Woody Weingarten

Woody’s [rating: 2]

My silliness-appreciation gland may have malfunctioned.

At precisely the wrong time:

While watching “The Book of Liz,” a one-act revival written by a comic brother-sister team, David and Amy Sedaris.

Because my gland wasn’t throbbing properly, I couldn’t fully marvel at the queen-sized Mr. Peanut costume, the Cockney accents of two Ukrainian characters, the Pilgrim-suited alcoholics who staff the Plymouth Crock restaurant, or references to a Chastity Parade that red-flags the “danger of casual glancing.”

Nor did the intentionally fake beards of the black suited, black-hatted Squeamish clergy, a crypto-Amish spoof, make me chuckle.

I was, admittedly, among a small stone-faced minority though.

Many in the sold-out audience laughed loudly, and they applauded vigorously at the play’s end.

Brian Katz, artistic director, and Leah S. Abrams, executive director, co-founders of The Custom Made Theatre Co., which operates out of the Gough St. Playhouse in San Francisco, obviously believe in the 80-minute farce without qualification.

This run marks their company’s fourth time.

It was only my first.

Amy Sedaris, best known for portraying Jerri Blank on Comedy Central’s “Strangers with Candy,” in 2002 originated the off-Broadway role of Sister Elizabeth Donderstock, a disgruntled nun who runs away from the order because she’s undervalued and bullied by its leader, the Rev. Tollhouse, and newly arrived Brother Nathaniel Brightbee.

In this production, AJ Davenport plays that devout cheeseball-making nun with mock-seriousness (“Cheeseballs are practically my life — aside from God”) coupled with the comic conceit of wiping prodigious sweat from her face and brow.

Justin Gillman skillfully injects faux hypocrisy into his role as Tollhouse, and Stefin Collins capably portrays Brightbee as a highly flawed interloper.

Although all four actors play multiple roles, Teri Whipple becomes the numerical all-purpose champ by taking on half a dozen.

I’ve long found David Sedaris’ style of humor stimulated my funnybone better than Amy’s.

His writing most often seemed to me personal, witty and sophisticated while hers frequently struck me as off-kilter and sophomoric.

To me, “The Book of Liz” feels as if Sister Sedaris pushed infinitely more computer keys and concocted a Saturday Night Live sketch that went on too long.

David’s fame stems from his radio essay “SantaLand Diaries” (which detailed his experiences as an elf at Macy’s), his countless New Yorker pieces and a series of books, most of which rely on exaggerated tales of his life, his gay lover and the Sedaris family.

 

Typically he’s droll, although he leaned heavily on gravitas in a New Yorker piece late last year after his sister Tiffany killed herself.

Not everything in “Liz” is intended to be comical either; intermittently a serious undertone surfaces (“Why is it I had to dress like a peanut to feel human again?”).

Maybe I should have been checking my earnestness-appreciation gland all along.

“The Book of Liz” plays at the Gough St. Playhouse, 1620 Gough St. (in the basement of the Trinity Episcopal Church, at Bush), San Francisco, through Aug. 2. Tickets: $25 to $35. Information: (415) 798-2682 or www.custommade.org.

Woody’s [rating: 4.5]

Fiona is one princess Disney’s tiara empire let get away.

But Shrek, a lovable ogre, didn’t.

So all ends well in “Shrek The Musical,” an enchanting two-hour-plus amusement that bends and flips stock fantasy characters to come up with a key moral for kids and adults: Everything can be better when you accept people as they are.

Even if they’re different. Green-skinned, for instance.

Or ugly.

It’s a message underscored by the presence of a huge cast that’s multi-ethnic and multi-aged.

Shrek himself is a fleeting pariah — extracted from several worlds of imagination. He was a 1990 brainchild of William Steig in a book, which in turn spawned a 2001 DreamWorks film, which in turn birthed the Broadway musical that ran from late 2008 until a year later.

Now the main character (brimming with Scottish brogue) is onstage locally, colorfully supported by professionals and youngsters, at the Julia Morgan Theater/Berkeley Playhouse.

It’s highly entertaining.

Often silly.

Fun.

I went because I thought my seven-year-old granddaughter would enjoy it. She did.

She giggled frequently.

But her vintage grandpa chuckled a lot, too, willing not only to suspend disbelief but happy to be swallowed by the fractured fairy tale motif.

Many of the oldtimers in the audience cackled louder than most kids. One little boy across the aisle from us never stopped squealing with delight, however.

There’s certainly enough slapstick to fill any two comedies. And enough synchronized movement onstage to get everyone’s attention (particularly in the sizzling production number, “Morning Person,” choreographed by director Matthew McCoy with an homage to Bob Fosse, and the upbeat closer, “I’m a Believer”).

I witnessed no fidgeting.

And while some melodies tended to be forgettable (despite the musical direction by Rachel Robinson being spot on), the lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire usually moved the plotline forward — and were generally clever (“I’ve got your back when it gets scary; I’ll shave it when it gets hairy.”)

Except for turning the definition of beauty on its head, the tale is standard-issue kiddie fare.

Shrek’s swamp is invaded by storybook critters who’ve been exiled by the play’s comic villain, Lord Farquaad (Clay David in a show-stealing, short-puppet-legged performance that reminded me of Martin Short and Jerry Lewis at their best).

To regain his solitude, Shrek must rescue the princess from a dragon so the vertically challenged Farquaad can marry her and become king.

What happens?

Well, even though this is a mirror image of a fairy tale love story, we know upfront that our hero and heroine will get together and live happily ever after, right?

Although the younger cast members acquit themselves marvelously, it’s the leads who earn major respect (Tony Panighetti as Shrek, Brian Dauglash as a garrulous Donkey and Chloe Condon as Fiona).

But I must predict an extraordinary theatrical future for Emma Curtin, who provides an astonishing voice and stage presence as Fiona at age 7.

Characters that create excitement and glee by strutting around in recognizable Halloween-worthy costumes by Wendy Ross Kaufman include the Big Bad Wolf, the Pied Piper, the Wicked Witch, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, the Fairy Godmother, the Mad Hatter, the Sugar Plum Fairy and Humpty Dumpty.

What else is worth mentioning?

Well, my granddaughter was particularly awed when Shrek and Donkey pranced up and down the center aisle. But she laughed loudest at a burp-and-fart contest that could be compared favorably to Mel Brooks’ ground- and wind-breaking “Blazing Saddles.”

Some lines sailed over her head — local geographical and topical references such as Walnut Creek and the wedding of Kim Kardashian and Kanya West.

But that mattered not.

The show, partnered at the Berkeley Playhouse with Kidpower, a 25-year-old international nonprofit that highlights ways to stay safe from bullying, abuse and violence, delivers the best adult-child performance in these parts in a long time.

By far.

Or maybe I should say by Farquaad.

“Shrek — The Musical” will play at the Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave., Berkeley, through Aug. 3. Evening performances, 7 p.m. selected Wednesdays and Thursdays, 6 p.m. Saturdays, 5 p.m. Sundays; matinees, 1 p.m. Saturdays, noon on Sundays. Tickets: $17 to $60. Information: berkeleyplayhouse.org or (510) 845-8542, ext. 351.

 

My wife abhorred having to suffer through breast cancer.

I wasn’t thrilled either.

But the idea of her losing her lengthy tresses didn’t bother me, possibly because hair didn’t register on my Meaning of Life scale.

Possibly because I have the male Y chromosome.

I knew I’d love her — and still find her beautiful — even if chemotherapy destroyed every follicle, even if I stumbled over reddish clumps in our San Anselmo home.

For Nancy, though, hair loss filled the No. 2 slot on her hate parade.

As soon as the docs said baldness would follow her chemo cocktails, she freaked. And she never did get comfy with the identity crisis it spawned, “the most psychologically devastating part of the cancer.”

That was 19 years ago.

Today she’d have more options to relieve her distress.

Some free.

Such as cutting and styling from Hairdressers with Heart, a nonprofit founded 18 months ago by Nicole Hitchcock and Nina Husen, co-owners of NH2 salon in Novato, after they saw close-up what treatment-induced hair loss could mean.

What they’d watched was the anguish Brandy Hitchcock, Nicole’s sister, had endured when her hair fell out.

Before leukemia killed her in 2009.

Nina and Nicole, armed with scissors, hair products and truckloads of compassion, now celebrate Brandy’s life by signing up Style Heroes, stylists who donate time to aid cancer patients.

They offer pre-chemo haircutting and head shaving, wig fitting and customizing, and 12 monthly post-chemo cuts.

Free hairpieces are provided financially disadvantaged patients.

The program’s stylists work hard at ensuring their pro bono clients no longer feel powerless. And its website at www.hairdresserswithheart.org  — while noting “over a million people will be diagnosed with cancer this year in the United States” — says clients can transform the way they feel by transforming the way they look.

I remember wishing for a magic wand to do that to Nancy.

None ever appeared.

But what HWH accomplishes best is give “a person something positive to focus on,” declares Nina in a YouTube video.

So far, Style Heroes have worked on 22 women.

Bridgene Raftery, a Sonoma recipient diagnosed in August who’s still being treated for breast cancer, is one of them.

While her pre-chemo hair was being trimmed, she decided “to have fun by trying different colors — lavender, a little bit of pink.”

She’s now thrilled with her hair’s reappearance, despite it “coming back in different sections, fluffy bits, straggly.”

The image jerks me into a time warp.

Nancy’s hair had returned thick and course, multi-colored and strangely different than its former soft texture. The curls had vanished. She couldn’t wait to tint it back to her original color.

But she almost felt like herself.

Nicole, who’s been a stylist since she was a teenager 21 years ago, feels especially connected to Brandi McWade, a recipient whose name is only one letter removed from her sister’s.

Brandi recalls that they developed “a beautiful friendship” as Nicole trimmed her pre-chemo locks.

When it came time to shave her head, Brandi employed a San Diego outfit to “make a hair ‘halo,’ which is what I wore with a hat instead of a wig because it was my own hair.”

The Fairfax recipient, whose breast cancer has since metastasized to her bones, has retained a positive attitude.

Nicole’s attitude is one of appreciation — because the program is expanding, boosted by an influx of donations.

A May fundraiser picked up $24,646 (money that will be used to help the organization go national).

Meanwhile, at MC23 salon in Ross, three stylists and an assistant have become involved in the HWH program, according to sales manager J.J. Kwan.

“It’s almost like a spiritual journey,” she says, “and helps us give back to the community.”

At Sproos Salon in San Anselmo, Angele Perez is an independent stylist who’s “known Nicole from high school and was totally inspired by what Hairdressers with Heart is doing. It’s an emotional, tough time for cancer patients, but we can help coach them through it.”

Bridgene calls the program “absolutely brilliant — because losing your hair is so traumatic.”

And she, as does virtually every woman who’s discovered Hairdressers with Heart, endorse its rallying cry: “You are not alone.”

Nancy certainly was glad I stayed by her side during her nightmare.

But I bet she’d have preferred that I could wield a comb and scissors.

Woody’s [rating: 2.5]

Edgy, electrifying, out-of-the-box mini-plays.

That’s what I’ve eternally hoped to discover at fringe festivals.

Typically, I’ve been disappointed.

I was surprised, therefore, to find a five-playlet Fringe of Marin program mostly satisfying in spite of it leaning heavily on conventional theatrical forms.

Its playwriting, acting and directing generally were a notch better than I’d expect on any campus.

The festival is over now, but you might seriously consider going to the next one.

My favorite piece in Program One at Dominican University was “Andrew Primo,” a lighthearted look at relationships in a phantasmagoric world populated by speed-dating devotees, androids and horny women.

Writer-director Gaetana Caldwell-Smith cleverly utilized her 20-20 satirical eyes to amuse me.

Thoroughly.

And that was sandwiched by two noteworthy shorts — “Fourteen” and “Fighting for Survival” — well-crafted by a lone playwright, Inbal Kashtan, and well-staged and well-paced by a single director, Jon Tracy.

“Fourteen” was a serious look at a self-starving, self-imprisoned teenage girl plagued by the absence of her mother and hospitalization of her cancer-ridden dad.

Stefanée Martin, a young actor with exceptional promise, used nearly every muscle in her face and body to depict her torment as Annie, a girl who makes prank phone calls and convulsively whips off one T-shirt after another to the click-clack beat of time passing.

“Survival” spotlighted the first-rate acting of Sarah Mitchell as a dying lesbian, Maya, and the comic exuberance of Lucas Hatton as Brent, a wilderness census-taker.

And it deftly shifted tone from slapstick to solemnity.

Gina Pandiani, managing artistic director, confided that “what Fringe of Marin’s all about for me is developing young talent.”

She’s already taken giant steps toward meeting that goal, quite a feat considering she’s been at the helm only since shortly after the 2013 death of 88-year-old company founder Annette Lust.

Moreover, she’s been flourishing without needing to embrace wild experiments.

This marks the festival’s 18th year (although, because there are annual spring and fall versions, it’s also its “33rd season”).

Opening night, I was quickly able to determine that the double-program festival provided lots to praise — even when the slightly uneven hour and half of vignettes (that ranged from under 15 minutes to about 35) didn’t quite jell.

And I was a virgin attendee.

Regulars, I suspect, became regulars because of Fringe of Marin’s quality.

Case in point: “Little Moscow,” the last show in Program One (and the sole reprise for the five-play second), which consisted of a long soliloquy about anti-Semitism and a man tattooed as a traitor because he dared criticize Russian life.

It could have been terrific if only…

• The rich, accented voice of Rick Roitinger — who squeezed every possible emotion from the Aleks Merilo-penned play as a reminiscing tailor — hadn’t sometimes gotten lost in the cavernous Angelico Concert Hall in which no microphones were evident.

• The actor’s voice hadn’t also been overwhelmed by recorded background music (that nevertheless helped the piece’s moodiness with — in rapid succession — melancholic, dramatic and sentimental strains).

• The poetic, sensitively written piece in which Roitlinger starred didn’t feel longer than a Russian winter.

“Pre-Occupy Hollywood,” an amateurish glimpse of Tinseltown as background film actors view it, forcing them momentarily to contemplate a revolution, was the weakest link in the evening.

And it was tolerable.

Opening night drew only 40 appreciative, supportive theatergoers, and that’s a shame because Fringe of Marin clearly merits vastly bigger crowds.

Woody’s [rating: 5]

When it comes to theater and films, I differ from most critics: I embrace sentimentality and romance.

And I cry a lot.

It figures, then, that I loved the 2006 film “Once.” I thought it was sweet.

And sensitive.

Now I’ve fallen in love with a new staged adaptation at the SHN Curran Theatre in San Francisco.

It re-defines what a staged musical can be.

It’s not for those who want leggy chorus girls in skimpy, glitzy costumes; choreography that finds fresh but often maddening ways for bodies to move; huge props flying overhead; or light shows that make strobes feel a thousand years old.

But it is for anyone who wants to taste the potential depths — and heights — of the human condition.

Like me.

Both bittersweet film and play concern a romance in modern day Dublin that can’t quite be actualized, a situation many in the youngish opening night audience related to — to the degree they gave “Once” a standing ovation.

Stuart Ward and Dani de Waal head a multi-talented ensemble that sings, moves rhythmically and collectively plays guitar, fiddle, accordion, cello, mandolin, banjo, piano and cajon (a box-shaped percussion instrument).

Its 10 members also portray a pack of colorful secondary characters.

Those include a laugh-evoking shopkeeper, a dorky loser drooling over a hoped-for promotion, a banker who vocalizes atrociously, a sleazy woman with proverbial heart of gold.

Ward and de Waal portray un-named characters in limbo, the guy a disheartened singer-songwriter whose day job is repairing vacuum cleaners, the girl a separated young mother struggling to cobble together a life with her mom and daughter.

Both protagonists want to heal and move forward past unsatisfying relationships.

By linking musically, they help each other get un-stuck.

While unearthing quashed emotions.

Songs range from the familiarity strains of Irish pub and folk tunes to the angry complexities of “Leave” and the simple, plaintive melodies of “When Your Mind’s Made Up,” “Gold,” and the Oscar-winning “Falling Slowly.”

“Once” won eight 2012 Tony’s, including best musical. It’s easy to see why.

Even though it takes a minute or two to get used to the accents — the guy’s Irish, the girl’s Czech. Even though it’s much less subtle than the movie (in which the star-crossed duo never overtly discusses their relationship).

The musical, in contrast, has tons more verbal and physical humor.

And every bit as much tenderness.

Such as when the girl tells the guy in Czech she loves him, but when he asks what she said, she retreats and translates it as, “It looks like rain.”

“Once” also utilizes the gimmick of letting the crowd onstage, pre-show and during intermission, to inspect the antique-mirrored, semi-circle, bi-level set by Bob Crowley — replete with cash bar selling booze, wine, beer, water.

The show also features beguiling slo-mo movements (I hesitate to call them choreography) created by Steven Hoggett.

 

And innovative touches such as projected supertitles in Czech; fast-paced, unpretentious direction by John Tiffany; spot-on costumes by Crowley; and lighting by Natasha Katz that helped me effortlessly switch moods.

“Once,” of course, merges the talents of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, whose original songs from the film are replicated, and Enda Walsh, who wrote the musical’s book — two elements that caused one theatergoer to exclaim as she was exiting: “It’s a breath of fresh Irish air.”

Halfway through the second act, my tears started to flow — and didn’t stop until after the final scene.

That duplicated my reaction to the film.

I seem to favor entertainment that makes me laugh and cry.

So I adored “Once” on film. And now the touring company has allowed me to love “Once” once again.

“Once” will play at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St. (between Mason and Taylor), San Francisco, through July 13. Night performances Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $45 to $210 (subject to change). Information:(888) 746-1799 or shnsf.com.

 

Woody’s [rating: 5]

Clownish Geoff Hoyle created an ingenious one-man show, “Geezer.” It featured multiple characters and a storyline.

Will Durst apparently doesn’t need either.

His uproarious 85-minute monologue, “BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG,” is all about him and his aging process.

Artfully skewed.

As stand-ups love to say, he killed.

The gray-haired, gray-goateed comic in gray suit and white sneakers was so hysterically funny recently that half a dozen folks in front of me often doubled up with laughter and nearly fell off their seats in Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater.

As a baby boomer, the 62-year-old confesses, life once was filled with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll — “now, naps.”

Folks his age are still doing drugs, he says, “only now there’s a co-pay.”

And urinating three times a night, he informs his audience, is “highly effective for home security.”

Durst’s rapid-fire delivery meant that if one joke didn’t get me to laugh aloud, I had only to wait a second or two and the next undoubtedly would.

His rolling eyes, ersatz pained pauses and intentionally sloppy use of an ancient overhead projector all added to my pleasure.

I can’t remember being more amused by anything in years.

My stomach ached from laughing.

If you’re aching for a similar experience, you’ll  have to wait a while. But you can catch him, for at least a few minutes, on Sept. 14 in Golden Gate Park — where he’s been for the previous 33 years (the only performer to walk softly and carry a big shtick in every one of the annual Comedy Day events there).

Durst, most familiar for his political satire, couldn’t have known it but he, himself, had primed me for his Cinnabar show.

I’ve been a picnicking regular for two decades at the Comedy Day events that have drawn such names as Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Ellen DeGeneres, Dana Carvey, Paula Poundstone and Margaret Cho. And although I laughed at each of them, I never admired anyone more than Durst, whose political insights have been rightfully compared to Will Rogers and Mort Sahl.

As if to keep me in thrall, before dealing in “BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG” with the daily technological hells we all face these days, Durst slyly injected a soupçon of politics by exposing presidential candidates as Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Yet all of it, in a sense, might be considered just a preamble to his unique vision of The Meaning of Life, a seriocomic subtext on pulling the plug.

Durst, an always-dependable master of sarcasm and sardonic one-liners, is hardly a one-trick pony. A five-time Emmy nominee, he claims PBS fired him thrice. But he still writes a syndicated newspaper column, does broadcast commentaries and weekly podcasts, and has written three books.

His radio commercials about creating state jobs have become ubiquitous.

So has he.

He’s been on TV 800 times.

One of his previous one-man shows, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” ran for a while off-Broadway.

And he still regularly produces “The Will Durst Journal” online, under the rubric “Comedy for people who read or know someone who does.”

His heroes, he insists, remain the same as when he was 12 — Thomas Jefferson and Bugs Bunny.

In a moment of pure weakness, the acerbic Durst revealed his hobbies include pinball, a lifelong passion of my own. Oh My God, could that be the underlying reason I’ve liked him so much?

Upcoming one-man shows at Cinnabar, 3333 Petaluma Blvd. N., right off Hwy. 101, include a revival of “Wretch Like Me,” David Templeton’s coming-of-age tale July 25 and 26, and “I Am My Own Wife,” with Steven Abbott playing 40 roles Feb. 6-15. Information: (707) 763-8920 or cinnabartheater.org.

 Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

Artistically speaking, does “small” translate into “intimate”?

In the case of “Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art,” the current show at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor, the answer is a definite “probably.”

All in all, the 21 artists on display created the 68 paintings, mainly oils on canvas, not for exhibit or salons but for drawing rooms or to share with friends and relatives.

The title is mildly misleading, however.

The 19th century artworks (which range from a tiny 5×7 — that’s inches, not feet — to about 24×29) represent pre- and post-Impressionist artists as well as the eight mainstream Impressionists.

All the usual suspects are paraded — among them Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet (the most prolific, yet under-represented in the Legion show), and Édouard Manet (though he’d appeared in none of the famed original Impressionist exhibits in France).

The pieces that most drew my attention, however, were done by others — Antoine Vallon’s “Mound of Butter,” George Seurat’s “Seascape (Gravelines)” and Berthe Morisot’s “The Artist’s Sister at a Window.”

I found Vallon’s painting exceptionally fascinating.

Oddly, I loved his oh-so-yellow dairy product and the knife swathed in it, his delicate see-through cheesecloth and the accompanying two oh-so-white companion eggs, but couldn’t bring myself to like the gestalt.

Seurat’s Pointillism has always been one of my favorite genres, so this 1890 oil on a panel made my color-ometer jump off the scale.

And Morisot’s fixed-figure study caught my attention simply because women were virtual pariahs in the Parisian movement, a direct reflection of the tenor of the times.

Individual Legion rooms were devoted to Renoir, Jean-Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard (the latter two being studio-mate post-impressionist Nabis, a group of artistic rebels).

Each contained material I’d call must-see’s.

Check out, for instance, Renoir’s wistful “Young Woman Braiding Her Hair” and, nearby, his “Woman with a Cat,” both sensual, both typical in regard to the artist’s palate and palette. And his flora spectacle, “Picking Flowers,” and his “Portrait of Claude Monet.”

Also, Vuillard’s “Child Wearing a Red Scarf,” an oil on cardboard, as well as several of his works with faceless figures disappearing into the canvas.

And Bonnard’s “The Yellow Curtain,” in which a woman pulls it back to find — well, your guess is as good as anyone’s.

Other items worth viewing include Degas’ “Horses in a Meadow,” a far cry from the more familiar images of “Dancers Backstage,” ensconced later in the exhibit; Eugene Boudin’s “Yacht Basin at Trouville-Deauville,” a colorful oil on wood depicting a multitude of flags that garnish sailboats; Paul Gauguin’s “Self-Portrait Dedicated to [the writer Eugène] Carrière,” Cézanne’s “The Battle of Love,” a Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1885 oil on wood (“Carmen Gaudin”), Vincent van Gogh’s “Flower Beds in Holland” (a rarely seen work with a gloomy background that contrasts sharply with the bright colors he’s known for); and a striking Manet still life, “Oysters.”

Regrettably, much of the exhibit, which is on tour while the National Gallery revamps its D.C. facility, is over-framed with mega-ornate woods.

And that adds to my overall impression that ”Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art” doesn’t compare well with last summer’s “Impressionists on the Water” at the Legion — or, for that matter, with previous impressionist exhibits at both the Legion and the de Young.

Still it contains sufficient exceptional material to more than enough merit a trip to the museum.

“Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art” will be shown through Aug. 3 at the Legion of Honor, 100 34th Ave. (at Clement St.), San Francisco, in Lincoln Park. Closed Mondays. Tickets are free for members and children 5 and under, $11 to $24 non-members. Information: (415) 750-3600 or contact@famsf.org.

 Woody’s [rating:3.5]

As a young buck, I’d often catch performances at the New York City Opera or the Met.

Embarrassing to admit, my tastes ran to the ultra-popular.

I’d see “Carmen,” “Figaro,” “Madama Butterfly” and “Rigoletto” and the like — again and again.

And if someone hinted I substitute part of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, or experimental compositions such as Alban Berg’s “Lulu” or Dimitri Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of the Misensk District,” I’d recoil.

Then, a budding love of jazz replaced opera in my entertainment life.

Almost entirely.

But seeing “Show Boat,” the new, panoramic San Francisco Opera production, makes me want to re-think my predilections.

And even venture beyond opera’s Top 10.

“Show Boat” certainly isn’t opera — and not truly an operetta either.

But it compares favorably with many of both when discussing spectacle, especially considering Paul Tazewell’s multi-hued costuming and Peter Davison’s resourcefully mobile sets.

And the musical’s 60-plus performers.

Happily, no one bumps into anyone else — unlike an opera I saw not long ago in Vienna, where the stage was so crowded by supernumeraries none could move.

To me, the most satisfying takeaway from “Show Boat” is the historical perspective it offers.

Followed by Bill Irwin’s antics.

The musical about life on the Mississippi had expanded theatrical parameters in its 1927 debut by introducing seriousness to Broadway houses that were previously rife with Ziegfeld’s “Follies” and similar girlie shows, implausible operettas or thoughtless musical comedies.

It may seem tame today, but “Show Boat” also confronted racism and miscegenation then by injecting an interracial love story.

Merely providing a storyline, in fact, broke new ground.

As for Irwin, the Tony Award-winner plays Andy Hawks, the floating theater’s captain, and steals every scene he’s in by stretching his rubber-ish body in ways that ensure all audience eyes stay on him.

This marks Irwin’s second San Francisco Opera appearance. His first was in “Turandot” as an acrobatic, when he was with the Pickle Family Circus.

Two more comic “Show Boat” sensations are Kirsten Wyatt as Ellie Mae Chipley and Harriet Harris as Parthy Ann Hawks.

Wyatt uses her squeaky voice as a laugh-inducing tool, much like the one Kristin Chenoweth rode to fame in “Wicked,” and Harris utilizes a gruff persona not unlike that of Bebe, the agent-manager she played on TV’s “Frasier.”

Some of Jerome Kern’s old-timey music (and Oscar Hammerstein II’s lyrics) may be as familiar as modern-day hits by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Tunes such as “Ol’ Man River,” “Can’t Help Loving’ Dat Man” and “Make Believe.” Others (“Hey, Feller” and “Dance Away the Night,” for instance), I don’t remember hearing before — despite seeing the show in New York years ago.

“Ol’ Man River,” of course, is a tune nearly everyone walks out singing, humming or whistling.

Few know it became Kern’s good luck charm. He purportedly played it each time he left for a trip.

 

And again when he returned.

Few also know Hammerstein’s wife claimed it was “my husband who wrote ‘Ol’ Man River.’ Jerry Kern only wrote dum-di-dah-dah, di-dum-di-dah-dah.”

At the revival’s opening, several white-haired theatergoers equated Morris Robinson’s show-stopping “Ol’ Man River” to those of James Earl Jones and Paul Robeson.

More strong voices?

Check out the soprano tones of Heidi Stober as Magnolia Hawks, and baritone Michael Todd Simpson as her suitor, Gaylord Revenal.

Musical director John DeMain blends everything as smoothly as a perfect gimlet.

But let’s not ignore the dancing in “Show Boat,” a co-production with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera and Houston Grand Opera.

It’s dazzling.

Choreography by Michele Lynch shrewdly melds old hat with a touch of modernity.

David Gockley, company general director (who previously staged “Show Boat” in 1982 and again in 1989 with the Houston company), says the new production is “the way the creators conceived” it. While director Francesca Zambello notes the original show employed a black and white chorus in an era when black cast members couldn’t even have their own families in the audience.

“Show Boat,” remember, trail-blazed the way for George and Ira Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” — and countless other musical works.

In a sense, though, it’s like a treasured 1927 photo album brought to life.

“Show Boat,” which runs in repertory with “La Traviata” and “Madama Butterfly,” will play at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave. (at Grove Street), San Francisco, through July 2. Tickets: $24 to $379 (subject to change). Information: www.sfopera.com or 864-3330.

Woody’s [rating:2.5]

My main takeaway from “Failure: A Love Story” is that the Grim Reaper doesn’t always have to be grim.

He can, if re-imagined, almost be the life of the party.

Philip Dawkin’s curious tragicomedy, as inventively stylized by director Jasson Minadakis at the Marin Theatre Company with a hefty overlay of music, flourishes in numerous ways.

But it trips over its own ingenuity in others.

All five actors are outstanding. Costumes by Jacqueline Firkins are sunny and upbeat.  The clock- and instrument-packed art deco set by scenic designer Nina Ball, though cluttered, has a lot of eye appeal. And the lighting effects are effective.

But the play itself, with third-person narratives that are staggeringly verbose, is too cutesy.

Besides, I believe, it tries too hard.

We’re told early on, and then again and again and again in a feeble swing at humor, that the three perky Fail sisters die after a blunt object to the head, a watery disappearance and consumption “in that order.”

But death can’t stop any of them from first finding love — in the form of one guy, an investor in stocks who also invests in women.

Mortimer Mortimer (played charmingly by Brian Herndon) initially falls for Nelly (a bouncy Kathryn Zdan), but ends up as a hand-me-down serial suitor for both Jenny June (a buoyant Liz Sklar) and Gertrude (Megan Pearl Smith as a held back mother hen).

Mort (an undisguised reference to death) also befriends their adopted brother, John N. (an appropriately cheerless Patrick Kelly Jones), found as a baby floating down the river in a basket.

As John N. matures, he clings to critters rather than humans, making friends of the snake, which has evolved into a huge, spitting boa constructor called Moses; a dog, Pal; and two green parakeets — all puppets.

Death thrives.

And is almost as ubiquitous as the play’s bad puns, especially about time, as the sisters keep their parents’ clock shop functioning.

Not only do all three girls expire, following the accidental demise of mom and dad, but a couple of animals perish as well.

And then there’s a stillborn baby.

Sad?

Not really, at least not until the end of the 1928 Chicago-centric play is nigh.

Dawkins and Minadakis conspire to use Jazz Age music to ward off any heavy audience gloom-and-doom sensations.

Unfortunately, the MTC distancing gambit works too well.

Upon learning in advance that the sisters die, I became protectively distanced from them. And my difficulty in relating was amped up, later, by Mort’s being unable to touch either Jenny June or Gertie physically.

“Failure,” I found, also was burdened, beneath a glitzy exterior, with philosophical tenets never fully resolved. Like one character declaring that just because something ends, that “doesn’t mean it ain’t a great success.”

Dawkins gives directors free rein on staging the show.

A good idea?

Well, Minadakis commissioned original songs by musical director Chris Houston that supplemented standards like “In the Good Old Summertime,” “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” “Lover, Come Back to Me” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.”

Those musical reproductions should have fit exquisitely. But the players were sometimes melodically challenged.

Their voices and instruments — which include mandolin, piano, bass, guitar, violin, flute and horn from a Gramophone — were sometimes off key, sometimes flat, sometimes sharp.

But my favorite moment came when Herndon, then enamored with Jenny June, who yearned to swim across Lake Michigan, comically vocalizes his jealously of her idol, Johnny Weissmuller, an Olympic swimming champ.

Including Weissmuller’s throaty Tarzan movie yell.

Marinites who are chauvinists will relish the fact that three of the five actors are Marin natives — Jones hails from Larkspur, Sklar claims both Kentfield and Lucas Valley as home base, and Zdan is from Mill Valley.

Each person involved in “Failure” (behind-the-scenes folks, cast and crew) must be given credit for offering something fresh to an audience willing to take a chance.

Though the show falls short of wonderful, its peek at time travel and mollifying death is praiseworthy.

Flawed, yes; failure, no.

“Failure: A Love Story” plays at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through June 29. Tickets: $20 to $58. Information: (415) 388-5208 or www.marintheatre.org. 

 Woody’s [rating:4.5] 

To say Tony Kushner’s play about a dysfunctional Italian-American family in Brooklyn meanders is to miss the point.

And to say “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures” runs a fast 3 hours, 45 minutes (including two intermissions) misses it, too.

What is the takeaway, then?

Like most of Kushner’s work, the complex three-act drama entrenched at the Berkeley Rep is brilliant.

Overflowing with passion and humor.

It’s a heady mosaic, a verbal choreography of truncated sentences and unfinished thoughts, with Kushner hell-bent on tackling a laundry list of philosophical conceits (even as characters simultaneously try to outshout one another, crisscross themes or become tongue-tied).

“The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide…,” which the playwright originally planned as an epic novel, first opened as a tragicomic drama in 2009.

But, as with previous plays, the creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning two-part “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” was rewriting what his husband Mark Harris nicknamed “iHo” almost until the curtain went up.

The result?

The radiant West Coast premiere — replete with myriad subplots — probes love, parenting, familial relationships and money, not necessarily in that order.

And anyone brought up not to discuss sex, politics or religion is advised to stay away.

Director Tony Taccone, Berkeley Rep’s artistic chieftain for 16 years, has collaborated with Kushner eight times (including the world premiere of “Angels”) and been a friend of his for four decades.

It shows.

When disillusioned Communist and retired intellectual longshoreman Gus Marcantonio announces he wants to commit suicide, his adult kids return to his brownstone with lovers and spouses to stop him.

Instead, they incite tumult.

Gus is portrayed by Mark Margolis, a “Breaking Bad” alum whose ability to let me (and the rest of the audience) share his character’s inner reality is remarkable.

Surrounding him — each displaying extraordinary acting chops — are Randy Danson as aunt Clio, a radicalized ex-nun; Lou Liberatore as Pill, Gus’ super-tormented gay history-teaching son; and Tyrone Mitchell Henderson as Paul, a theologian enraged by virtually everyone he encounters — as well as God.

Other major characters are Empty (Deirdre Lovejoy), Gus’ bisexual labor lawyer daughter; “V” or Vito (Joseph J. Parks), Gus’ son, a building contractor and the family’s “black sheep,” a capitalist; and Eli (Jordan Geiger), a lovesick hustler.

Incredibly, the entire ensemble cast of 11 is stellar.

They become figures that make Eugene O’Neill’s damaged characters tame by comparison.

“iHo” isn’t tidy, though.

Like other Kushner’s pieces, it’s occasionally self-indulgent.

He loves throwing in oblique references — from classic Horace to modern-day pop culture. And pithiness certainly isn’t his long suit, despite pearls like:

• “What’s real, the dream or the dreamer?”

• “The only real death is to live meaninglessly.”

Or, for laughs, “Yeah, baby, talk Commie talk to me.”

Did I “get” everything?

Hell no. Especially the more esoteric theological investigations.

I suspect a second, or fifth, viewing is necessary to grok all Kushner wants us to comprehend.

Taccone is skilled at interpreting Kushner — from putting the “isms” under a microscope, from contrasting labor unions to the union of individuals, from dissecting family dynamics.

He’s aided by scenic designer Christopher Barecca’s bi-level set, probably best described by an Ernest Hemingway title: “A Moveable Feast.”

Opening night, stage lights malfunctioned for a few moments. The distraction was significant, ironically, because it showed how impeccable the rest of the “iHo” production was.

The 14-word title, incidentally, pays homage to George Bernard Shaw’s economic exploration, “The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism,” and Mary Baker Eddy’s “Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures.”

Kushner has said he’s “always very happy being back at the Berkeley Rep, the only theater outside of New York where I truly feel at home, in the Bay Area, the only part of the world outside of New York I consider truly habitable.”

Although award panels have lauded him with two Tonys, three Obies and an Emmy, not everything he writes — despite endless attempts at perfectionism — is flawless, compelling, mesmerizing.

But he’s raised the level of American theater.

This version of “iHo,” I’m convinced deserves a rating of three brilliants and two dazzlings — or, for any who prefers the more familiar, six stars on a five-star chart.

“The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures” plays at the Berkeley Repertory’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through June 29. Tickets: $14.50 to $99, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.