BLACK WATCH: Dramatic Event by Gregory Burke. Directed by John Tiffany. A.C.T. presents the National Theatre of Scotland’s production at The Armory Community Center, 333 14th Street, between Mission and Valencia, San Francisco.  415-749-2228 or www.act-sf.org.  May 9 – June 16, 2013.

BLACK WATCH BY Scotland’s National Theatre is a brilliant, gut-wrenching event.

If f***  and the street word for a woman’s sexual organ offend you avoid going to see Black Watch but if you wish to see a powerful, dynamic theatrical event get your ticket now because this potentially sell-out performance at the Armory Community Center in the Mission District will keep you riveted and tighten your sphincters for its intermission-less 110 minutes. It is masculine dominated world of war at its worse and comradeship at its best brought to life with “multimedia effects, music, movement and staging  that puts the audience on either side of the ground level stage with ‘stadium style seating’.”

The production is designed to play in a drill hall, not a proscenium arch stage and made its debut at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in just such a hall.  Since that extremely successful opening the production has moved throughout Scotland winning awards wherever it played. It created the same critical acclaim playing in Australia, Dublin, New York and Washington and other venues.

The play is non-linear beginning in a pool hall in Fife in 2006 where Lance Corporal “Cammy” Campbell and his Black Watch Unit agree to be interviewed by a newspaper writer. Expecting a woman, they rebel when a male writer appears and only agree to talk when free drinks are offered.  As their stories unfold in flashbacks to 2004 Iraq where their regiment is assigned to assist the Americans near Fallujah and Karbala named the “Triangle of Death.” Here the Black Watch comes under attack from mortars, rockets, IED (improvised explosive devices) and suicide bombers. The impersonality of death is amplified where the injured are not discussed by name but by number indicating increased severity. . . P1, P2, P3 and the dead as P4.  There is a spectacular scene where three men and an interpreter are blown up by a suicide bomber and all end up dead. . . P4.

The staging is explosively physical with more than a scattering of humor and a plethora of pathos. During one scene the ensemble depicts the history of the Black Watch from its early origins with one man being dressed in the 17^th century uniform marching through a phalanx of his comrades, who strip him of one uniform and dress him in the next decades uniform until they reach the present day uniforms.

It is a superb ensemble production with stunning physical choreography and no waste motion expressing meaning without words. A regimental fight scene is so intricate and realistic that you will be rearing back in your seat wondering how many will be injured during the melee. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a choreographed scene involving receiving mail is so beautiful it will tug on your heart.

The futility of the war in Iraq and later Afghanistan is driven home in this production when the question arises as to why they are there. Yes there is the “Golden Thread” of historical context as generation, after generation of Black Watch men follow in there ancestors footsteps but as Lord Elgin, leader of the group and descendent of Robert the Bruce, says “It is curse.” Why then do they fight? “The fight for their regiment. Their company. Their platoon. And for their mates.” That is a great definition of camaraderie.

This is a terrific theatric event. Do not miss it.

Creative Team: Steven Hoggett (movement director), Davey Anderson (musical director), Joe Douglas (staff director), Laura Hopkins (scenic designer), Jessica Brettle (costume designer ), Colin Grenfell (lighting designer), Gareth Fry (sound designer), and Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer for Fifty Nine Productions Ltd. (video designers)

Featuring: Cameron Barnes, Benjamin Davies, Scott Fletcher, Andrew Fraser, Robert Jack, Stuart Martin, Stephen McCole, Adam McNamara, Richard Rankin, and Gavin Jon Wright.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

LITTLE ME: Musical Comedy. Book by Neil Simon. Music by Cy Coleman. Lyrics by Carolyn Leigh. Based on the novel by Patrick Dennis. Directed by Eric Inman. Music Direction by Brandon Adams. Choreography by Staci Arriaga. 42^nd Street Moon, The Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson Street between Battery and Front Streets in San Francisco. 415-255-8207 or www.42ndStreetMoon.org   May 1 – 19, 2013

LITTLE ME at 42^nd Street Moon is bright, sassy and ‘dressed to the nines’.

To end their 20^th season, the much lauded 42^nd Street Moon has mounted the 50 year old star vehicle Little Me with a top notch cast dressed in a plethora of costumes that must have strained their budget. Where Sid Caesar was the original star in the 1962 Broadway production, our intrepid local group has imported the charming, versatile Jason Graae from the Southland to handle the multiple roles demanded by the script.

Jason is a whirlwind of activity playing seven different roles with an occasional hitch that he molds into the character he is playing at that specific moment with a wink and a nod to the audience. He is not the only one playing multiple roles since the ensemble group prances and dances on and off stage as non-gender specific characters with costumes to match. Our own local favorite Darlene Popovic first appears in a tight fitting red gown as “Momma” and later is a hit as Bernie Buschbaum to strut her stuff in a  ‘buck and wing’ show stopper “Be a Performer” with Zack Thomas Wilde as her/his side kick Benny.

Although Jason Graae is superb in the star vehicle roles of Noble Eggleston, Mr. Pinchley, Val Du Val, Fred Poitrine, Otto Schnitzler, Prince Cherney and Noble Junior he is matched line for line by the gorgeous Sharon Rietkerk (Belle Baby) and Teressa Byrne (Miss Poitrine Today) who play only one character.

But we are getting ahead of who, what, where and when of the original production. First produced in 1962 as a star vehicle for Sid Caesar, Little Me won two Tony Awards. It seems that Patrick Dennis (a pseudonym) of Auntie Mame fame wrote a parody of the autobiographical books that are the rage for the famous and not-so-famous society types entitled:  “Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of the Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television.”  It tells the story of social climbing Belle Poitrine, born on the wrong side of the tracks in Venezuela, Illinois who seeks, and gains “wealth, culture, and social position.”

Even before the book was published, and became a best-seller, producers Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin optioned it for the stage and brought aboard Neil Simon on the book, Cy Coleman as composer, and Carolyn Leigh as lyricist. It lasted for only 257 performances on Broadway and quoting Artistic Director Greg MacKellan “And then it was over. . .perhaps it had too satirical and edge for Broadway audiences at the time.” There were two other mountings of the show (1982 and 1999) that were not too successful in the U. S. but did big business in London

Mackellen who is a stickler for producing the ‘lost musicals’ in their original format has used the 1962 version that runs two hours and forty minutes with intermission and there’s the rub. Maintaining audience interest with humor piled on humor runs a little thin. This is not a criticism but an observation that may explain the abbreviated Broadway run.

There is lot to like beginning with the superb acting, fine singing, excellent staging, memorable musical numbers (“Real Live Girl”, “I’ve Got Your Number”, “On the Other Side of the Tracks”, and “To Be a Performer”), energetic dancing and costumes to die for.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR by William Shakespeare. Adapted and directed by Becky Kemper. African-American Shakespeare Company, Buriel Clay Theater at the African-American Art & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton Street, S. F. 800-838-3006 or www.African-AmericanShakes.org.  May 2 -24, 2013

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR by the African-American Shakespeare Company(A-ASC) is Shakespeare on the “Chitlin Circuit.”

Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy/farce that begs to be staged/spoofed as a concept performance and that is exactly what is happening at the Buriel Clay Theater at the African-American Art & Culture Complex.  It is a wild, wacky, ribald and uneven night of fun where the cast shares their enthusiasm and the lights never dim on the audience.

Adapted and directed by Becky Kemper, a relative Bay Area newcomer, who founded the Maryland Shakespeare Company has pulled out all the stops to make it a solid African-American production. Taking a cue from the “chitlin’ circuits”  that were the only places African-Americans could perform prior to 1960 racial integration. She has selected the time of 1950 as an appropriate era.

Before the play begins the audience is warmed up by members of the cast singing acappella and dancing to songs of the 50s advising that the auditorium lights would remain on for the entire show to encourage participation by the audience members who obliged with synchronous clapping to the music and singing when asked. The two intervals between the acts continued the audience interaction

In Shakespeare’s time women were not allowed on the stage and men dressed and played as women. A-ASC has turned that around and many of the male characters are played by women, including the pivotal role of Sir John Falstaff (Beli Sullivan) adorned with a false pot-belly to rival all pot bellies. That conceit works well earning most of the laughs. Casting of Tavia Percia and Fe’lisha Goodlow as Pistol and Nim (respectively) members of Falstaff’s gang is not so successful.

The familiar story line involves Falstaff the disenfranchised free spirit of Shakespeare’s King Henry IV plays who hatches a plot to gain money by wooing and winning the love of two wealthy wives Mistresses Ford (Leotyne Mbelle-Mbong) and Page (Safiya Fredericks).  Falstaff’s shenanigans go astray when the ladies discovered that each has received identical love letters from the treacherous would be swain. They plan revenge to end all comical revenge plans and our intrepid Sir John suffers well deserved indignities. Egotistical Falstaff is conned into a second try at seducing the Merry Wives and that has a more unsuccessful ending in the most riotous scene of the evening. A major factor in creating conflict is the jealous Master Ford (Armond Dorsey) who sets his own trap to determine his wife’s suspected infidelity.

The secondary storyline involves the thwarted love of young Anne Page (Tavia Percia) for her paramour Fenton (Terrence Moyer). It seems that Justice Shallow (Twon Marcel) has a not too bright nephew Master Slender (Terrence Moyers doubles in the role) also seeking the hand and fortune of Anne. Then there is French Dr. Casius (Martin Grizzell) who is also hot for Anne and he has a grievance with Reverend Evans who supports Slender’s suit for Anne. This leads to a hilarious “fight” between the Dr. and the Reverend. Would you believe a duel with boxing gloves and kung-fu replacing swords and the antagonists becoming good friends? Believe it!

Director Kemper encourages broad acting styles and encourages mugging.  Safiya Fredericks, Leontyne Mbele-Mbong and Tavia Percia are drop dead gorgeous and Armond Dorsey gives a strong display of Master Ford’s insecurity and jealousy. Sheri Young’s portrayal of Quickley, a pivotal role needs work. Martin Grizzel’s tall stature and inane nonstop antics dominates whenever he is on stage. His homoerotic twist in the final scene is a hoot and a holler.

The staging is appropriately bare bones with the minimal scenery changes keeping the action moving as well as adding to the overall humor of the evening. Running time two hours and 30 minutes with two ‘interludes’.

Kedar Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

PILGRIMS MUSA AND SHERI IN THE NEW WORLD: By Yussef El Guindi and Directed by Michael Butler. CENTER REP on the intimate Knight Stage 3 Theatre. Lesher Center for the Arts 1601 Civic Drive in downtown Walnut Creek. www.CenterREP.org or call 925.943.SHOW (7469). April 27 through May 12, 2013

A personal look at PILGRIMS MUSA AND SHERI IN THE NEW WORLD playing on Center Rep’s Off Center stage.

Center Rep’s production of Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World under Michael Butler’s provocative staging/direction is well worth a trip to the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek. For this play Butler is the scenic designer as well as the director putting his very personal stamp on Yussef El Guindi’s very personal play that won the 2012 Steinberg Award as the best American play that had not been produced on Broadway. It is playing at the intimate 130 seat Off Center ‘black box’ theatre where the audience becomes drawn into the action.

For this reviewer, the play brought back very personal memories. Both my parents were immigrants to America from Greater Syria that was divided into Lebanon and Syria after World War I.  He met my mother, the youngest of three sisters, who ran a boarding house in Upstate New York in 1911 and eloped with her on his motorcycle. The fact that he was a Muslim, though non-practicing, and she was a Catholic was as great a dichotomy as that between non-practicing Muslim-Egyptian Musa and white American waitress Sheri who elope in his taxi cab.

Although I have given away the penultimate scene it will in no way detract from the convoluted love story that is infused with modern day, post 9/11, angst of assimilation of Arab immigrants into American culture. In one scene, a dream sequence, a secondary character Abdallah (Dorian Lockett), a Sudanese Muslim, gives thanks for the American opportunities for success that led to his financial independence. When I offered to take my successful truck farmer father, whose name was Abdul(lah), back for a visit to Syria, his response, in colorful Arabic, suggested I was crazy because he was now an American.

Back to the play. Although the ancillary cast of Lena Hart, Carl Lumbly and Dorian Lockett are fine actors, the evening belongs to Rebecca Schweitzer as Sheri and Gabriel Marin as Musa.  She is a ditzy chatter-box waitress who accepts an invitation to visit Musa’s walk-up apartment knowing full well that sex should be the ultimate end of the evening. Schweitzer is a whirl-wind of insecurity as she prattles on and on about her past experience with abusive boyfriends, an alcoholic mother and inner emotional turmoil.  Marin as a young Egyptian-American taxi driver with his own insecurities is the perfect foil for Schweitzer with his minimalist verbal responses and expressive facial movements to her inane chatter.

It is a love story with political-social implications that are woven adroitly, but not seamlessly into the text. Musa is torn between his potential marriage to his fiancée Gamila (Lena Hart) and a life of oppressive sameness stifling his desire for change. Gamila an intellectual woman thoroughly integrated into the American dream but is willing to accept the customs of Arab culture where elders plan the future of their children.

Carl Lumbly is superb as Somali Tayyib, Musa’s best friend who makes a living illegally selling luggage on the street. El Guindi has given Tayyib the words explaining the devastating effects of cultural differences of a match between Musa and Sheri that can only lead to disaster. He has personally experienced such a disaster. This fact is emphasized in a poignant last scene between Tayyib and Gamila.

You may not cheer when El Guindi’s pilgrims head off in his taxi to uncertain adventure but you will wish them best of luck because they are in love. Running time is just under two hours with and intermission.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

Breaking New Ground at the Humana New American Play Festival

37^th Humana Festival of New American Plays 2013:  Actors Theatre of Louisville;

Reams could be written about plethora of fine acting, directing and production values at the Humana New Play Festival but for this reviewer the emphasis is on “the plays the thing.”

Les Waters’ first full year as Artistic Director of Actors Theatre of Louisville and over-seer of the 37^th Humana Festival of New American Plays came to a successful conclusion on April 7 with plays that stimulate the mind, ask cogent questions, exposes political corruption with drama and humor.  Only one play, The Delling Shore by Sam Marks misses the mark although our own local Bay Area favorite director Meredith McDonough gave it a noble try.

All of the plays that arrive at the festival undergo professional scrutiny and are assigned a dramaturg(s) as well as technical staff. Rewrites have been often been incorporated while they are in rehearsal and previews. Along with Mark’s play that seems incomplete, Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has a dynamic first act that would benefit from a second act revision.  Cry Old Kingdom by Jeff Augustin, Gnit by Will Eno and O Guru Guru Guro or why I don’t want to go to yoga class with you (yes it is all in the title) by Mallery Avidon are all ready for road.

GNIT  by Will Eno (Two hours 10 minuts with intermission)

The best of the lot in this years offering is Gnit by Will Eno, the master of language with a wicked sense of humor. This time around Eno tackles the rambling epic poem of Peer Gynt and comes up with a winner that will surely grace the boards of Berkeley Rep who, like Christopher Isherwood of the NY Times are ‘Enophiles.”

It helps that Les Waters directed the show with an excellent cast of Linda Kimborough playing the Mother and Dan Weller as Peter along with four other cast members that play a multitude of roles. Our own San Francisco product, Danny Wolohan, who has relocated in New York, reinforces his selection as San Francisco’s Best Ensemble Actor with sparkling wit befitting an Eno play.

Eno has subtitled his play “a rough translation of Henrik Ibsen’s PEER GYNT.” That may be true since this reviewer is not familiar with the poem or the story line. Rough or not it just seems right without any apology. It begins with Mother saying “Never have children. Or, I don’t know, have children. You end up talking to yourself, either way” and her first words to Peter, “You’re a liar.”

From this point Peter goes off on a far flung journey to find his true self leaving behind his bedridden mother. Before he leaves Norway, with neighbors in hot pursuit, he runs off with the bride betrothed to another. She gets deserted because Solvay is his true love.

His journey takes him to Morocco, Egypt (fantastic moveable set pieces by Antje Ellerman) and a dozen other places where he encounters the real world only to return unfulfilled to Norway. One wonders what Ibsen would say of this work.

APPROPRIATE by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins  (2 hours and15 minutes with intermission)

Actors Theatre has great acting spaces including the spacious Pamela Brown proscenium arch stage, the medium sized theatre-in-the-round Bingham and the intimate three-sided Victor Jory theatre.  Appropriate directed by Gary Griffen is mounted on the Pamela Brown stage and Antje Ellermann’s sensational set design evokes the mood even before two characters enter through a window.

Author Branden Jacobs-Jenkins who was born in the South and whose mother lives in Arkansas is familiar with the depressed areas where once glorious mansions are gradually crumbling. He also has a fascination with family interaction, specifically dysfunctional families. And so it is with Appropriate.

The three generations of Lafayettes arrive at their Arkansan plantation to liquidate the estate of their deceased patriarch. Those arriving through the window are a wayward son Franz and his significant other, a young female who is a believer in meditation and has had a salutary effect on Franz’s screwed up life. The oldest daughter Toni has been burdened with the care of their father who had descended into complete dependency before his eventual death. She is arranging the liquidation, is extremely defensive and offensive about the misery she has endured.

Arriving from New York is successful lawyer and oldest brother Bo, with his Jewish wife and two children. The animosity between the siblings escalates and layer by layer the past transgressions are exposed. When a photo album containing graphic photos of blacks being hanged is discovered the secret of the patriarch’s racist life is revealed. Although denial abounds, the truth of that discovery seems real although Jacob-Jenkins leaves it up to the audience to believe or not to believe.

The play, after a brilliantly written first, partially falls apart when violent physical action erupts between the family members. A non-dialog epilog with the set falling apart as strangers invade the mansion, although very dramatic, is unnecessary and probably will be excised from the final script.

 

CRY OLD KINGDOM by Jeff Augustin (80 minutes no intermission).

Although Jeff Augustin has never been to Haiti, the setting for Cry Old Kingdom, his mother was born there and he has been immersed in the oral history of the island nation. There was a dichotomy between his mother’s romanticizing and news stories of the brutality of the François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s regime. Set in1964 the protagonist Edwin a once admired artist painter is hiding in a secluded seashore location to avoid conflict with the oppressive Papa Doc’s henchmen the Tonton Macoutes. Into this secluded area ventures young Henri Marx who is building a boat to sail to America and freedom.

The inspirationally depleted painter/poet Edwin is rejuvenated when he meets Henri and will allow the boat to be built if he allows Edwin to paint the boy in the process. A poetic dependency develops between the two and progress continues on the boat building.

Edwin’s wife Judith continues to work each day and supplies the necessities for living. Her intellectual strength and love of country leads to her jailing, forcing Edwin to make a horrendous decision of whether to reveal Henri’s escape attempt thus freeing his wife or to remain silent. The ending is devastating.

O GURU GURU GURU or why I don’t want to go to yoga class with you by Mallery Avidon (90 minute no intermission)

Mallery Avidon’s strange play with the exceptional long title also has the tag of being a “triptych.”  Not only is it written in three parts, it is also a lesson in what really is yoga. To the initiated, this reviewer being one of them, it is a lesson in the history and art of Hindu transcendental meditation, not just the bone twisting physical exercises.  An ‘ashram’ is a hermitage, monastic community, or other place of religious retreat for Hindus and meditation is the game.

The play is semiautobiographical since Avidon lived for a time in an ashram in the Catskill Mountains but she moved on with her life forgoing satsangs that are gatherings where the participants experience a higher state of consciousness through music, meditation and wisdom.

The first part of the triptych on a stark blank stage is a lecture given by 30 year old Lila who projects blank slides in explaining the intricacies of yoga and how she got to this stage in her life. OK, now what? Now what is a full blown satsang beautifully staged with colorful saris and incidental music on an accordion type instrument with audience participation. At the performance I attended, 23 of the audience took off their shoes and sat cross-legged on stage to participate. As part of the satsang is a beautiful long shadow puppet show about the Hindu God Shiva and how he got his elephant head.

The final scene is a Hollywood set of a movie Eat, Pray, Love that stars Julie Roberts who dispenses wisdom to Lila playing an extra. Really. End of play.

**********************************

The Apprentice Company play this year, Sleep Rock Thy Brain, was written byRinne Groff, Lucas Hnath  and Anne Washburn. It was an off venue location where the cast members had a chance to fly suspended by wires from the ceiling. Fun but fails to win the brass ring.

 

PERICLES, Prince of Tyre: Drama by William Shakespeare. Conceived by Mark Wing-Davey with Jim Calder. Director Mark Wing-Davey. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison Street @ Shattuck, Berkeley, CA 94704. (510) 647-2949 – www.berkeleyrep.org.

April 12 – May 26, 2013

PERICLES, Prince of Tyre is a theatrical event at Berkeley Rep

How does a theatrical company change a Shakespearean drama that involves incest, murder, three shipwrecks, revival of a dead queen and a virgin forced into a brothel into a comedy? First hire Mark Wing-Davey as the director, surround him with an excellent production staff, compose original music for a live on stage trio and assemble a talented ensemble cast of eight to play all the roles originally written for 17 characters and a narrator/chorus named Gower (Anita Carey, the directors partner in life) chanting:

To sing a song that old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come;
Assuming man’s infirmities,
To glad your ear, and please your eyes.

Even before the formal play begins “to glad your ear, and please your eyes”, the cast has been mingling with the audience and the leader of the musicians warms up the audience by composing a song using plebian words and eventually ending with a frere  jacques type three part melody. It works.

Antiocles, King of Antioch is having an incestuous relationship with his beautiful daughter. To keep her to himself and hide his actions he has created a riddle that every suitor for her hand must solve. By not doing so the suitors lose their heads. The severed heads of the unsuccessful ones are represented as heads of cabbage that fall from rear balcony. Yes humor rears its ugly head(s) and it is only the first scene!

When Pericles is given the riddle, it is written in mirror type and he reads it by reflecting the parchment in a series of mirrors fastened to the daughters dress. Now that is a clever directorial conceit and many more are to come. Alas he can solve the riddle and dare not do so and begs 40 days to study it. Pericles knowing his fate flees and his picaresque sea voyage journey begins. On his first stop he fills the coffers of the famine ridden people of Tarus thus making a friend of Dionyza, the governor. That will hold him in good stead later on. A sub-title should be “virtue rewarded.”

His first encounter with a storm at sea tosses him to the waves and rescued by two fisherman taking him to Pentapolis where a jousting contest is being held to win the hand of the beautiful Thaisa, daughter of King Simonides. He wins of course in a hilarious jousting contest acted out behind a black screen. The marriage night consummation on a platform bed mounted on heavy duty springs would make a virgin blush.

Off he goes with his pregnant bride on another sea voyage and the production crew mounts a storm to end all storm scenes with a fire hose spraying the stage with copious amounts of water while the ship (that consists of the aforementioned spring mounted platform) is tossed and buffeted while Queen Thaisa gives birth to a girl to be named Marina, of course since she was born at sea. To appease the gods Thaisa gets placed in a casket and dumped overboard but when the casket washes ashore she is brought back to life with magic herbs and she goes off to mourn in the Temple of Diana.

Time passes, Marina grows into a ravishing beauty, is about to be killed by her jealous guardians, is ‘rescued” by pirates, sold to a brothel but maintains her virginity by her virtuous nature. Eventually she is reunited with Pericles and they both find Thaisa in the Temple of Diana and all ends well.

The entire production has twists and turns of lights, sound, music that will keep you entertained. But the members of the cast are a marvel as they slip into character after character without a hitch. David Barlow as Pericles carries most of burden with a perfect demeanor of virtue personified even as he suffers the tribulations of Job. James Carpenter’s clear senatorial Shakespearian voice and commanding stage presence makes him perfect on to play the kingly roles. Jessica Kitchens’ regal/bawdy bearing almost matches Carpenter line for line and Annapurna Sriram exudes virtuous virginity even when she is hoisted high above the stage in a cargo net.

This is a not to be missed theatrical event that could become a model for further Shakespearean staging.  Note: Mark Wing-Davey may not be taking liberties with Shakespeare since there is question whether Shakespeare wrote this play or only part of it. A non-entity named George Wilkins may be the true author.)
Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine

 

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of  www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

Cecily (Riley Krull) and Gwendolen (Mindy Lym) both fall in love with men they believe are named “Ernest”
in the World Premiere musical BEING EARNEST,  presented by TheatreWorks April 3 – 28
at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.  Photo credit: Tracy Martin

BEING EARNEST: Musical. By Paul Gordon and Jay Gruska, adapted from Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Directed by Robert Kelley. TheatreWorks, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. (650) 463-1960. www.theatreworks.org. Through April 28, 2013

BEING EARNEST at TheatreWorks has charming star quality.

There are others who have undertaken to put Oscar Wilde’s near perfect 1895 satirical drawing room comedy The Importance of Being Earnest to music with a modicum of success. The first was in 1960 when Ernest in Love (Earnest without the ‘a’) received laudatory reviews off Broadway and move uptown where it played for about four months. The next incarnation was as a London musical simply called Earnest (the ‘a’ reinserted) that moved on into theatrical oblivion. Paul Gordon and Jay Gruska have kept the ‘a” in the title but their marvelous TheatreWorks’ production under Robert Kelly’s spot on direction only deserves a solid ‘B’.

Oscar Wilde’s play has a riotous plot with satirical characters that beg to cavort in gorgeous costumes trying to do justice to Wilde’s well known witticisms. Many of those (in)famous lines appear in the libretto and often provide titles for songs. Recognizing the necessity to incorporate the best (they are all good) of those wicked lines into the play the opening scene of the second act is devoted to the ensemble cast of seven quoting many of them to the audience with a photo of Wilde projected on the back scrim. It is a great touch and I would bet director Kelly had a hand in it.

The ludicrous convoluted storyline of two supercilious English girls who can only love a man with the name of Earnest has been transplanted to 60s London, specifically Soho’s Carnaby Street. It is a stretch of the imagination that there are similarities between 1965, the time period of this musical adaptation, and beginning of the Victorian Era but the authors wish the audience to think so as an explanation for the style/intent of the music.

The music is extremely clever and the lyrics incorporate Wilde’s words as cues for the actors but the final result does not reach the level of sophistication of Alan Jay Lerner’s use of Shaw’s dialog in My Fair Lady. The major actors (Hayden Tee as Jack, Euan Morton as Algernon, Riley Krull as Cecily and Mindy Lym as Gwendolen) are expert singers and the entire performance exudes good nature humor that carries through from opening number to an interesting Shavian type epilog with slide projections informing us that Wilde was right on, and it is true daughters become what their mothers are. This brings us to local favorite Maureen McVerry being miscast or misdirected as the formidable Lady Bracknell. Audience favorites are Brian Herndon playing multiple roles and Diana Torres Koss as Miss Prism who left poor baby Jack (Earnest) in a handbag at Victoria Station.

Placing the action in the Carnaby Street Era (that has since faded) allows costume designer Fumiko Bielefeldt to go wild starting with gorgeous Mondrian style dresses in the early scenes maintaining the high style throughout the show. Joe Ragey’s set with a central stairway allows the girls to use it as a runway for Bielefeldt’s fashion show. Running time two hours and 10 minutes.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

STUCK ELEVATOR: A Theatrical Piece.Music by Byron Au Toung. Libretto by Aaron Jafferis. Directed by Chay Yew. American Conservatory Theater, 450 Geary St., S.F. (415) 749-2228. www.act-sf.org.April 16 – 28, 2013.

STUCK ELEVATOR at A.C.T. is ambitious and a long 81 minutes 

San Franciscowith its plurality of Asians is probably the perfect venue for the world premiere of Stuck Elevator with a Chinese protagonist, his family and a mostly oriental production crew. To further appeal to the locals, while the libretto is in English, Chinese super-titles are used. It is a clever idiosyncrasy.

 The entire production can rightfully be called clever but a more appropriate designation would be ‘eclectic” and the PR material labels it “a hybrid of musical theater, opera, and solo performance.”  The single word ‘opera’ would be equally appropriate. The stark libretto is sung mostly in long stretches of resistive and hip-hop rap. The staging is brilliant and that alone is worth a visit. The entire production that is packed into the 81 minutes (without intermission) becomes tedious although it is often mesmerizing. 

The libretto is based on the true story of a 35 year old Ming Kuang Chenoa a Chinese “take out” delivery boy for the Happy Dragon Restaurant inBronxwho was stuck in an elevator for 81 hours. It features Julius Ahn, given the name of Guāng, in the lead and a very competent ensemble of Raymond J. Lee, Marie-France Arcilla, Jose Perez and Joseph Anthony Foronda – all of whom play multiple roles. 

The 81 days is compressed into 81 minutes with a series of over-lapping scenes, some taking place in actual time but mostly in the mind of the trapped Guāng. He is working the sometimes dangerous “take out” job to earn money for his family still inChinaand also to pay off a huge debt to the Snakehead who smuggled him intoNew Yorkinside a cargo container. During that stifling trip his nephew has died of suffocation. 

Interestingly he initially thinks about losing money to his friend/competitor Mexican Marco to whom he has sold his cell phone that would have been his contact with the outside world. He thinks about his wife Ming and son Wang Yue and imagines they are there with him. An interesting conceit: When he fantasizes talking with Ming, Marco answers in Spanish. This is the start of hallucinations that become more bizarre as the hours, morph into days.

 His anger rises as he recognizes that he is an invisible immigrant stuck in the elevator and he eats the few fortune cookies and sauce packets in his delivery bag. Guang’s mind is obsessed with thoughts of his nephew’s death and the time he was mugged losing $200. That last memory elicits a bladder spasm wetting his pants. 

All the previous scenes are performed with the stage in blacks and grays. As his hallucinations become more outlandish color and humor is injected in the proceedings. The elevator becomes a slot machine inAtlantic Cityand when he pushes the button he wins the jackpot, color lights up the video projections, the ensemble cavort in amazing costumes. The winnings are used to buy a home and he and is family can now live the good life inAmerica. . . the futile goal of every immigrant is fulfilled. 

His letters exchange between Guang andChinaare folded paper airplanes that are flung on the stage and into the audience. . . a great way to involve the audience into the mix. In his dreams he wrestles with an Elevator Monster, complete in a glistening metallic costume only to be temporarily rescued by a Fortune Cookie monster that is revealed as Ming when the ever dangerous Snakehead rips off the Cookie Monsters mask. Alas Guang is defeated. 

A mugging scene enters Guang’s dream as he is stabbed with a pocket knife. Realizing he is not dead he imagines himself bicycling through the night sky over the city with Ming, Wang Yue and Marco before the 81 hours is up and the elevator door opens. End of play. It is to be noted that earlier Quang eats his last fortune cookie finding a blank fortune. Symbolic? Of course. 

Scenic designer Daniel Ostling; costume designer MyungHee Cho; lighting designer Alexander V. Nichols; video designer Kate Freer, IMA; and sound designer Mikhail Fiksel; music director Dolores Duran-Cefalu; choreography by Stephen Buescher; orchestrations by Byron Au Young.   

Kedar K Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com.

TINSEL TARTS in a HOT COMA: The Next Cockettes Musical Unabashed Drag Show. Thrillpeddlers. The Hypnodrome, 57510th St., S.F. (415) 377-4202  or www.brownpaper.com.

Through June1, 2013

TINSEL TARTS IN A HOT COMA is bi-coastal and omni-sexual

If you are not familiar with the original Cockettes you are in for a rollicking treat when you go to see the latest Thrillpeddlers production. It is a belly full of laughs when the 20 member cast cavorts, trip the light fantastic and belt song parodies with sex infused lyrics. Not only are the hilarious costumes covered with glitter, so are the faces and every (and I mean EVERY) exposed body part. Be warned that nudity, especially in the cataclysmic finale, is rampant.

This resurrection of this Cockettes musical had its origins in 1971 when the original show caused a semi-sensation, often for the wrong reasons, when their 1930 musical Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma opened in New York for a three-week run. Two of the original cast, Scrumbly Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent have rewritten the script added 18 (count them) new songs, music and lyrics. Another core member of the Cockettes, Rami Missabu, joins the cast.

The time is the 1930s and Hollywood is the place, filled with egocentric divas, actor wan-a-bees, eccentric directors and gaggles of movie extras. Conflict is as rampant as the songs and dances spill out into the audience. The theatre is a very, very intimate space. Vedda Viper a bitchy news broadcaster ala Walter Winchell is sort of the master of ceremonies as she spreads the gossip “no matter who gets F—-d!”

The irreverent hijinks just keep coming and coming and you will have a tough time if you try to figure out who is who. You’ll meet, Mayor Fiorello Laguardia, Goldie Digger Cow (complete with a two titted udder), Auntie Social, Salvador Deli, Graucho, Chico and Harpo Marx. Then there is the Tender Loin Chorus (you will not have to use your imagination since they leave nothing uncovered), Brunnhilde, Angel Gabrille and finally The Devil in the finale to end all finales.

Scrumbly plays the piano and directs the orchestra (Sax, Bass and drums) from on stage and has his chance to emote and take part in the action. Running time a bit too long but never boring and that is a promise.

(Music and Lyrics by Scrumbly Koldewyn. Book by Pam Tent and Scrumbly Koldewyn. Additional Lyrics by Link Martin,”Sweet Pam” Tent, Martin Worman, Tom Orr)

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

CARNIVAL!: (1961) Musical. Music and Lyrics by Bob Merrill. Book by Michael Stewart. Directed by Greg MacKellan. 42^nd Street Moon, Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson Street, San Francisco, CA 94111. (415) 255–8207 or www.42ndstmoon.org. April 3 -2, 2013

Converting movies to stage musicals has been both highly successful as well as disastrous. The charming 1953 movie Lili, based on the novel Love of Seven Dolls by Paul Gallico was a huge hit. And why not, since it starred Leslie Caron, Mel Ferrer, Jean-Pierre Aumont and Kurt Kasner. The 1961 stage show, now called Carnival!, starred Anna Maria Alberghetti, James Mitchell, Kaye Ballard, Pierre Olaf and Jerry Orbach making his Broadway debut. In opened to rave reviews winning two Tony Awards.

Other notable names starred in the many road shows but it disappeared from the stage in the late 1970s until New York’s Encore series recently revived it with Anne Hathaway and Brian Stokes Mitchell. With such notable luminaries having filled the roles in the past, there must have been trepidation by Artistic Director in selecting his present cast.

If so it is not apparent with an equity cast filling the major roles. The stage story line follows the movie script where orphan Lili Daurier (charming diminutive Ashley Jarrett), a unsophisticated waif runs away to joint the “Grand Imperial Cirque de Paris.” After falling in love with Marco the Magnificent (Bill Olson) a lothario of the first order, she is given a part in his show as a supplement to the worldly Rosalie (seductive Dyan McBride) who just happens to be Marco’s live-in lover. After a disastrous (and hilarious) turn at her job, Lili is rudely dumped.

Never fear along comes puppeteer Paul Berthalet (the ubiquitous Ryan Drummond)  and his colleague Jacquot (Michael Doppe) to the rescue and Lili becomes a mainstay in their act with that features the puppets Carrot Top, Horrible Henry the walrus, Marguerite, and Reynardo the Fox. The signature tune from the movie, “Love Makes the World Go Round” gets a tear inducing rendition by Jarrett and the story is off to the races.

The opening scene involves an accordion rendition of  “Love Makes the World Go Round” before the lights come up full on the colorful set (Hector Zavala) that becomes filled with juggler/acrobats (Jordan Plutzer and Kyle Stoner) and a plethora of beauties dressed in gorgeous costumes (Moises Mora) who dance up a storm (Jayne Zaban) throughout the show.

Where “Love Makes the World Go Round” was the mainstay of the movie, Merrill has come up with other winners including “Her Face”, “She’s My Love”, “Grand Imperial Cirque de Paris”, “Mira” and the catchy “Yum, Ticky, Ticky, Tum, Tum.”

Although the matinee we attended was entertaining and expertly staged by MacKellan, the competent singing did not garner serious applause and the running time of two hours and 30 minutes taxed ones attention span.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com