Joe Cillo

COME TO THE MASQUERADE

By Lynn Ruth Miller

People are so busy dreaming the American dream,

Fantasizing about what they could be or have a right to be,

that they’re all asleep at the switch.

Florence King

Back in the dark ages when I was a child, I wanted to be a fairy princess.  I wanted to sprinkle everyone I met with fairy dust and create a golden paradise.  As I grew older, I wanted to become a beautiful dancer, a brilliant student, a sugar plum.

 

Little boys had fiercer dreams.  They wanted to be cowboys and bare-chested Indians with feathers trailing down their backs.  They wanted to shoot guns, kick puppies and punch each other. That was what little boys were supposed to do.

 

Those were the days when we all believed our streets were paved with gold and hard work could earn you a rainbow. We believed love and marriage was a right.  Every future needed lots of babies, a cute puppy and two cars in every garage.   That was the American way.

 

Attitudes have certainly changed, haven’t they?  These days, little girls want to be witches, vampires and black swans; little boys dream about pirates and fierce aliens. No one believes in miracles or magic.  We want power, money and lots of bling.

 

Little girls realize that to sprinkle themselves with fairy dust reduces them to sex objects.    Little boys know that muscles only get them jealous looks at the gym.  Healthy bank accounts, gas guzzling cars and a hot tattoo are in.  After all,  Galahads can’t pay the mortgage; and maidens don’t want to be saved.  It demeans them.

 

When you visit America, what do you see?  You see overweight human beings guzzling MacDonald’s hamburgers and Kentucky Fried Chicken while they listen to music on their I-pods, texting on their cell phones. You see huge shopping centers, clogged streets and no children playing on the streets. We put our children on school buses and worry that they will be kidnapped if they walk home from school. And no wonder.  2,185 children disappear every day in this country.

 

Americans awake before dawn to drive on packed freeways for hours to a job that pays too little and demands too much.  They battle traffic jams to get home too late to say good night to their children, turn on TV with a beer in one hand and a remote in the other. There is no time to admire the daisy that bloomed in the garden or the pink dragon their child made in school.  I see women dropping off their children at day care so they can go to an office, work until five, pick up the children, do the grocery shopping, clean the house and make dinner with no time to enjoy the money they have earned or get to know the children they have created. I see families buying gadgets they don’t need, wearing clothes that turn them into carbon copies of everyone else and I wonder if they know what they are missing.

 

There is a lot of good in the American way, of course.  I love that women have choices and men do the dishes. I love that, in California at least, you can be gay or straight, black, white or yellow and still have a shot at grabbing the gold ring.  I love that little girls play football and little boys are allowed to cry.

 

Not long ago, I was visiting a family in Edinburgh and when I opened the front door, their little girl was sitting in the hall singing to her dolls.  The first thing that occurred to me as I watched that child so wrapped up in her fantasy she didn’t know anyone else existed, was ”This could never happen in America.”

 

Just last month, I lost my way on a Brighton street and a woman I did not know walked me several blocks to my destination.  If you are lost in my town, it is your bad luck..  People here have deadlines.  They do not have time for compassion.

 

I wonder if California dreaming is fun anymore.  We make headlines every day. You can’t beat us for glitter, but something awful has happened to the gold.

 

We must stop talking about the American dream

And start listening to the dreams of Americans.

Max Beerbohm

LOVING MY IMAGE

 

There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful,

Than a woman being unapologetically herself;

Comfortable in her perfect imperfection.”

Steve Maraboli

I became conscious of my body when I was 16 and I hated it.  This was 1946 when the image was a flat tummy and big breasts.  The goal was the “sweater girl” look:  a slender, pegged skirt with a slit so you could walk and a filled tight sweater.  I was flat- chested, with tiny hips and a bloated tummy that made my shape look more like a Shmoo than Marilyn Monroe.

 

Through the years, as fashions changed and my body modified, I never seemed able to diet it down or corset it into the shape I saw in magazine centerfolds.  I knew instinctively that if I wanted to catch a man (and in those days, we all wanted to do that) I would have to look tempting enough to excite him.  No man with a decent level of testosterone would look twice at a woman shaped like a tube with over-sized feet that turned out when she walked.   I was convinced that my poor social life was the result of high intelligence and a lousy figure.

 

It never occurred to me that the first step to becoming a beauty is to love who you are.  I saw homely, dumpy, fashion-less girls snap up all the eligible men and I never understood how they did it.  Even I, with my sallow coloring and wispy hair looked better than they did.  Besides I didn’t wear glasses and my complexion was clear.

 

Years passed and my body parts reshaped themselves with each decade, but no matter what happened to them, I hated the look I had.  For as long as I can remember, I have either worn baggy pants and extra large  shirts, or long loose dresses, starting with the waist-less shifts in the fifties to the loose flowing gowns I have adopted since I came to California in the eighties.  I have always been thankful for clothes that conceal and it never occurred to me to lower my turtle neck to anything décolleté.

 

About 6 years ago, I added a mock strip tease to my comedy act and for the first time in my life, I exposed my legs and my collar bone.  The costume I wore was hardly salacious (I had given that up years ago) but it certainly revealed a lot more of me than had ever been exposed before.  I pranced and posed through the next few years, never exposing more, but adding new and more daring costumes until bit by bit, I devised the blinking tit routine which flashed as I sang and was disconcerting, funny and not very provocative at all.

And then two years ago, I started doing my songs in real burlesque shows.  I would go into the dressing room and watch women of every size and shape get themselves into gorgeous and revealing costumes and instead of dressing behind a screen (as I had done for a minimum of seventy years) I was undressing in a room filled with naked men and women…..(boys do burlesque too) and no one looked askance at me or at each other.  In fact, we all helped one another hook, pin and embellish our costumes ready for the stage.

I noticed that the women who were the best performers did not necessarily conform to any “look” but they all shared a wonderfully confident attitude and it was then I realized what those homely girls in the forties had that I didn’t have.  They loved who they were.  They never thought twice about the circumference of their waists or the size of their brassiere.  Their concern was how to show off what they had…and how to put it to the best and most pleasurable use.

I think that is wonderful.  I am past worrying about pleasurable use but I am certainly interested in using what I have to the best advantage.  I LIKE being saucy and even sexy…..no I LOVE it….and I love the body I have to do it with.  Both hips are mine, the knees bend, the boobs are saggy but they can twirl….sort of.  But who cares?  I am the only me I can be and I am unique. That is plenty good enough for me.

 

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed.

And you are beautiful.

Amy Bloom

WHO IS WATCHING YOU ?

Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like
asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.
John Perry Barlow

You decide to buy a book about surfing and find just want you want on bargains.com.  You type in your credit card details and send them off to the company which has assured you that your information is safe with them and goes nowhere but to their secure site. You have every right to believe that the only one who is aware of that number (which is a direct link to your checking account) is an impersonal machine that automatically checks to see if your card is valid.  Two months later, you order something else from the site and discover your card is on file.  How did that happen? What right have they to save it?  Worse: can someone who works there use your details for their own purposes?

Ah, but the real surprise is that your card details are not only on file with Bargain.com but with several hundred other sites with ads on Google.  AND when you send an e mail mentioning surfing, you get twenty ads alongside your e mail telling you that they have spiffy surfboards at half the price you paid at bargain.com.  As you look down the list of vendors, you also find new places to surf, hotels to stay at and places to eat especially for surfers.  How did Google know you surfed?  You haven’t even discussed it with your mother.

You go to another site to look up books on calligraphy and when you start to type in your contact details to purchase the book you want, you discover that somehow, this omniscient site recognizes you as soon as you type the first letter of your name.  How did that happen?  You were never interested in calligraphy until an hour ago.

“There are hundreds of web-based email services that appear to offer anonymity. Few really do. These include names such as Hotmail, Yahoo, Excite and many more that could be listed. In each of these cases, the user is allowed to create a personal username that he uses for his messages. Unfortunately, through sign-up procedures and logging, it is amazingly simple to determine your ISP, and even your true identity, when you use these services,” says A. Brown on www.e/cheat.com.

At first, all this seems to heighten the convenience of shopping or searching on line.  We tend to forget that ordinary people are entitled to privacy. Refusing to reveal the amount of money we have, where it is deposited and the special interests we have unpublished does not make us terrorists.  (Although the way this information is bandied about certainly does make us terrorized.)

 

Mike Butcher explains this practice of real time web disclosure:  “The idea behind a real-time Web is to create technology that doesn’t require an Internet user to actively seek out something they’re interested in. That could mean anything from getting pinged when an article about your favourite sports team is posted to an alert when you’re mentioned in someone’s blog.”

There is something decidedly uncomfortable about the world knowing you like surfing or are interested in pursuing calligraphy…but it is a lot MORE disturbing if your partner finds out you have just joined e harmony to see if someone more exciting awaits or that you like to watch porn while he is selling computers at Frye’s. That is all YOUR business,…or is it?

A Brown has more to say on the subject: “There are more reasons to want to protect your privacy than can be named. The important principal is that you have a right to privacy as long as that right is used within the bounds of the law.  Seeking privacy should not make you feel guilty. Privacy should be expected, and demanded. The reasons might be as simple as preserving your right to express unpopular opinions without being subjected to persecution, or as serious as communicating sensitive business information, revealing credit card numbers, legal discussions with your accountant, or hiding your true identity from a secret government. Regardless of your reasons, privacy is your right. Contrary to what some governing bodies might want the public to believe, not all those concerned with security and privacy are hackers or terrorists.”

The fact that A Brown is just another computer user who has made these observations on a non-technical site is even more unsettling.  The “experts” in computer technology probably know how to find out your eating habits, your sex addictions and your regularity….Why do they care?  Perhaps it is to use the information to tempt you to buy a product.  It could be to garner statistics on the potential success of a new product.  Or it could be to harass you and accuse you of something they think you might do…such as drug dealing or behaviour that “disturbs the peace.”

Facebook says, ‘Privacy is theft,’ because they’re selling
your lack of privacy to the advertisers who might show up one day
Jaron Lanier

SMILE! YOU’RE ON CAMERA

Chapter one:  I am born

David Copperfield

The “in” thing these days is to turn baby’s birth into a photo shoot.  I cannot think of anything more horrifying for the mother, more humiliating for the baby and more American for the revenue it creates.

 

Americans just love money.  If we can charge for it, we are there.  It all began with dog walking…why take out someone’s puppy for fun when you can get them to pay for it?  If Fido (who frankly doesn’t give a tinker’s damn if you are in the room as long as he has his food and a place to poop) might get lonesome while you are out earning his kibble, why not pay five times as much as his daily scoop to have some idiot who cannot earn a living in an office drag the pooch to the park.

 

Then there are the cat hotels.  Why should your cat who obviously has good taste…he hasn’t run away from you, has he?… suffer in an empty house without you?  So to ease your conscience, and keep him from scratching the furniture or chewing the baby, you decide to pay more per diem for Fluuffy to get stroked, fed and pampered than you paid for the flight and hotel package.

 

Ah, but that is not all.  What about the people who charge you for petrol because you are sitting in their automobile going to the same place they are?  Or the ones who make you pay a rental for a sweater you wanted to borrow for the dance?   They have figured out how to make capitalism pay and every one of us buy into it.

 

Now we have the photographers who figured out how a random picture can catapult them into the big bucks.  What with cell phone cameras and Polaroid’s, instant photography is at our fingertips.  Nothing is sacred.  Look at face book…pictures of a doll that was mutilated, a sunset in a place you would never go, a wounded toe…all there to share with your friends who couldn’t care less about your toe, your doll or your sunset.

 

I simply cannot imagine having a photographer I barely know staring at body parts that heretofore I had kept concealed in my underwear, watching me heave moan, writhe and suffer through one of the most painful though gratifying human acts.  I simply cannot fathom wanting a shot of my kid pushing his way out of my vagina covered with slime and afterbirth looking like he should be recycled.  Once that picture is taken it is frozen in time.  Why get a photographer to record a moment that you want to end as fast as possible so you can get on with life?

 

Imagine how your little boy will feel when he introduces you to the love of his life and you whip out a picture of him wrinkled, wet and covered with blood and say, ”That’s how he looked when he was born!” followed by  the inevitable, ”Wasn’t he precious?”

 

For my part, I want the kid cleaned up before I look at him. I want my forehead cooled, my stitches done and a good mop up job before I smile and say “cheese.”  I may be in denial but if I am going to record a birth, I want it to look gorgeous.  I want to remember the life I created, not its cost.  The good news is that I never WILL have to make that choice. That is one of the true joys of aging.

 

Being born is like being kidnapped

Then sold into slavery.

William Shakespeare

BGT AND ME

Let the path be open to talent.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Every now and then, opportunity knocks on your door in strange and mysterious ways.  The trick is to distinguish which is nonsense and which is your personal road to nirvana.  Sadly, I have never had that knack.  If you ask me to do just about anything that won’t put me in traction or murder an innocent bystander, I’ll give it a go.

I was cracking rude one-liners in Edinburgh for my one woman show last August when a young, unbelievably enthusiastic girl named Louise smiled at me and said, “How would you like to try out for Britain’s Got Talent?”

“But I’m not British.  I am from San Francisco,” I said.

Her enthusiasm did not diminish.  She positively bounced with delight when she said, “That doesn’t make any difference to us.”

“When do you want me?” I said.

It was that devil-may-care attitude that took me back to the Edinburgh Conference Center in Edinburgh for the first round of try-outs in October.  I was not a novice at this “I’ve Got Talent” business.  Four years ago, I managed to get to the third day in Las Vegas before America’s Got Talent told me I was hopeless. That was why I had a bit more perspective on the whole procedure for BGT last October.  I realized that the process was a bit of a soap opera and the purpose was to create a balanced TV show with a pre-decided proportion of singers, dancers, novelty acts and several “tear your heart out” stories.   I understood that even though the viewers blamed Peers Morgan in America and Simon Cowell in London for their unsympathetic and arbitrary dismissal of the candidates, both men were actually doing what they were told by faceless producers who had decided well before we tried out the second time who was in and who was rubbish.  I also figured out that being on the program would in no way “make my career.”  In America, a touchingly hopeful man named Paul impersonated Frank Sinatra right down to the skinny tie and blue contact lenses. “This is going to catapult me into the big time, darling,“ he said and I believed him.

I have never heard or seen him since.

That said, the initial weeding out process is not done by the stars we see pushing buzzers on our TV screen. The film crew create two minute clips to give to the producers who are designing the show.  It is these people who spend several months deciding who they want for each sequence of the show.   That first audition  is a heady experience.  Every hopeful believes that he is a cut above the rest and not afraid to prove it.  In Edinburgh, I met a business man who insisted he was destined for Glyndebourne.  He hummed arias to prove it not quite under his breath as we stood in endless lines waiting to be processed for the filming to come.   There was a lad of 13 whose mother swore he was the best country singer this side of the universe.  She never stopped coaching him while we waited our turns.  She stood outside the door when he went into the filming room, certain she had mothered an international star soon to pay her way into early retirement.  Neither the man or the boy made the grade.

I found Britain’s Got Talent far more humane and caring than America’s.  That exciting day in Edinburgh, I was treated like I was already a star by the delightful group of young people who make it all happen.  They check applications, organize the thousands of applicants with undiminished graciousness, escort each performer to a comfortable waiting area until they are filmed and assign the more interesting applicants to the camera crew for extra filming.  That day, I was taken to the station and filmed as if I had arrived on the bus even though I had taken the overnight train from London.  It is all part of the pretence that this is a reality show instead of the staged, pre-arranged event it has become.

The film crew who do the initial screening are endlessly patient and very sensitive to the talent performing their hearts out for the two minutes they are allowed to strut their stuff.  The best part is that no one knows that day if they made the grade.  That way, the decision comes on your computer where you can absorb it in your own way.  In America they loved to film you dissolved in tears, distraught because you lost your chance to be a star.

It is not so for the second phase.  I found out in late January that I had made the first cut and was asked to return to Edinburgh February 11 for an exceptionally long day at he Festival theatre to meet the judges.  In that session, only water is provided for a day that lasts well into the evening.  We were allowed to bring 4 friends to cheer us on and give away as many tickets as we liked for our performance before a live audience. I am from another country and of a certain age.  The few friends I have here are in their dotage and do not have the stamina for a 10-12 hour day.  I do have a smattering of young ones who can endure and one brought me a sandwich to sustain me.  Her reward was Simon Cowell’s autograph  when he entered the building about 3 pm that afternoon.

This phase of the elimination process is filled with electric anticipation.  We meet the people whom the producers think might make the grade.  This group of  performers are whittled down to the top 20 or so in each city where the try-outs took place.  My day at The Festival Theatre was filled with endless conversation and networking.  I hobnobbed with a band of Glaswegians in kilts with brilliant red, green and blue hair and a fantastic attitude, three girls who thought they were the second millennium version of The Andrew Sisters and Stuart Crout who invented a combination ukulele, guitar, piano and banjo all in one and had practiced his craft on the streets of Edinburgh since he was 11 years old.  We were all filmed talking to one another, waiting, drinking, fidgeting and hoping.  The highlight of the afternoon for me was meeting Stephen Mulhern.  We bantered back and forth and I agreed to be his gran. We decided if I actually won I would buy him a house and you know?  I would have done it.  He is charming.  I never felt judged or scrutinized (although all of us were) when I spoke with him.  I didn’t feel that I was performing either even though I knew I was being filmed.

When our big moment arrived, we sat in a long, airless hall behind the stage and waited to meet the judges.  We heard one performer after another buzzed off the stage and I realized how the people in Paris during their revolution felt as they waited in line at the guillotine.  The buzzer is incredibly loud and my big worry was that I would be so started if it sounded that I would faint or scream.  We were told that no matter how many times we were buzzed we should continue as if nothing had happened.  If that doesn’t test your endurance, nothing will.   The three girls I had met earlier went on stage and were buzzed off immediately. I could hear the audience cheering them and adoring them and then a pause.  The judges decided to let them try once more.  All of us in the back room smiled and started breathing again but alas!  Within seconds they were buzzed again by all four judges.

I thought, “I will never get through this.  Why on earth did I set myself up for this kind of public rejection?”

I was ushered into the area just behind the curtain and I met Anthony of Ant and Deck.  He showed me how I was to enter the stage and explained where I must stand.  And then I was on stage and the four judges were smiling at me. I did my two minutes and to my amazement, no one buzzed me. However,  Simon Cowell told me in no uncertain terms that I bored him and I told him I was very sorry I did.  Was he acting?  Did he mean it?  I will never know. The others were uncommonly kind and Alesha Dickson pointed out that it was unusual to have a performer my age on the program. That she said was working in my favour.  The three, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dickson and David Walliams voted for me and I got through!!!

I literally floated through the labyrinth of hallways to the vestibule, and was filmed saying I how amazed I was and then ushered back to see Stephen Mulhern to tell him he was one step closer to having a home of his own.

When I returned for some extra filming I met one of the young ladies in the group who had performed before me and she was awash in tears.  That was when I realized the inhumanity of the procedure.  Here she was convinced she was a failure even though the audience had clapped, stomped and cheered her group without reservation.

Stuart didn’t get into the next phase either, even though the staff had found him on You Tube and invited him to the second phase without enduring that first weeding out at The Conference Center. No one helps these hopeful, optimistic and very sensitive performers to understand that getting on this program neither makes or breaks them and that life offers endless opportunities.  This was just one.

The next phase took place at the end of February in London and the day began at 7:30 in the morning.  This is the phase where Britain’s Got Talent pays all your expenses and everyone you meet is certain they are stars.  There were about 100 acts from all over the country, the top winners from all the previous try-outs.  I absolutely adored everyone I met.  There was a singer who had been rejected in another reality program and mustered the courage to try again.  There was a group of middle aged guys from Manchester totally out of shape and bursting with hope.  There was a tranny named James who took me under his/her wing.  We all chatted and traded stories all day while we waited to see if we would go on to the next phase.  While I was there I saw a group of the oldest human beings I have ever seen still breathing and I asked them where they were from.  One of them managed to gasp, “London.”

And that was when I knew I had not gotten in.  Alesha Dickson had said BGT didn’t have a good representation of people my age and here was my competition.  They were older and they were really British.  I didn’t have a chance.   At 5:30 that day, I was ushered into a room with the four judges and Amanda Holden told us we were eliminated.  She was very gracious and kind but for the other two in that room with me she could have just as well thrust a knife into their hearts.  The effect was the same.    The young girl with me was devastated and sobbed for the next hour as we waited to be processed and dismissed.  I tried to console her but there was no way to stop those tears.  I looked at this child barely 17 years old who labelled herself as a failure and I knew then that despite the entertainment value of the program, its cost was far too high to those who lose and even higher for those who make it to the top only to realize that the top goes nowhere.

I left London and retuned home, ready to get on with my life and my comedy career.  The experience was wonderful and the people I met unforgettable.  For me, the adventure was over.  But I was wrong.  April 14, while I was dancing my heart out at the Texas Burlesque Festival I received a barrage of e mails.  BGT had shown my segment on television and all the world got to see me!!! It was a heady experience…but since I knew the outcome, I knew the thrill was momentary.

Wrong again.  I am in Brighton now and I cannot count the number of people who have stopped me on the street to ask, “Are you the lady I saw on Britain’s Got Talent.”  The truth is that I am wallowing in even more fame than I expected without getting anywhere near the top.  What can be better than that?

Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character.
John Wooden

 

620 words By ROSINE REYNOLDS

This “Tuna” Bites Back
Tuna, Texas is a fictional small town with a small town’s closeness. However, this community is not the pies- and-picket fences of Andy’s Mayberry, Hank Hills’ Arlen, Keillor’s Lake Woebegone or anyplace in “Our Town.” Tuna is more tumbleweed and barbed wire.
This town starts its mornings with local news from radio OKKK, delivered by veteran newscasters Thurston Wheelis and Arles Struvie. Today’s headline concerns the death of an important citizen, Judge Bruckner, beloved for being the judge who ordered the most hangings. The judge was found wearing a women’s bikini bathing suit. (This story will be corrected later as to the kind of swim suit it was.)
There follows a commercial from Didi’s Used Weapons, which, even though used, are “absolutely guaranteed to kill.” A standard Texas weather report follows, predicting “rain from all directions,” a dust storm, locusts and Tropical Storm Luther.
We then get a close-up look into the Buford household, where Mrs. Buford is being interviewed about her work on the Censorship Committee. The Committee objects to “Roots” in the public schools, saying that it “only shows one side of the slavery issue.” “Romeo and Juliet” is also on their list because of its “rampant disregard for parental authority and teenaged sex.”
But all is not harmony in Tuna. Many townspeople are at odds with the local animal lover, Petey Fisk of the Humane Society. (Petey has nightmares all through hunting season.) Mrs. Pearl Burras loves animals too, as long as they’re chickens, which she defends with modern science. Mrs. Buford doesn’t love animals as much as she used to before her Jody began collecting dogs. But Jody’s sister Charleen is having a personal crisis because she didn’t make cheerleader, and now she’s a senior.
There is, of course, a church, and the Rev. Spikes arrives to deliver a one-size-fits-all eulogy for the Judge. The Deity is also called upon for various needs throughout the story.
A genuine Texan, Linda Dunn, directed “Greater Tuna” for the finale of Ross Valley Players’ 82nd season. Its spoofs are, she says, “all these things I grew up around.” And it was on a visit back to the Lone Star State to see her mom that Ms. Dunn saw a production of “Greater Tuna” with more than two in the cast.
Originally created by three men – Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard — the show’s twenty characters were played by just Williams and Sears, each taking on multiple roles. The show debuted in Austin in 1981 and went on to become first in a series of four. It has since developed a loyal audience, even having an online General Store with its own merchandise.
Ross Valley Players’ version uses a cast of seven, including a number of recognizable names. Jim Dunn plays newscaster Thurston Wheelis as well as Elmer Watkins. Wood Lockhart is his partner, Arles Struvie, but is also Didi Snavely, the weapons saleslady. News banter between Wheelis and Struvie are highlights of the show.
The versatile Steven Price carries five parts, only four of whom are human. Robyn Grahn plays all the Bumiller children. Tom Hudgens (another Texan) is both the beleaguered Petey Fisk and the very proper church lady, Vera Carp. Jeffrey Taylor portrays three townspeople, including the Sheriff, and Javier Alarcon plays four others.
Michael A. Berg costumes all these people right down to the slip showing and the ear-flap hats.
“Greater Tuna” will be at The Barn Theater in the Marin Art & Garden Center, Ross, through Aug. 12. Thursday performances are at 7:30; Friday and Saturday shows are at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. For complete information and ticket prices, see www.rossvalleyplayers.com, and for reservations, call 456-9555, ext. 1.

“King John” – Good Play about a Bad Guy

Just as hurricane names are retired after they cause devastation, the name John
seems to be off-limits for British kings. One John was plenty. This was the same king who usurped his brother’s throne while Richard was on the Crusades and the same who harried Robin Hood. He’s also the king who was forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215 when his over-taxed barons demanded their “ancient liberties” back.

Marin Shakespeare’s Managing Director, Lesley Currier, has revived the Bard’s seldom-seen “King John” with a dynamic blend of fine acting and history. To appreciate this production fully, be sure to read Ms. Currier’s program notes before the action begins.

John has succeeded his popular brother, Richard Lionheart — killed in France by a crossbow — and is receiving an ultimatum sent by Philip, King of France, to relinquish all English claims to French territory. John refuses, though war between the two countries is sure to result. The ambassador leaves, and a pair of brothers arrives, one of whom claims to be King Richard’s illegitimate son. John’s mother, Elinor, sees the resemblance, and the older brother is knighted Sir Richard. He’s eager for the fight.

Back in France, King Philip’s ambassador delivers the bad news that England will not negotiate, and war is imminent. The court shelters young Arthur, son of John’s older brother Geffrey, and his devoted mother Constance, Geffrey’s widow.

(Those who are keeping score can see that there are now three possible claimants to the throne. Will there be more?)

A full-scale war erupts around the amphitheatre, after which it’s agreed that John’s niece, Lady Blanch, should marry Lewis, the French Dauphin; Arthur will be given a land grant as a consolation prize. Sir Richard, who has taken a fancy to Blanch, calls this peace agreement “most base and vile.” Everyone’s taking sides. Austria switches its allegiance to England; Cardinal Pandulph, the Pope’s emissary from Rome, is turned away, but first he excommunicates John and warns that France must not become his ally. King Philip chooses to remain with the Church, and the fight continues.

Shakespeare, by all accounts, never traveled, so it’s pardonable that he might have thought France and England were closer neighbors. But here’s where the Director’s program notes are essential.

Elizabethan audiences were proudly English and disdainful of foreigners. Besides, Gloriana herself might be in the audience. So Shakespeare’s French are shown as foppish and arrogant, his Austrian’s a brute in animal skins, and his Catholic emissary is deceitful. This way, even though King John is known to be a bad guy, he’s not as bad as the others.

There are thirty-three in the cast, and the ensemble playing is seamless. Scott Coopwood is a masterful King John, chilling in his conversations with Hubert (James Hiser.) Barry Kraft plays the beleaguered French King, torn between his love of country and this duty to the Church. Steven Muterspaugh portrays the Cardinal, accurately predicting John’s end. Liz Sklar, mother to young Arthur, holds the audience with her grief when Arthur’s been spirited away to England, and Erik MacRay is the ambitious Sir Richard.

And yes, there is another heir. In a wonderful concluding scene, Sir Richard will deliver the crown, and the Plantagenets will be redeemed.

“King John” plays at the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre in Dominican University, San Rafael in repertory with “Midsummer Night’s Dream” through Aug. 12. Parking and restroom facilities have been remodeled and greatly improved since last season. The amphitheatre is still outdoors, though, so playgoers should dress for the weather.

Ticket prices range from zero (under 18 on Family Day matinees) to $22. For complete information or reservations, please see www.marinshakespeare.org or call the box office, 499-4488.

To close its 45th season, Marin Theatre Company has assembled a load of big talent: Producing Director Ryan Rilette, four well-matched Equity actors and a script by Parisian playwright Yasmina Reza, who based this play, “God of Carnage,” on an incident from her son’s teens. It’s a quick (75 minutes) two-handed slap to the audience that builds fast and doesn’t let down until the final minutes.

At the outset, two couples are seated in the Novaks’ apartment, and Veronica Novak opens with, “So this is our statement.” These people are transacting some kind of business, and as the conversation continues – with interruptions and amendments — it’s clear that they are not friends.

The Raleighs’ son Benjamin has fought with young Henry Novak and has broken two of his teeth with a stick. (“Should we say Benjamin was ‘armed’ with the stick, or should we say ‘equipped?’) Bravado was probably involved, but isn’t bravado a type of courage? This is not the type of thing one expects in Cobble Hill Park, which is always so safe, not like Whitman Park.

Alan Raleigh’s cell phone makes the first of many intrusions. Alan’s an attorney whose client, a pharmaceutical company, has discovered an unfortunate side effect from one of its medications just before the shareholders’ annual meeting. Alan’s concerned about insurance coverage in case of litigation.

All agree that Benjamin should apologize to Henry, though Alan chuckles that their son is “a savage.” His wife affirms that Alan has never been “a stroller dad.” Veronica, slipping automatically into her hostess role, offers clafouti and coffee, explaining the secret of combining pears and apples together, then asks if young Benjamin understands that he’s “disfigured” his playmate.

There is talk of a gang; there is talk of a snitch. And there is a genuine gut reaction from Annette Raleigh shortly after her husband gets another phone call and asks for the definition of ataxia.

These four never leave the stage, but outsiders influence the conversation: calls from Alan’s office, calls from Michael Novak’s mother (who might be taking the suspect medication,) and concerns about Nibbles, the missing pet hamster.

Unfortunately, a bottle of rum is brought out. This veers “God of Carnage” into “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” territory, in which the characters drink and bicker and nobody leaves. One final phone call turns the mood and suggests that the carnage is mopping up.

Ryan Rillette has done a brilliant job of moving the players around the stage to indicate their shifting loyalties. Stacy Ross as Veronica Novak performs both the best tantrum and the most tender scene in the play. Remi Sandri shows her husband Michael living out his fantasy of himself as a combination of Spartacus and John Wayne.

Warren David Keith as Alan Raleigh depicts the perfect successful man who’s also a social embarrassment, and Rachel Harker’s Annette gets an audience cheer when she takes charge of her husband’s cell phone.

Meg Neville has costumed the characters in family groups: the Novaks are stylishly casual, the Raleighs more formal. Set designer Nina Ball has provided a comfortable, sleek apartment with one brick wall hung with African masks and two vases of blood-red tulips. All these details are significant.

An audience member leaving the theatre behind us was comparing this play with its film counterpart and said, “The movie lags. This one really moves!”

“God of Carnage” will be at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Avenue in Mill Valley, through June 17, every day but Monday. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays are at 8:00 p.m., Wednesday is at 7:30 p.m. Matinees are Thursday, June 7 at 1:00 p.m., Saturday, June 16 at 2:00 p.m. and every Sunday at 2:00. Sunday evening performances are at 7:00 p.m.

River City, Iowa has everything a town needs on July 4, 1912: a grocery store, City Hall, livery stable and modest house with a “Piano Lessons” sign in the window. It also has a train downstage and a 14-piece orchestra out of sight in back, so when the train begins to move, we know we’re not in Iowa anymore. We’re on Mt. Tam.

Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” was a success as soon as it opened on Broadway in 1957, even though it had to compete with “West Side Story” down the street. It won five Tony awards and ran for more than a thousand performances. And the secret to its long success is evident in the opening scene. The combination of songs with setting is superb.

Here’s a train carrying a load of traveling salesmen. The train jounces along the track, smoke billowing from its engine, as the salesmen complain about the handships of their trade in rhythm with the rails: “Whaddaya talk! Whaddaya talk!” and “You gotta know the territory!” Their main complaint is a black sheep salesman known as Harold Hill, whose latest racket is selling uniforms and instruments for an imaginary boys’ band, even though he doesn’t know music, and he doesn’t know the territory. And who is that fellow waving goodbye and getting off in River City?

“The Music Man” contrasts the rascally Hill with the honest and loyal Marian, her deserving family and the rivalries of their town. Hill is outgunned from the start.

This is a love story set to Meredith Willson’s lyrical music and told against Ken Rowland’s lovable-town backdrop. Much is being made of this year’s Mountain Play, as it is director James Dunn’s thirtieth and last. For his finale, this fine director has pulled together a group of seasoned actors from all over the county. Familiar names light up the program: Susan Zelinsky (Marian Paroo,) Stephen Dietz ( Mayor Shinn,) Randy Nazarian (Marcellus Washburn,) Gloria Wood (Mrs. Paroo,) Erika Alstrom (Ethel Toffelmeir,) Sharon Boucher (Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn) and Bob Wilson (Constable Locke.) Robert Moorhead (Harold Hill) has played this part three times in other venues, and even the children are already stage veterans. Brigid O’Brien (Amaryllis) was Scout in “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Jeremy Kaplan (Winthrop Paroo) has performed in seven musicals.

The barbershop quartet and the anvil salesman are additional of-the-period entertainment.
There are 61 cast members, 14 orchestra members, a marching band and a horse in this production.

Backstage, Pat Polen has woven Americana into costumes designed in all variations of red, white and blue. Debra Chambliss leads the band, and Rick Wallace has choreographed the dance numbers.

“The Mountain Play Experience” is exactly that. Audiences take most of their day for this event, and some of them do it every year in groups. Just being in the amphitheatre is part of the fun, but so is the remarkable view over the treetops and down to the Pacific. A few stalwarts hike both ways from Mill Valley, most take the bus at least one way, and some drive. Everybody brings water, a hat and comfortable shoes. The play starts at 2 p.m., but playgoers should plan to arrive at least an hour before. Ticket prices vary from $15 to $40 with no admission for children three and under. Reserved seating and group discounts and more information are available at www.MountainPlay.org.

Because of the approaching fire season, this uplifting show will play only June 3, 10 and 16, and will close June 17, Father’s Day.

On opening day, Jim Dunn did not come out for a curtain call, even though there were calls for “Director! Director!” That clamor will continue. After thirty years on the mountain, Mr. Dunn knows the territory.

Ross Valley Players are producing Tennessee Williams’ “Night of the Iguana” in tribute to the playwright’s 100th birthday last year. Williams’ last visit to The Barn was in 1979 for “The Glass Menagerie,” his first big success. That play won him a Pulitzer. He was thirty-four then.
Two years later, he came up with “Streetcar Named Desire” and then, when he was forty-four, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and another Pulitzer. “Night of the Iguana” was produced in 1961, when the playwright was fifty. A number of significant changes had happened in his life by then.

By the ‘60s, Tennessee Williams had come to terms with his own homosexuality and had formed a long partnership with Frank Merlo. He had not overcome his alcoholism, however, and had also developed an increasing dependence on prescription drugs. Merlo developed lung cancer and died in 1963. By the end of the decade, Williams’ brother had him hospitalized for his addictions.
“Night of the Iguana,” reaches back to a 1940 trip to Acapulco in which young Williams bonded with another writer who was also in desperate condition. The notes he took then formed the basis of a short story that eventually became the play.

This work isn’t set in the south, but in Mexico, in the fictional Puerto Barrio. All its characters are troubled. The Rev. Lawrence Shannon is trying to restore himself in the church, maintain sobriety and fend off the advances of Maxine, the innkeeper. Increasingly slovenly, Maxine satisfies her lust with her Mexican houseboys and then complains that they lack discipline.

Prim, ladylike Hannah arrives pushing her grandfather’s wheelchair. Her life is devoted to his needs. “Nonno” is a poet, as was Williams, but he’s almost ninety-eight now. They scratch out a bare existence selling Nonno’s poems and Hannah’s sketches of tourists.

Outside the hotel, honking loudly for attention, is a busload of Baptist female tourists, demanding the comfortable accommodation that Shannon, their tour leader, had promised. One of the women, Charlotte, is only sixteen, and she’s already had an affair with Shannon, for which she expects him to marry her. Charlotte’s chaperone, Miss Fellowes (Sandi Rubay) rages continually and vows reprisals. Further, a big storm is brewing, and a captured iguana, which “tastes like Texas chicken,” is scuffling around below.

Even Tennessee Williams cannot resolve this situation satisfactorily. The play’s ending forecasts itself a long way off.

As Lawrence Shannon, Eric Burke is onstage almost all the time and has an exhausting load of script. We want to like Rev. Shannon, but he makes this impossible when he defends his seduction of Charlotte with, “she asked for it.” Maxine (Cat Bish) copes with isolation by being overly upbeat and sloppy, while Hannah (Kristine Ann Lowry,) fits Shannon’s description of her as “a thin, standing-up female Buddha.”

Nonno (Wood Lockhart) seems to dodder more when he wants attention. He recites his poems in a strong voice, especially the epic he’s been working on. Young Charlotte (Kushi Beauchamp) escapes Miss Fellowes long enough to beg Shannon to let her help him.

Jake Latta, the substitute tour guide, is played by Mark Toepfer, Hank, the bus driver, by Richard Kerrigan, and Maxine’s two houseboys by Eric Sadler and Noah Benet.
“Night of the Iguana,” directed by Cris Cassell, will be at The Barn Theatre in the Marin Art & Garden Center, Ross, Thursdays through Sundays until June 17. Thursday performances are at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.
Ticket prices range from $17 to $25. An audience “talk back” with the actors and director will be offered after the matinees on May 27 and June 10.

For complete information, call 456-9555 or see www.rossvalleyplayers.com.