Judy Richter

Foothill Music Theatre has taken on a major challenge by staging “Sunday in the Park With George.”

Stephen Sondheim’s music and lyrics always are tricky. There are design challenges, too, in this 1984 fictionalized account of the creation of French artist Georges Seurat’s monumental painting, translated as “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”

The first act in James Lapine’s book for the show takes place between 1884 and 1886, mostly on the island in the Seine near Paris as George (Tyler Bennett) paints his model/mistress, Dot (Katie Nix), other people and their surroundings. Other scenes take place in his studio as he continues to paint.

George is so absorbed in his work that he neglects Dot. Because he’s developing a new technique, his work baffles fellow artists. Even when Dot becomes pregnant with their daughter, Marie, he remains focused on his art, causing Dot to marry a kindly baker, Louis, (Michael Weiland), and go to America with him.

Act 2 takes place 100 years later in an American museum, probably the Art Institute of Chicago, where the painting hangs today. George’s great-grandson, also named George and played by Bennett, is displaying his latest creation, “Chromolume # 7,” a kind of light show, and trying to raise money for the next one during a reception. He’s accompanied by his grandmother, Marie, played by Nix.

Later, he goes to Le Grande Jatte in hopes of finding a new direction for his art.

Seurat experimented with color and light by using only 11 colors, no black. Instead of mixing them on his palette, he applied them in tiny dots so that the eyes would do the fusing. This technique came to be known as pointillism.

Inspired by Seurat, Sondheim orchestrated the work for 11 instruments and emulated pointillism with staccato notes in some songs, especially those George sings while painting. Throughout the score, Sondheim fans will recognize echoes of his earlier “Sweeney Todd” and foreshadowings of “Into the Woods.”

Musical director Dolores Duran-Cefalu, who conducts from the keyboard, uses a scaled-down orchestration for six other musicians, but it works well.

Bennett as George (Sergey Khalikulov appears in some performances) convincingly portrays his prickly personality and sings well.

Although Nix as Dot/Marie looks the part and acts well, she doesn’t blend well with Bennett in songs like the title song, “We Do Not Belong Together” and “Move On.”

Noteworthy in the strong supporting cast is Linda Piccone as his mother in Act 1 and an art critic in Act 2.

Many of the design challenges in this show radiate from the coup d’ theatre that ends Act 1. That’s when the cast and designs gradually move into place to recreate Seurat’s painting. Costume designer Robert Horek and lighting designer Michael Rooney play their parts well, as does scenic designer Bruce McLeod. However, FMT’s Lohman Theatre is perhaps too small to allow the audience to sit back far enough to get to full effect.

The show hasn’t been seen often locally. ACT presented the Bay Area premiere in 1986, followed by TheatreWorks in 1987 and again in 1999.

Patrons who aren’t familiar with the show or who want to learn about the cast are advised to arrive early to read that pertinent information in the lobby. Budget constraints presumably prevent FMT from providing it in the program.

Overall, though, director Milissa Carey, her colleagues (including choreographer Amanda Folena) and the performers have created an enjoyable production.

“Sunday in the Park With George” will continue through March 8 in the Lohman Theatre, Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos. For tickets and information, call (650) 949-7360 or visit www.foothillmusicals.com.

Domestic violence is the catalyst for Sam Shepard‘s “A Lie of the Mind,” staged by the Magic Theatre.

The perpetrator is the volatile, paranoid Jake (Sean San Jose), who believes he has killed his wife, Beth (Jessi Campbell). No, she hasn’t died, but she’s been badly brain damaged.

Both wind up in the care of their brothers and then their families, where the seeds of their combative relationship were sown. Beth’s brother, Mike (James Wagner), is initially solicitous of Beth as he tries to help her recover, but he has his unsympathetic side, too. In that respect, he takes after their father, Baylor (Robert Parsons), who disregards the feelings of others and treats his wife, the sweet-tempered Meg (Julia McNeal), like a servant.

Jake’s brother, Frankie (Juan Amador), is a basically good guy though none too bright. Their mother, Lorraine (Catherine Castellanos), is protective of Jake, essentially denying that he could have done anything wrong. However, their sister, Sally (Elaina Garrity), sees things clearly.

Running about three hours with one intermission, the play explores family relationships and the way that people often don’t listen to one another. However, it would be a mistake for the audience not to listen, because each scene is loaded with emotional information about the characters and their motivations as well as their relationships with the others.

The program notes say that this is one of Shepard’s more feminist plays. It certainly seems so because each of the four women eventually forges some kind of new future for herself.

As directed by artistic director Loretta Greco, some scenes might benefit from different pacing, but overall the play moves inevitably along. Except for Amador as Frankie, who tends to overact, the acting is outstanding. San Jose is downright scary as Jake, while Campbell skillfully portrays Beth’s frailties as well as the insights she articulates despite and because of her brain injury.

Robert Brill‘s raked, wood plank set is sparsely furnished, allowing quick transitions between scenes. Seated off to one side are Nicholas Aives and Jason Cirimele, who composed and play mood-setting music.

Lighting by Burke Brown, sound by Sara Huddleston and costumes by Alex Jaeger enhance the production.

Shepard was the Magic’s resident playwright for more than 10 years and premiered seven of his plays there. However, this is the first time that it has staged the 1985 “A Lie of the Mind.” American Conservatory Theater presented it in 1987.

It’s a challenging play for both actors and audiences, but it has its intellectual and emotional rewards.

Long-held resentments along with secrets and surprises trickle upward and sometimes spew forth in Nicky Silver’s “The Lyons,” presented by Aurora Theatre Company.

The catalyst for this play about a dysfunctional family is the pending death of the father, Ben Lyon (Will Marchetti).  Although he and his wife, Rita (Ellen Ratner), have known for several months that his cancer will be fatal, she doesn’t inform their two adult children until death could come within a few days.

Naturally both Lisa (Jessica Bates) and Curtis (Nicholas Pelczar) are shocked at the news and angry that they haven’t been told sooner. As the family gathers in Ben’s hospital room, known information emerges first: Curtis is gay, and Lisa, a recently divorced mom raising two young sons, is a recovering alcoholic.

There’s much more than that, however, as playwright Silver reveals in the family’s often scathing, often hilarious conversations. One thing is clear: There hasn’t been much love to go around. However, there’s lots of bitterness, and everyone is scared in some way, mostly of being alone.

The play’s other two characters are a nurse (Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe) and a real estate agent, Brian (Joe Estlack). Brian appears in only one scene, when he shows a vacant New York City studio apartment to Curtis, who’s supposedly interested in buying it. Nevertheless, Brian plays a pivotal role in the play’s outcome.

Director Barbara Damashek paces this two-act, two-hour work well, allowing time for the laughs and carefully pacing speeches that leave the audience raptly quiet. One such scene comes as Ratner’s Rita tells about the time many years ago when she bought a gun, presumably to kill Ben.

In fact, Rita carries some of the play’s heaviest loads, especially in one of the final scenes, when she acts on her intention to snare whatever happiness she can.

Marchetti is marvelously grumpy as the dying Ben, while Bates and Pelczar embody all of the anxieties felt by his two offspring.

Except for the apartment scene, the rest of the action takes place in a hospital room (set by Eric Sinkkonen with lighting by Kurt Landisman and sound by Chris Houston). Costumes are by Callie Floor with fight direction by Dave Maier.

This Bay Area premiere production is a highly entertaining, thought-provoking evening of theater.

“The Lyons” will continue through March 1 at Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley, through March 1. For tickets and information, call (510) 843-4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org.

Baseball may be America’s favorite pastime, but football runs a close second or maybe comes up in a tie.

Playwright KJ Sanchez with Jenny Mercein explores part of the lure of football in “X’s and O’s (A Football Love Story)”. Berkeley Repertory Theatre is presenting its world premiere under the astute direction of artistic director Tony Taccone.

Much of the play focuses on the sport’s risks, especially brain injuries, specifically chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. “CTE is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as sub-concussive hits to the head that do not cause symptoms,” according to Wikipedia.

Football players are susceptible to it because the sport involves so many hard falls and violent collisions between players. The problem has been in the news with a suit by former players against the National Football League as well as other incidents, including the suicide of Junior Seau, a retired player, in 2012.

The play touches on other aspects of football, such as its history and evolution of equipment, but barely mentions other issues such as domestic violence and other criminal behavior, racism, commercialism and big business. “There are certain issues that are really hot topics … that we felt just couldn’t fit in one play. A lot of these subjects deserve their own plays,” the playwrights say in the program.

They also say that most of the dialogue comes directly from people they interviewed for the play, but they changed the names.

An excellent ensemble cast of four men and two women portrays a range of characters. Bill Geisslinger first appears as Frank, a retired running back, while Dwight Hicks is first seen as George Coleman, a former defensive back. Hicks may be most familiar to local audiences as a former standout member of the San Francisco49ers.

Among others, Anthony Holiday plays Addicott, a former defensive end, while Eddie Ray Jackson is a young fan and player. Marilee Talkington is authoritative as a team physician who talks about the physical and psychological aspects of CTE. Co-creator Jenny Mercein (daughter of former pro player Chuck Mercein) completes the cast in several female roles.

Although all of the play is fascinating, one of the most effective scenes comes near the end when three family members — played by the two women and Jackson — talk about how their loved ones, who were former football players, declined mentally and then died at tragically young ages.

Scenes that might need some tweaking occur in a sports bar where three fans, played by Holiday, Jackson and Mercein, talk about their attitudes toward football while watching a game.

Production values are strong with Todd Rosenthal’s flexible set enhanced by lighting and videos designed by Alexander V. Nichols. Meg Neville’s costumes suit the characters (such as Geisslinger as a rabid Raiders fan). The sound is by Jake Rodriguez, while John Sipes served as movement director.

Adding to the atmosphere on opening night, the Cal band played in the courtyard before the game, and the ushers and other workers wore striped referee shirts.

This is a play that deserves a wide audience as it explores a serious issue regarding the role of football in our culture and the toll it takes on its players and their families. As one character says, NFL actually stands for “not for long.”

“X’s and O’s (A Football Love Story” will continue through March 1 on Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison Ave., Berkeley. For tickets and information, call (510) 647-2949 or visit www.berkeleyrep.org.

Although the title implies that Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” is about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the central character actually is Antonio Salieri, a fellow composer inVienna.

After the tragically untimely death of Mozart (1756-1791), it was rumored that Salieri (1750-1825) had poisoned him. It’s more likely that kidney failure was to blame.

Hillbarn Theatre’s production, directed by Leslie Lloyd, features Jerry Lloyd (the director’s husband) as Salieri and Ross Neuenfeldt as Mozart.

Shaffer’s fictionalized take on their relationship focuses not on Salieri’s having poisoned Mozart but on the elder composer’s doing everything in his power to thwart Mozart’s career. In the process, Mozart is reduced to abject poverty while most audiences at the time fail to appreciate his genius.

Salieri, however, recognizes it immediately and realizes that Mozart’s music is far superior to his. He regards it as a gift from God. Thus, Salieri is rankled to his soul, for as a young man he had promised God that he would live an upright and virtuous life if only he could become a great composer.

This approach works for quite some time as Salieri achieves fame and fortune, earning a lucrative position in the court of Emperor Joseph II (Ray D’Ambrosio).

Hearing Mozart’s music and meeting the young man causes Salieri to renounce his vow to God and instead to undermine Mozart. In the meantime, Salieri pretends to be Mozart’s friend and ally. When Mozart advances despite Salieri’s efforts, the hypocritical Salieri takes credit.

Making Salieri’s hatred for Mozart even greater is that while his music appears to come straight from God, the man himself is callow, shallow and uncouth. Salieri privately calls him an obscene child.

As the play opens, Salieri is an old, feeble, guilt-wracked man in November 1823. He then recounts the events from 1781 to Mozart’s death in 1791.

Hillbarn’s production runs three hours and 15 minutes with one intermission. Part of that length comes from the script, which could use some judicious cutting. For example, the opening scene with Salieri in his wheelchair goes on too long.

Perhaps the other part of the length comes from the direction and the differing levels of acting ability. Lloyd, the only Equity (professional) actor in the production, is superlative. Likewise, Neuenfeldt as Mozart is excellent, making him a more sympathetic character than seen in some productions and believably navigating his physical and mental decline. Also noteworthy in the cast is Lauren Rhodes as Constanze Weber, who becomes Mozart’s wife.

The set by Kuo-Hao Lo is flexible but unattractive, and some missed cues in Matthew Johns’ lighting design don’t help. Lisa Claybaugh’s costumes and the wig and hair designs by Aviva Raskin evoke the era. Sound by Jon Hayward features tantalizing snippets from great Mozart works like “Cosi Fan Tutte,” “The Marriage of Figaro,” “The Magic Flute,” “Don Giovanni” and others.

The play holds some fascination not only for its music but also for its exploration of the man-God relationship, something that Shaffer also examined in his more successful “Equus.”

“Amadeus” will continue through Feb. 8 at Hillbarn Theatre, 1285 E. Hillsdale Blvd., Foster City. For tickets and information, call (650) 349-6411 or visit www.hillbarntheatre.org.

At the heart of Tom Stoppard’s “Indian Ink”  is a cross-cultural relationship between an English poet and an Indian artist.

Presented by American Conservatory Theater under the direction of artistic director Carey Perloff, it’s an often fascinating story told in both the 1930s and the 1980s.

The poet is Flora Crewe (Brenda Meaney), who is visiting India in 1930. The artist is Nirad Das (Firdous Bamji), who meets her at a social event and shyly presents her with a quick sketch that he has made of her. Before long, he is painting her portrait while she writes a poem on the veranda of her lodgings.

She relates her most of her experiences through letters to her sister, Eleanor Swan (Roberta Maxwell), in England. Fifty years later, Eleanor is sharing those letters with Flora’s biographer, Eldon Pike (Anthony Fusco). Later, Eleanor shares more information with Nirad’s son, Anish Das (Pej Vahdat), who in turn shares other information with her.

An undercurrent to Flora’s experiences in India is British control of the country. Hence, she meets other English people, such as a minor official, David Durance (Philip Mills), whose attraction to her is not mutual except for friendship.

The action seamlessly moves between time periods thanks to Perloff’s fluid staging and the all-purpose set by Neil Patel. Sometimes exquisite lighting by Robert Wierzel helps to establish time, place and mood. Costumes by Candice Donnelly, along with music and sound by Dan Moses Schreier, also enhance the production.

Running almost three hours, the intriguing two-act play offers plenty of food for thought. The political aspects of how Indians relate to the British colonialists may be somewhat unfamiliar to American audiences, but the program offers helpful background on both the politics and Indian culture.

The production features almost consistently excellent acting, especially by Meaney as Flora and Maxwell as Eleanor, but the accents of many of the Indian characters are often difficult to understand. Bamji as the artist has a distracting habit of shifting from foot to foot.

ACT staged the American premiere of “Indian Ink” in 1999. Playwright Stoppard has since revised it in collaboration with Perloff, who recently directed it inNew York City.

I didn’t see the 1999 production, so I can’t make comparisons. However, the play bears some structural similarities to Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” which ACT successfully staged in 1995 and 2013. “Arcadia” works better if only because the dialogue is more understandable and the through-line smoother.

Still, the overall play and production of  “Indian Ink” are well done.

Playwright Sarah Ruhl gives the classic story of Orpheus and Eurydice a new interpretation in “Eurydice,” presented by Palo Alto Players.

Rather than focus on musician Orpheus’s efforts to retrieve his deceased wife, Eurydice, from the underworld, Ruhl makes Eurydice the center of attention. In Ruhl’s version, Eurydice (Sarah Moser) reunites with her father (Scott Solomon), who has been trying to contact her. Father is a character invented by Ruhl.

Orpheus (Wes Gabrillo) goes to the underworld to bring his wife back. However, the Nasty Interesting Man/Child (Evan Michael Schumacher), who rules there, tells him she will follow him back to the upper world, but if he looks back, she’ll die again.

Director Jeffrey Lo has assembled a solid cast, which also includes Maureen O’Neill, Monica Ho and Monica Cappuccini as the Chorus of Stones in the underworld. He also has a good design team with the set by Janny Coté, lighting by Nick Kumamoto, costumes by Tanya Finkelstein and sound by Jeff Grafton.

However, neither strong acting nor first-rate designs can overcome the production’s slow pace and the plot’s lack of compelling interest, thus making the 90 minutes without intermission seem much longer.

It’s a disappointment after Ruhl’s more successful plays, such as “Dear Elizabeth,” “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” and “The Clean House.”

“Eurydice” will continue through Feb. 1 at the Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. For tickets and information, call (650) 329-8583 or visit www.paplayers.org.

Becoming a truly great classical musician requires extraordinary talent and dedication. Without both of the latter, one’s dream of greatness won’t come true.

That’s the hard lesson learned by young Ted (Darren Dunstan) and Richard (Christopher Tocco) in “2 Pianos 4 Hands,” the autobiographical play with music by Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt, presented by TheatreWorks.

Directed by Tom Frey, the two-act work follows the boys’ journey from their first piano lessons through harsh assessments when they’re about to embark upon higher training.

The two actors play all of the other characters, both male and female. Most of those other characters are parents or teachers, some more competent than others. The two also play smatterings of music ranging from Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and others to Rodgers & Hart, Billy Joel and John Lennon.

The first few minutes go slowly as the formally clad musicians (costumes by Noah Marin) get settled at the two Steinway grand pianos that dominate the stage, along with two large suspended picture frames, on the set by Steve Lucas, who also designed the lighting.

Things pick up after that as Ted and Richard are about 9 years old when they learn basics such as scales, chords and rhythms. This act is highlighted by their disastrous appearance in a duet contest. It carries them through age 12.

Act 2, which continues through age 17, features more advanced lessons and parental conflicts. Finally the bitter truth surfaces, and both young men have to settle for far less than they had hoped.

Besides being talented actors, the men in this show must be accomplished pianists. Dunstan and Tocco fill the bill on both.

Although they specifically deal with classical piano, the play’s themes could apply to other types of music, especially classical, as well as other arts and even sports, where only the most gifted and talented have a chance of reaching the top.

By extension, the themes could work in other professions and aspects of life. Hence, the play makes for a satisfying evening of theater and music.

“2 Pianos, 4 Hands” continues through Feb. 15 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. For tickets and information, call (650) 463-1960 or visit www.theatreworks.org.

If silly is your cup of tea, you’ll probably enjoy “Peter and the Starcatcher.”

The TheatreWorks production is directed by artistic director Robert Kelley, who has assembled a stellar cast. However, they have to deal with excesses in the play by Rick Elice, who based it on a 2004 novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.

The creators have an interesting premise of presenting a prequel to the Peter Pan story, but some overacting detracts from that idea as well as from some of the show’s truly clever moments and humor.

Most of the story takes place in 1885 when two ships set sail from London to Rundoon. Each carries an identical chest. The one on the Wasp is to be closely guarded by Lord Aster (Darren Bridgett) on orders of QueenVictoria.

The other is to be safeguarded on the other ship, the Neverland, by his plucky 13-year-old daughter, Molly (Adrienne Walters), accompanied by her nanny, Mrs. Bumbrake (Ron Campbell).

Their fellow passengers include three mistreated orphan boys. One of them, played by Tim Homsley, is the lonely, friendless Boy. Through various adventures and misadventures, Boy and Molly form an alliance, along with the other two boys.

In the meantime, the Wasp has been taken over by pirates, led by Black Stache (Patrick Kelly Jones), assisted by his henchman, Smee (Suzanne Grodner). Black Stache, who’s prone to malapropims, is the show’s most outrageous character, in part because of the writing and in part because of Jones’s overacting and mugging.

A series of adventures and misadventures follows in the convoluted plot. In the end, Boy decides to call himself Peter Pan and remain a boy, while Molly goes on with her life as a Starcatcher, one of a select few appointed by the queen to collect magical starstuff as it falls to earth.

In addition, Black Stache vows that he and Peter will be enemies from then on. Hence the path to the Peter Pan story is laid.

The plot twists involve some clever staging by Kelley. All 12 actors in the versatile cast assume at least one additional role during the two-act play. Standouts include Bridgett as Lord Aster, Walters as Molly, and Homsley as Boy. Cyril Jamal Cooper and Jeremy Kahn are noteworthy as Boy’s fellow orphans.

Plot’s transitions are aided by Joe Ragey’s flexible set (lit by Pamila Z. Gray) and creative, sometimes zany costumes by B. Modern. Some scenes are enhanced by Wayne Barker’s music. William Liberatore serves as musical director and keyboardist, joined only by a percussionist in the orchestra pit.

On the other hand, the sound design by Brendan Aanes overamplifies the actors, several of whom tend to shout their lines.

The play’s weaknesses are most apparent in the first act, but the second act becomes more interesting as it goes along.

“Peter and the Starcatcher” will continue at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, through Jan. 3. For tickets and information, call (650) 463-1960 or visit www.theatreworks.org.