Woody Weingarten

 

Patrice Hickox would prefer I think of her as ordinary.

She isn’t.

The Fairfax resident’s a real-life Energizer Bunny.

Without floppy ears.

A perpetual motion machine with platinum-hued hair and hands that intermittently sketch pictures in thin air. A do-gooder everlastingly battling for one cause or another.

Since I’ve tilted at a few windmills myself, I like that.

Still, no matter how much she achieves, she’s never able to rest on her laurels.

 

She is resting one recent Saturday, however, on a memorial bench at the edge of Bolinas Park in Fairfax she fought hard to get installed at the end of May.

Not quite relaxed.

Trying to figure out how she best can help Marin’s foster children keeps her mind flashing like a July 4th sparkler.

She can’t know a Marin County Civil Grand Jury will shortly issue a report saying more funds must to be spent on the issue, more communication must occur between foster parents and social workers, and more access to therapy must be provided those neglected kids.

What to do? What to do?

She and I are together, me armed with interview pad and pen, she momentarily staring off into the distance at a bald hill she knows must be preserved.

Of course.

One cause at a time isn’t her style.

She’s also thinking about finding a way to replace “the dingy, worn-out, style-less sign announcing the Town of San Anselmo.”

And improving local median strips.

How?

“Re-plant, re-think, re-design,” she tells me.

The artsy wood bench we’re on is dedicated to the memory of her friend, Nancy Helmers, an environmental activist who died last year at age 82.

Patrice tactfully declines to reveal the political obstacles — “the kerfluffle, the brouhaha” — she had to vault to make it happen.

She’s just glad it’s a done deal.

Nancy had served on the county’s Open Space Committee for 10 years, as well as many other boards, and had been as non-stop energetic as Patrice.

She also was an unrelenting firebrand when it came to pushing petitions. “No one could collect a signature like Nancy,” Patrice tells me. “No one would say ‘No’ to her.

The two women met in 1988 when Nancy was collecting names in favor of creating a multi-purpose park on the 28 acres of the Marin Town and Country Club, which was being eyed by a developer.

The pair stopped the development from happening.

But they couldn’t come up with an effective plan to raise enough money to build their dream park.

“Instead, we became friends,” Patrice remembers. “We were both birders and environmentalists. We hiked, and we eventually collected thousands of signatures for a lot of things that failed.”

There were, however, sporadic triumphs.

Such as Lansdale Park in San Anselmo, a pocket-sized space with a children’s playground — or, as the town’s website says, “just what the neighborhood needed! Parents can enjoy a coffee-to-go from the nearby café while watching their children play outdoors.”

Patrice recalls “they were going to put condos there, but we got a petition to stop it. We got two grants from the Buck Fund, and got students from the White Hall Middle School in Fairfax to help. It was great.”

Her awareness began shortly after reading Rachel Carson’s best-selling “Silent Spring,” which detailed the detrimental use of pesticides.

“I was off and running after that,” she says. “I stopped eating meat and started paying attention. I was 14.”

As a Manhattan teenager, she’d attended be-in’s in Central Park, marched in Washington against the Vietnam War, and rallied for civil rights.

“I guess I’ve been a die-hard liberal ever since I figured out what that was,” she says.

Sometimes Patrice, who’s lived in Fairfax since 1995 with Charlie, her musician husband of 41 years, volunteers longer than she’d intended.

She helped out at WildCare for more than 10 years, for instance, “raising hundreds of baby things — from snakes to foxes to raccoons and squirrels.”

If she could accomplish anything in the world, what would it be, I ask. She replies without hesitation: “Get rid of Putin and Assad.”

Then she says, “I think I’d like to be empress of Oakland and just fix that city.”

And then, after a slight pause, she adds seriously, “Anything that I’d be effective at — so I wouldn’t have to beat my head against the wall again.”

I smile.

Since I’ve tilted at a few windmills myself, I understand completely.

You can contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net

 

No, of course I don’t eavesdrop on purpose.

But I do unintentionally pick up conversational crumbs during my dog-walking stints or other Ross Valley meanderings.

I’ve learned the vicinity is a veritable hotbed of amusing or thought provoking verbal tidbits. Such as the following, extracted from the pile of Post-it collectibles on my desk:

A pair of girl bicyclists rests, cross-legged, on a downtown San Anselmo sidewalk. Says one, “When I first met my boyfriend, he was feral.”

Chatting outside a Sleepy Hollow residence, a redheaded midlifer tells a male companion, “I thought Hostess was defunct, but I was wrong. Twinkies and Ho-Ho’s have new outlets. Which confirms what I’ve always believed — they have a shelf-life that ensures they, along with the cockroaches, will inherit the Earth.”

“When I see how many of my gismos, thingamajigs and appliances are breaking down, some after only 30 or 40 days,” laments a white-haired geezer to a checker in Fairfax’s Good Earth Natural Foods, “I hate to think about what’s going on in my body after 92 years.”

At the dog park behind Safeway in Red Hill, a grinning twentysomething guy rhetorically asks a chum, “Did you hear that canines here communicate via pee-mail?”

Husband in tattered shorts to overly loud wife in basic black outside Ross Post Office: “I heard what you meant.”

A blue-hair leaning on a cane at the Rino gas station in Fairfax says to a driver, “I don’t know about you but I can never rest in a restroom.”

Angry young woman to red-faced young man in Bolinas Park in Fairfax: “I am not a stand-in in your movie.”

As they both caress an assortment of nuts and bolts at Fairfax Lumber & Hardware, a young man with a nose-ring tells his girlfriend, who has both eyebrows pierced, “He got his B.S. degree in B.S.”

Succinctly, on the lawn of Town Hall in San Anselmo, a female teenager tells a gal pal, “I don’t do boredom.”

A forty-ish guy on the Kentfield campus of the College of Marin tells a younger classmate, “When anyone calls a celebrity ‘a legend,’ that means the person being referred to is old, old, old — or dead.”

At the Ross Valley Veterinary Hospital in San Anselmo, a mom asks her daughter: “When all the newspapers disappear, will puppies be trained on Kindles?”

Unsteady gray-haired guy in front of the San Anselmo’s Lincoln Park wine bar who clearly did more than taste: “My life can be measured in troublesome channels. When I was five, it was Guadalcanal. Now, it’s my alimentary canal.”

While discussing her daughter’s new boyfriend, a stylish Fairfax woman heading into 19 Broadway in Fairfax tells a companion, “My inner jury’s still out.”

Says one smiling matron to another as they window-shop at Fairfax Variety, “Having just learned that an American Headache Society exists gives me a headache.”

“She’s a magnet for desperadoes,” says one twinkle-eyed blonde in front of Andronico’s in San Anselmo to another.

A man in a 49ers’ cap says to a cop near the Parkade in Fairfax, “Oh, how quickly we forget. I wonder whatever happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Sperminator.”

Couplet overheard at the hub bus stop in San Anselmo: “Greeting cards are getting expensive.” “Yeah, but now they talk, sing and do your laundry.”

A redhead sips a latte in San Anselmo’s Marin Coffee Roasters and gripes, after her second date with the new man in her life, “I have yet to find his sense of humor or personality.”

An acne-ridden teen boy, licking a spoon in front of Gelato on San Anselmo Avenue: “I believe in stating the obvious — because most people overlook it.”

“I’m 87 years old and still very much a work in progress,” says a woman to her companion in Fairfax’s Siam Lotus.

In the doorway of the Sunshine Bicycle Center in Fairfax, a youth whispers to himself, “She’s somewhere between perfect and oh, my God.”

A housefrau enters Seawood Photo in San Anselmo telling one friend about another: “He lives partly in Manhattan, partly in Florida, and wholly in yesterday.”

Drake High School student describes a verbose acquaintance thusly: “He’s a wordaholic.”

And here’s my personal favorite:

A bald philosopher-king outside MC23 Salon in Ross says, “My recommendation for a bumper sticker is: ‘Life is not a bumper sticker.’”

You can contact Woody Weingarten @voodee@sbcglobal.net.

Woody’s [rating: 5]

It’s way too early for me to crawl out on this particular limb, but I’m impetuous enough to do it anyway.

The best flicks of any year, the sure-fire Oscar contenders, typically are released in December, often a day or two before year’s end.

That ensures eligibility.

And, usually, a booming box-office.

This year, a vibrant film I just saw breaks with the tradition.

“Boyhood” is Richard Linklater’s cinematic masterwork, a groundbreaking work of scripted fiction that took 12 years to film. It feels real.

Indeed, it’s the most emotionally nourishing movie I’ve seen in eons.

I expect it to cop the Oscar as 2014’s best.

Forget the competition.

For a dozen consecutive years, the director-writer’s cameras filmed the various actors while they grew up, grew furrowed, grew chunkier.

In three or four-day annual shoots.

Ellar Coltrane stars as Mason Junior, a youngster who loses his baby fat and innocence while we watch.

Lorelei Linklater, the director’s daughter, realistically portrays the boy’s officious cinema sister, Samantha. Olivia (Patricia Arquette) and Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke) come off as his blemished but loving parents.

All four are understated.

The veteran filmmaker overcame his gimmick by making the movie a non-formulaic exploration of human development — without the usual cinematic clichés.

Except for an abusive husband-drunk.

The characters seem transparent, even when internal mini-crises envelop them.

Mostly, though, Linklater, 54, examines the impact ordinariness has on human beings.

His novel-like study — based in Texas, where he was born and yetlives — meanders, but generally focuses on the less showy flashes that can influence life: sibling squabbling, routine schooling, cussing, parental guidance and lapses, Bible- and gun-toting, revolving haircuts and facial hair, juvenile bewilderment and sexuality.

Linklater’s finest scenes exude humor, including gutter bowling and blue fingernails.

But his characters are genuine enough to have been my neighbors in Clearwater, Florida, or Willingboro, New Jersey.

For some viewers, namely those who prefer high drama to watching inch-by-inch life changes, “Boyhood” may seem plot-less. Other moviegoers may suffer from a lack of zitzfleisch, the project’s 165-minute length tough on their bony backsides.

I had no such problems.

Rather, I found the film to be epic — not in the sense of explosions or thousands of warriors and computer-graphic stunts, but epic in the sense of zooming in on people reacting to life’s commonplaceness.

I’ve long been a Linklater fan — especially the documentary “Fast Food Nation,” the fact-based black comedy “Bernie,” and his fictional trilogy, “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight,” which tracks a loving but contentious couple.

If there’s an antecedent to “Boyhood,” it’s director Michael Apted’s “7-Up,” a documentary series that took 14 seven-year-old British pupils from varied soci-economic backgrounds and revisited them every seven years for the next 49 so far.

The fabricated “Boyhood” has vastly more impact, however.

For me, it creates a time machine.

Although my coming of age didn’t resemble Mason’s in the least, it lets me relive the warmth and angst and crossroads I faced while growing up.

So, thanks, Mr. Visionary, for skipping a cinematic stone over the water’s edge and letting the ripples of my past glisten in the sun. Thanks, too, for reminding me that a parent can be only as joyous as the least happy child.

And thanks for verifying that there’s always a little kid inside an older body.

“Boyhood” will grab no prize for taking more than a decade to complete. Hitler propagandist Leni Riefenstahl started a script in 1934 but didn’t release “Tiefland” until 20 years later. The longevity winner, however, is an animated feature, “The Thief and the Cobbler,” which took 28 years — mainly because writer-director-head animator Richard Williams ran out of money.

No movie this year should be more prize-worthy than “Boyhood,” though.

Linklater has planted the right cinematic seeds to merit his harvesting Academy Awards as best director and best film.

I predict he will.

“Boyhood” is playing at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, the California and Piedmont theaters in the East Bay, and the Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki Cinema and UA Stonestown Twin in San Francisco.

You can contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net.

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.