at Monterey; but don’t miss Rod Gnapp at the Magic.

Denise Balthrop Cassidy, as Halie, is simply a riot; she gives her character a determined air: still trying to wrangle dignity and sensual enjoyment from the smoldering ruins of her life; she is both dauntless and deluded.

Elaina Garrity, as Shelly, is able to do some amazing but convincing transitions.

Arriving at the farm, she has well founded trepidations but within a few hours she is tormenting Bradley as if she were one of the family; her primal release and gleeful unleashing of her shadow self is both credible and remarkably affected.

Just as deftly, she puts the Genie back in the bottle and makes a timely exit to the world of light and the living.

James Wagner, as Tilden, is fried—maybe deep fried or stir fried—hard to tell.

Picture a direct high altitude lightning strike to your iPad; what 70,000 volts can do to your semi-conductor collection, is what life at the farm has done to Tilden’s neurons and James plays it to its zombie best.

The whole show is simply the best of the best—from the Klieg lights down to the set design.

For a delightful, safe excursion into the netherworld of rural, corn-fed and carrot-fueled insanity, you want to see BURIED CHILD.

For tickets call the box office at 415 441-8822 or visit the Magic Theatre website.

AROUSAL and THE LOVER

By Jeffrey R. Smith

AROUSAL and THE LOVER

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

What? Bohemians living in Alameda? And, Thespians? Right here in River City?

Alameda’s own Laura Lundy-Paine is currently starring in a double-header at the Phoenix Theatre on Mason Street in San Francisco.

MS Lundy-Paine, a first class actress, has formally studied acting at Pomona College and has classically trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

She has graced west coast stages from the Portland Shakespeare Festival, to the Oregon Stage Company, Stinson Shakespeare and our own Rhythmix Cultural Works.

Presently at the Phoenix, the accomplished MS Lundy-Paine shares the Klieg Lights with John Steen; they open with George Pfirrmann’s AROUSAL followed by Harold Pinter’s THE LOVER.

In AROUSAL MS Lundy-Paine plays the sintering Albena: an exotic therapist of sorts; she is severed from her native Ukraine and for a small fee, she is willing to help Clifford, via very unconventional therapies, to overcome the isolating social handicaps associated Asperger’s Syndrome.

Albena proves that you don’t have be handicapped, to have a handicap; a turbulent history in a ruthless, lawless, post-Soviet wasteland and a family swine circus is more than sufficient.

At the end of her rope—okay extension cord—Albena finds that a human connection, rather than on-line Scrabble, might provide her a reason to go on living.

In THE LOVER, Lundy-Paine ratchets up her intensity, nearly setting off the smoke alarm with sangfroid sensuality.

She plays Sarah: a married woman trying to infuse a ten-year marriage with the brio, élan and endocrinal rush that it had back in the early days.

Sarah and Richard, mired in the doldrums of middleclass suburban London, fantasize the way most people do, only they share their fantasies to spool up marital intimacies and save on their heating bills.

This is high-intensity theatre in an intimate setting; no one is more than three rows from the end of the stage; you can almost smell Albena’s rot-gut vodka and cheap perfume.

MS Lundy-Paine is a resident member of the award winning Virago Theatre; the company includes Robert Lundy-Paine and Eileen Meredith, also from Alameda.

For a tantalizing and provocative evening visit www.ViragoTheatre.ORG.

The Phoenix Theater is on the 6th floor of 414 Mason Street in San Francisc

SEA OF REEDS

By Jeffrey R. Smith

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

Josh Kornbluth is best described as the Woody Allen of the West.

Presently Josh is performing at the Ashby Stage a.k.a. the Shotgun Players.

Most of his previous work consisted of monologues delivered below street level (The Hungry Id (sic) in San Francisco and La Val’s Subterranean in Berkeley).

Now, merely twenty years into the business, Josh no longer descends below the sidewalk to get to the stage to perform in the case of SEA OF REEDS.

The fulcrum of SEA OF REEDS is his dilatory Bar Mitzvah at the sagely post-adolescent age of 52, four times the Hebrew National average for such ceremonies.

Josh explains, that as the son of communist parents, he spent his early years being a non-Jewish Jew and it wasn’t until he became a father that he became a humanist Jew believing that the collective imagination of man was actually God.

Assuming Josh is correct, God’s primary residence in Silicon Valley.

As prescribed by tradition, Josh is directed by his presiding rabbi to read a passage from the biblical prophets called the Haftorah.

Because Josh’s ceremony is in July, his reading assignment is from the Book of Numbers, Chapter 25 to be exact.

While most of Israel is hot during July, Josh holds his Bar Mitzvah in the Negev where one can bake matzo on the sidewalk.

In the passage Josh reads, the peripatetic Nation of Israel is temporarily abiding in Shittim; no scatological overtones intended.

Shittim was crawling with Moabite Shiksas and soon some wayward Israelites were dating—to use a PG-13 euphemism—the locals i.e. the Daughters of Moab.

As usual, one thing inevitably leads to the next; it’s a slippery slope: first it’s sidelong glances, then holding hands and in no time, these randy exogamous Israelites were kowtowing to the Pagan Goddess Baal Peor.

Baal Peor, is most politely translated, is the Cleft Deity; some theologians attribute modern pole dancing to her.

This Pagan Fertility Goddess demands rigorous obeisance and specific forms of surrender from her acolytes and votaries; none of which are PG-13 in priggish societies.

As reported in Numbers 25, Baal Peor revelry eventually spills into public view.

Zimri, the son of Salu, and his Midianitish consort Cozbi, the daughter of Zur make a public spectacle of themselves.

Phinehas, Zealous the Grandson of Aaron, is appalled by their exhibitionism.

Phinehas takes a javelin in hand and skewers both Zimri and Cozbi—the woman symbolically through her belly.

Thanks to Phinehas’ moral vigilantism it was believed that a plague was stayed from the children of Israel thereby saving thousands of lives: A seemingly happy ending.

Josh thinks he is expected to reconcile himself to this bit of tabloid zealotry.

Instead, his response is an elegant exhortation for tolerance and it is possibly the core message of the play.

If you go to the play, you owe it to yourself to stopping texting at this point and listen carefully to his Bar Mitzvah address.

One bay area critic has mistaken Josh’s earnestness and sincerity for didacticism—which is apparently a misdemeanor in theater.

The play is filling with amusing boyhood reminiscences of being raised peripherally Jewish without becoming Jewish.

It is filled with intelligent humor without falling back on the usual shticks like sex or politics.

Rather than going solo, this time Josh has Amy Resnick (who starred in Haiku Tunnel with him) to prod him along.

Amy is part director and part surrogate Jewish mother.

A quartet provides musical support as Josh plays the reeds of his oboe.

The play, while not elitist, is sophisticated humor; it prioritizes artistic success well ahead of popular success.

David Dower directs this delightfully entertaining piece.

For tickets call 510-841-6500 or go to shotgunplayer.org.

 

SEA OF REEDS

By Jeffrey R. Smith

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

Josh Kornbluth is best described as the Woody Allen of the West.

Presently Josh is performing at the Ashby Stage a.k.a. the Shotgun Players.

Most of his previous work consisted of monologues delivered below street level (The Hungry Id (sic) in San Francisco and La Val’s Subterranean in Berkeley).

Now, merely twenty years into the business, Josh no longer descends below the sidewalk to get to the stage to perform in the case of SEA OF REEDS.

The fulcrum of SEA OF REEDS is his dilatory Bar Mitzvah at the sagely post-adolescent age of 52, four times the Hebrew National average for such ceremonies.

Josh explains, that as the son of communist parents, he spent his early years being a non-Jewish Jew and it wasn’t until he became a father that he became a humanist Jew believing that the collective imagination of man was actually God.

Assuming Josh is correct, God’s primary residence in Silicon Valley.

As prescribed by tradition, Josh is directed by his presiding rabbi to read a passage from the biblical prophets called the Haftorah.

Because Josh’s ceremony is in July, his reading assignment is from the Book of Numbers, Chapter 25 to be exact.

While most of Israel is hot during July, Josh holds his Bar Mitzvah in the Negev where one can bake matzo on the sidewalk.

In the passage Josh reads, the peripatetic Nation of Israel is temporarily abiding in Shittim; no scatological overtones intended.

Shittim was crawling with Moabite Shiksas and soon some wayward Israelites were dating—to use a PG-13 euphemism—the locals i.e. the Daughters of Moab.

As usual, one thing inevitably leads to the next; it’s a slippery slope: first it’s sidelong glances, then holding hands and in no time, these randy exogamous Israelites were kowtowing to the Pagan Goddess Baal Peor.

Baal Peor, is most politely translated, is the Cleft Deity; some theologians attribute modern pole dancing to her.

This Pagan Fertility Goddess demands rigorous obeisance and specific forms of surrender from her acolytes and votaries; none of which are PG-13 in priggish or civil societies.

As describe in Numbers 25, Baal Peor revelry eventually spills into public view.

Zimri, the son of Salu, and his Midianitish consort Cozbi, the daughter of Zur make a public spectacle of themselves.

Phinehas, Zealous the Grandson of Aaron, is appalled by their exhibitionism.

Phinehas takes a javelin in hand and skewers both Zimri and Cozbi—the woman symbolically through her belly.

Thanks to Phinehas’ moral vigilantism it was believed that a plague was stayed from the children of Israel thereby saving thousands of lives: A seemingly happy ending.

Josh thinks he is expected to reconcile himself to this bit of tabloid zealotry.

Instead, his response is an elegant exhortation for tolerance and it is possibly the core message of the play.

If you go to the play, you owe it to yourself to stopping texting at this point and listen carefully to his Bar Mitzvah address.

One bay area critic has mistaken Josh’s earnestness and sincerity for didacticism—which is apparently a misdemeanor in theater.

The play is filling with amusing boyhood reminiscences of being raised peripherally Jewish without becoming Jewish.

It is filled with intelligent humor without falling back on the usual shticks like sex or politics.

Rather than going solo, this time Josh has Amy Resnick (who starred in Haiku Tunnel with him) to prod him along.

Amy is part director and part surrogate Jewish mother.

A quartet provides musical support as Josh plays the reeds of his oboe.

The play, while not elitist, is sophisticated humor; it prioritizes artistic success well ahead of popular success.

David Dower directs this delightfully entertaining piece.

For tickets call 510-841-6500 or go to shotgunplayer.org.

 

BETRAYAL by Harold Pinter

By Jeffrey R. Smith

BETRAYAL

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

Harold Pinter’s BETRAYAL is presently being performed by the Off Broadway West Theatre Company.

At the onset, this complex play appears to be aiming at a precise definition of a seemingly simple word like betrayal; in the end it seems to have diffused the word into a vaporous hollow abstraction.

Jerry betrays his best friend and publishing associate, Robert, by snaking Robert’s wife Emma.

For five years Jerry and Emma conduct assignations in a cozy love flat not far from where they work … imagine eating a late afternoon lunch, with wine, perhaps a little dessert and then going home to their respective families … duplicitous almost to the point of schizoid.

When Robert married Emma, Jerry served as his best man.

Not long after the bouquet had withered and the garter had faded on the rear view mirror, Jerry ambushes Emma in her upstairs bathroom; he professes his adoration and adulterous love for her and plants the first kiss and the first brick in the road to infidelity.

After the affair begins to feel like a second year Birkenstock, the publishing business calls Jerry to New York leaving Emma alone with Robert.

In Jerry’s absence, Emma compromises her romantic integrity and makes love with her own husband; naturally she finds herself pregnant and has to explain to her returning Lothario that it’s okay; she was essentially faithful to him, after all, it was her own husband.

As C.S. Lewis once said, “Once you let go of reality, the possibilities are endless.”

Once the subterfuges, circumlocutions and prevarications get started, the three vertices of the love triangle are no longer communicating, they are collaborating on a script.

Jerry, as played to the Klieg lintels by Brian O’Connor, is an absolute rascal, a regular Paolo Malatesta; seducing with literary pretentions and pulp fiction in hand; you wouldn’t trust Jerry at a petting zoo let alone with your wife; what was Robert thinking?

Emma is an enigma: an attractive woman with options whose healthy sense of entitlement assures her that good wine, good food and frequent trips to Italy are just not sufficient.

Director Richard Harder perhaps does his best work with Emma, who is finely played by Sylvia Kratins.

Kratins’ Emma never sits still; her restless spirit keeps her head on a swivel, her eyes spinning like a rotifer and limbs in constant motion trying to get comfortable in the here in now while her mind is occupied elsewhere; is she Lady Macbeth or Madame Bovary?

Lighting is another creative strength of the show; low intensity illumination provides the audience with a keyhole feel: an intimate sense that we are eavesdropping on conversations; much in vogue these days given the liberties the NSA has taking with our liberties.

Keith Burkland as Robert is the axel about which the play revolves on.

Burkland’s Robert is opaque: a mystery shrouded in a reservation.

Is Robert mistakenly trusting Jerry and Emma or is he disinterested to the extent that he is willing to time share little Miss Francesca di Rimini?

Burkland is both an artist and a craftsman; polishing and burnishing his character until you can almost feel the tweed; acting is not what he does, it is who he is.

BETRAYAL is the best of Pinter and Richard Harder elevates it a step higher.

If you enjoy intimate theater where acting is an art, you don’t want to miss BETRAYAL at the Phoenix at Mason and Geary.

Call 1-800-838-3006 or www.offbroadwaywest.org.

ABIGAIL’S PARTY

By Jeffrey R. Smith

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

The Award Winning San Francisco Playhouse is presently performing the riotous ABIGAIL’S PARTY by Mike Leigh as directed by Amy Glazer.

Susi Damilano, rightfully the first lady of San Francisco stage comedy, marvelously plays Beverly: a diabolical, deranged hostess reminiscent of the Stanford Prison Experiment, Mommie Dearest and Lindsay English.

Half hostess, half Nurse Ratchet, all evil; Beverly is the accidental devil herself; plying her guests, or captives, with alcohol as if it were mineral water, Beverly turns a perfectly wretched, boring party into a disaster and psycho-drama.

Even the audience is held captive because the play is gut-wrenchingly hilarious; insanely funny; but, you might catch yourself asking, “Should I be laughing at this?”

Neither a professional elevator operator, an evil spouse, nor a trained psychologist could ever push buttons as effectively as Beverly; tormenting her guests with gouging remarks which run the spectrum from careless, to tasteless, to tactless to ruthless.

Beverly shepherds her ovine victims into Dante’s stygian depths of tormented revelers.

Even a liter of gin won’t dull the mental anguish inflicted by Madame Beverly.

Ms. Damilano is the closest San Francisco is going to get to having its own Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett or Lily Tomlin; her comedy is nuanced to the rafters, her timing is to the nanosecond and her movements as salacious as they are comic.

Despite a supporting cast of four characters; this is nearly a one woman show; like a dominatrix, Beverly takes charge, rough riding her guests right into the fetid carpet stains.

A great set design by Bill English captures the very essence of chintzy kitsch, glitzy pretense and cheesy misguided intentions: superbly done; it induces a visual queasiness even before the house lights flicker.

If you are looking for a fun evening in San Francisco, then ABIGAIL’S PARTY is your ticket; this is art wrapped in bacon, wrapped in Velveeta, topped with Whip and Chill.

To reserve your night of laughter, surf over to SFPLAYHOUSE.ORG or call 415-677-9596.

HAIR

By Jeffrey R. Smith

HAIR

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

The Encinal Drama Department courageously explores the radical sixties via the American Tribal Lock-Rock Musical HAIR.

The musical visits the incubator of many cultural and political elements that we take for granted today: the anti-war and anti-draft movement, environmental protection, women’s rights, mysticism, broad based humanism, sexual liberation, tolerance and cultural pluralism.

These features of the American landscape were brought to you by the Hippies; a utopian subculture that looked beyond materialism for a vision of what we could become.

Diane Keaton was part of the 1968 Broadway cast of HAIR; strangely, to this day she reminds us that although she played a Hippy on stage, she was not a Hippy.

Remarkably, the Encinal production seems to capture the very essence of the Hippy movement; to the credit of Director Robert Moorhead, the show—despite the enormous cast—achieves an intimate cohesive feel, a harmonic convergence of creative spirit and enlightened hope; the unifying tribal force is palpable.

The rousing opening song, Aquarius, boldly led by Brazjea Willard-Johnson with an exuberant Tribal chorus, asserts that planet Earth is governed by a celestial clock—the precession of the equinoxes—and humanity is getting its wake-up call; peace, love and understanding are about to usurp the old evil gods of greed, war and hate.

Just as the Christian era is believed to have been ushered in by a Virgin, the Aquarian Age too has its Madonna only in HAIR it is simply Donna and Berger—played marvelously by Darryl Williams—is desperately singing and searching for “my Donna.”

While drugs have been a part of the American experience since the Jamestown Colonists discovered the hallucinogenic properties of Jimson Weed, it was the sixties that brought on a proliferation of every “mind expanding” toxicant known to the recreational pharmacist and sorcerer; the song Hashish, performed by the Tribe in an eerie and trippy haunting howl, signals the audience that mystic revelation can spring from psychedelics much easier and quicker than yoga, asceticism and rigorous self-denial.

While the United States was busily bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail and trumped-up body counts filled the evening news, the nation remained priggish about S E X; the song Sodomy drags words before the Klieg Lights that were hitherto only uttered in locker rooms, pajama parties, frat houses and confession booths; words like … like … well you know.

Woof—superbly played by the unassuming leading man of Encinal Theater, and Encinal’s West Point selectee, Raymond Cole-Machuca—lyrically runs through the entire Scortatory Dictionary trying to find the basis of its shock value.

Whether intentional or not, Raymond’s Woof is the oak tree about which the Tribe seems to hang its Teepee; he is both the Oberon and Puck of this musical.

Relentlessly threaded through the musical, submerging and reemerging repeatedly, is the problem of the Draft: compulsory military service; most likely in Vietnam.

The lead character, Claude, is inexorably ratcheted closer and closer to boot camp and the nightmare that lies beyond.

Claude—as played by Ryan Borashan is brilliant casting.

Ryan is an amazing young gentleman actor not to be under-estimated; he is so capable and expansive on stage that his own teachers have difficulty recognizing him.

Claude does his best to dismiss reality; he dives into a false identity in the song Manchester England as if to momentarily escape the Selective Service who has issued him a draft card.

Ryan’s rendering of the song betrays the desperation of a draft eligible teenager trying to suspend his sense of disbelief to buy one more day in protracted adolescence; neither his parents nor the Tribe fully comprehend the enormity of his crisis.

Later as reality begins to infiltrate Claude’s denial mechanism, Ryan wonderfully sings what is arguably the finest song of the show: Where Do I Go.

One of the most startling voices in HAIR is Kalyn Evans; when she chimes into the number Ain’t Got No, the song leaps a full octave qualitatively; this reviewer spent the rest of the evening anxiously waiting for an encore from Kalyn.

As previously stated, the environment was moved to the front burner by the Hippy Movement and the environmentalist in HAIR is the amply Pregnant Jeanie—played by very talented Miss Ruby Wagner.

Miss Wagner—one of the bright beacons in this show—perhaps acceding that there were vagaries in the sound system, not only sang mellifluously, but she communicated her song, Air, to the audience with expression, articulation and earnestness while never compromising on melody.

In a subjective debate over the virtues of Black Boys versus White Boys and in a nod to Motown and Phil Spector, Emani Pollard, Kalyn Evans and Jayla Velasquez delightfully shimmied in shimmering minis.

Costuming and make-up deserve major kudos.

Initially one might think this is a parody of the sixties until one realizes that this is how it really was, equally audacious and outrageous in the sixties as it is on the Encinal Stage.

To connect or reconnect to a time when expectation and hope trumped the status quo and the military-industrial complex, get thee to HAIR.

The show runs through Saturday March 23 and should not be missed.

Period dressing is encouraged.

Call Encinal High at 748-4023 for more details.