Woody Weingarten

 

I can get really excited about little stuff.

So can Nancy Fox, my wife.

A few days back, for instance, she was bouncing on air because she’d had the vintage knives in our San Anselmo kitchen sharpened.

“Unbelievable,” she exclaimed. “They’re like new!”

I loved her enthusiasm.

Almost as much as I’d loved my own ecstasy when I recalled a guilty pleasure from childhood — a bowlful of sliced sweet gherkins and sour cream.

Others may grimace, but I blissed out again.

Big things can also electrify me.

Such as completing tweak No. 8,957 of “Rollercoaster,” my book manuscript that details how a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer.

I finally believe it’s ready for prime time — after years and years of updating and polishing.

Maybe one of you, my steadfast readers, can nurture the project.

If you know a publisher who might be interested, I’d be interested in your giving me name, rank and serial number. If you’re connected to a foundation and think I could be eligible for a grant, send me the details — pronto. If you know a philanthropist who might help buoy thousands and thousands of male caregivers, email, snail-mail, carrier-pigeon or smoke-signal me the info.

“Rollercoaster” is a 47,000-word memoir-chronicle of my wife’s breast cancer 19 years ago — and my role as primary caregiver (and leader of the Marin Man to Man support group for guys with partners in the same sometimes leaky boat).

Fleshed out by essential “how-to” sequences and information on drugs, scientific research and where to get help.

Because I’m more concerned with getting the message out than in making money, I’m willing to donate all royalties to a breast-cancer research organization or relevant nonprofit.

Time’s a-wastin’ — the stats haven’t improved.

More than 2 million U.S. women live with breast cancer, with almost 250,000 new cases diagnosed each year, one every few minutes.

Hundreds of books are aimed at them.

But their male caregivers (husbands, boyfriends, fathers, sons and brothers) typically become a forgotten part of the equation.

And they, too, need propping up.

The few volumes directed at them and still in print are woefully out of date. “Rollercoaster,” in contrast, is current (with references, even, to last month’s New York Times story on a key study of mammograms).

“Rollercoaster” tracks my bumpy yet uplifting journey from the depths of Nancy’s diagnosis to the heights of our climbing the Great Wall of China. It illustrates that most couples can successfully deal with the disease itself, “slash, poison and burn” treatments, fear, and the repercussions of it all — and that there actually can be light at the end of the tunnel.

I must believe in the book or I wouldn’t have tinkered with it 8,957 times.

I’m primed for a “Rollercoaster” hardcover to appear in oncologists’ and radiologists’ offices, in hospitals and libraries, and in the hands of individual caregivers and patients.

But I truly don’t want to change the text anymore — unless Brad Pitt calls me and wants to write an intro (so, if anyone knows how to get to him, tell me).

And I truly reject the idea of papering my walls with rejection notices.

Northern Californian Jack London got 600 of them before publishing anything. And Gertrude Stein submitted poems for 22 years before one was accepted.

I don’t have that kind of patience.

Nor do I want to be published posthumously.

I do want to help all the male caregivers of breast cancer and other life-threatening diseases that need support — while I’m still breathing.

So I guess I’ll just walk my purebred mutt, Kismet, in downtown San Anselmo while waiting for a fairy godmother to arrive with a publisher in tow.

And settle, for the moment, for being thrilled by the little stuff.

Like my wife creating a Seuss-like rhyming treasure hunt last month, with the Big Prize being a small box of tiny candy hearts.

I loved her reverting to her kindergarten-teacher days and getting me to run up and down stairs so many times I decided to forgo my daily exercises.

“Ten clues are written,” she wrote,

“For Valentine’s Day,”

“To celebrate ours”

“In a new, goofy way.”

Yes, being thrilled is a thrill — whether it’s tiny, silly things or big, important stuff.

 Woody’s [rating:4/5]

Charlie Varon changes his voice and face and characters as fast as Miley Cyrus can twerk.

In “Feisty Old Jew,” his new one-man show at The Marsh in San Francisco, he portrays twentysomething surfers and members of a retirement home breakfast club.

But easily his most memorable character is the cranky Bernie to which the title refers.

Varon being 55 didn’t stop me from totally accepting him in the mind and body of a gutsy 83-year-old determined to go out fighting.

The plot of the comic monologue involves a mega-rich Indian techie reared in California, his best-selling author sister and a white surfer who pick up hitchhiking Bernie in their Tesla, haul him across the Golden Gate Bridge, and watch him try to ride a wave near Bolinas — the outgrowth of an 800-to-1 bet that could net him $400,000.

It’s a droll theatrical exercise grounded in reality, yet encompassing multiple touches of exaggeration that made me smile again and again,

And I was not the least thrown by its surprising, fantastical wind-up.

A Jewish background isn’t necessary to enjoy the show, because it’s more about the changing human and cultural landscape of the Bay Area and the aging process than Jewishness.

Take that as gospel from this feisty old Jew (even though I don’t hate yoga studios or medical marijuana outlets as Bernie does).

Yes, he can seem to be the ultimate curmudgeon, especially during descriptions that indicate he despises young people in general and Tony Bennett in particular (for singing with Lady Gaga).

But Varon insists the play’s “about a city in flux…about what I see when I step out of our theater and walk down Valencia Street — the hipsters, the techies, the restaurants serving truffle butter and pink aioli. When I moved to the Mission District in 1978, my rent was $70 a month. Now people pay $70 a month just for lattes.”

The life-affirming show was developed, like other Varon works at The Marsh over 23 years, with director-friend David Ford.

And with additional heavy lifting from Varon’s life partner, Myra Levy.

The program guide credits no craftspeople for costumes, props, sound effects or lighting — because, as usual, Varon relies solely on his rubbery face, gift for mimicry and ability to write impressively descriptive passages and poetic prose.

This tour de force is similar to previous Varon outings I’ve seen — “Rush Limbaugh in Night School,” “Ralph Nader Is Missing!” and “Rabbi Sam” — in which he narrated tales through numerous characters, all of whom he ingeniously portrayed.

This one is different, though, because there will be future links — he’s working on an entire series of vignettes about geezers.

Indeed, because “Feisty Old Jew” runs only 45 minutes long, Varon added several minutes by performing a portion of “The Fish Sisters,” a work-in-progress featuring Selma, an 86-year-old prankster who’s time-traveled to age 11, peeking through a keyhole at a naked woman dubbed Queen Esther.

The first complete reading of that piece — a two-hour “tale of mischief” — was scheduled to take place March 9.

The night I caught “Feisty,” it was preceded by a dramatic extract of “The Disappearance of Alfred Lafee,” written and performed by Peter L. Stein, ex-TV producer-writer, documentarian, actor and director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival who, Varon explained, “is finding his legs as a solo performer.”

Stein told me later that he’s been working on it for two years, and expects at least six more months of tweaking — with assistance from Ford, Varon’s director.

But “Lafee” is already enthralling as it uncovers a painfully true story about the secret life of a closeted 22-year-old San Francisco rabbi murdered in 1923.

If Stein’s piece still needs work, the lone problem with an evening with Varon is that street parking near The Marsh borders on impossible (although space normally is available at the nearby New Mission Bartlett Garage).

I’m 117 percent confident, however, that seeing “Feisty Old Jew” is worth the trouble.

“Feisty Old Jew” is scheduled to run at The Marsh, 1062 Valencia St. (at 22nd St.), San Francisco, through May 4. Performances, Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 or 7 p.m. Tickets: $25 to $100. Information: www.themarsh.org or (415) 282-3055. 

 Woody’s [rating:5]

“Hir,” a gender-bending, tragicomic world premiere at the Magic Theatre, is the best Bay Area play I’ve seen this season.

In several seasons, in fact.

And I’ve attended more than a few magnificent shows during that timeframe.

To call “Hir” hilariously riveting would be to understate enormously the impact it had on the opening night San Francisco audience.

Including me.

I don’t have enough superlatives in my word-arsenal with which to praise the writing, direction, acting, set design and costumes.

Describing what’s what may make the play sound bizarre rather than funny. But playwright Taylor Mac keeps the laughter level extremely high.

Niegel Smith is the perfect director for what Mac calls “absurd realism.” Though every gag line draws a laugh, each stammer, brief pause or elongated silence also hits a dramatic bulls-eye.

And Smith’s pacing is spot on.

Paige is the antithesis of the submissive mom that populates so much pop culture. Instead, she’s a tear-down-the-established-routine demon who humiliates her husband with acts of comeuppance that include squirting water into his face as a trainer might to a disobedient kitten.

Nancy Opel portrays her with all the requisite venom. A Tony-nominated actress, she is a comic delight, spewing Mac’s acerbic words like ammo from a Gatling gun.

She informs us the family’s role now — 30 years after building its “starter house” — is to put on shadow-puppet shows and “play dress up.”

The playwright takes dysfunctionality to new heights. Or, perhaps, it might be more accurate to say new lows.

The play, set in a central valley suburb similar to Stockton, where Mac grew up, makes the audience feel good because their fractured families can’t possibly be that screwed up.

Jax Jackson adroitly plays Max, formerly Maxine — a 17-year-old “gender-queer” malcontent who’s been homeschooled and makes Holden Caulfield’s angst look as antiquated and simplistic as something out of a the old-time radio soap opera “One Man’s Family.”

He no longer chooses to be a she or a he but a gender-neutral ze (pronounced zay); in addition, he substitutes hir (pronounced heer) for the pronouns him or her.

A youth whose fantasy is to join an anarchist commune, Max finds his mind somewhere behind the curve of the hormone-triggered gender changes ze has put hir body through with self-medicating experimentation.

He calls himself “transmasculine” and “a fag.” He likes boys. He loves masturbating.

And he thinks he’s “allowed to be selfish because I’m in transition.”

Max goes ballistic about the biblical story of Noah being “transphobic” because only male and female animals were allowed aboard the ark — and because Leonardo da Vinci’s transexuality and that of his self-portrait, the Mona Lisa, aren’t acknowledged.

Actually, it’s not crucial for a theatergoer to “get” all the gender-based phrasing — or even the alphabet soup LGBT has evolved into, LGBTTSQQIAA.

The gist becomes clear through context.

Clear, too, is Mark Anderson Phillips’s performance despite his character barely speaking.

He skillfully portrays Arnold, the stroke-ridden ex-plumber, ex-abuser father who represents a disintegrating culture and who’s typically plopped in front of the Lifetime Channel when Paige and Max go out.

And Ben Euphrat is effectively transparent as Isaac, a Marine vet of the Afghanistan war dishonorably discharged after becoming a meth addict. He may have PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), and vomits profusely, the aftermath of his job of collecting body parts.

Isaac comes back to unrecognizable home and family, and desperately wants to restore them — and himself — to the way everything was when he left.

I missed “The Lily’s Revenge,” Mac’s earlier allegorical play/carnival at the Magic, thinking neither my brain nor my buttocks could handle five acts and five hours no matter how brilliant.

Now I have regrets.

Mac, not incidentally, is a triple threat: Although he’s written 16 full-length plays, he also performs as an actor and singer-songwriter (his most recent outing was as co-star with Mandy Patinkin in an off-Broadway workshop of “The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville” last December).

While introducing his latest dark, darker, darkest humor showcase to the opening night audience, Loretta Greco, the Magic’s producing artistic director, said, “Buckle your seat belts. You’re in for an incredible ride.”

She wasn’t lying.

“Hir” plays at the Magic Theater, Building D, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, through March 2. Performances: Sundays and Tuesdays, 7 p.m., Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; matinees, Sundays and Wednesdays, 2:30 p.m. Tickets: $15 to $60. Information: (415) 441-8822 or www.magictheatre.org.

  Woody’s [rating:5]

Uh, oh!

From the first cagey moments of “Gidion’s Knot,” I knew the play would be grueling to process.

I didn’t, however, expect my mouth to drop open, my heart to hurt.

They did anyway.

My pledge: Because the two-woman play is a disturbing cat-and-mouse game and theatrical Rorschach test, viewers will find it virtually impossible to leave the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley unaffected.

Personal baggage will, of course, determine exactly how and what is experienced.

The tension-filled drama starts with an abrasive, in-your-face single mother — a walking open wound — demanding a constrained teacher tell her why she suspended the parent’s troubled son from his fifth-grade class.

The discussion that follows is often awkward.

But it’s also a fascinating examination of personal responsibility and blame, freedom of expression, the failure of our school systems, bullying and embryonic sexuality.

“Gidion’s Knot” is provocative, powerful and guaranteed to force theatergoers to hold their breath for what seems its entire 80 minutes.

The impact of the gut-wrenching, twist-and-turn tragedy comes when the angry, sarcastic mother, herself a professor used to academic probing, keeps pricking and questioning until she learns the truth.

At least her truth.

A working clock on a classroom wall helps maintain the sense of real time.

And the actors’ breathtaking depiction of passion, thoughtfulness and mood swings help keep the action authentic.

Playwright Johnna Adams demands playgoers think for themselves, so she supplies no pinpoint answers to the questions she poses: Are parents or schoolteachers ultimately responsible for pupils’ well-being? Is Gidion a bullying monster or sensitive, poetic victim? Is classmate Jake the bully or an object of affection?

Neither fifth grader appears on stage.

Nor does Seneca, an 11-year-old friend and note-passer described as having a stuffed bra, nose ring, false eyelashes and dyed platinum hair.

Tossed into the mix are references to censorship, freedom of expression, American society’s litigiousness, and our growing national fear of what’s ahead.

Sadly, “Gidion’s Knot” echoes all too many real-life headlines of recent years about individual tragedies caused by taunting, either in person or through social networking.

And, although it doesn’t reference those situations, it can’t block memories of schoolyard massacres.

Tension is director Jon Tracy’s forté, copious enough to make me — and most other seat-holders — uncomfortable.

Intensity prevails.

Unrelentingly, in fact, all the way to the play’s final moments — except for a few snarky quips that let everyone find a smidgeon of relief through nervous laughter.

Part of the unease, by the way, stems from the two characters (and audience) waiting for someone to arrive.

As “Gidion’s Knot” unravels its multi-leveled conflicts and complexities — from an exploration of Greek and Roman military history and epic poetry to a tale of revenge against teachers and disembowelment — it may require a strong stomach.

I could hear erratic gasps in the audience.

Nina Ball’s set is a deceptively cheery contrast through which she’d dragged me into a 20-desk classroom and its reference maps and academic materials in Anytown, USA.

The setting’s so effective I could almost see the portraits of gods tacked onto an invisible wall explored by the distraught mom, who reveals she could best relate to a demon-destroying Hindu god, Shiva.

Destruction just happens to be another underlying theme of “Gidion’s Knot.

So’s the Marquis de Sade.

Then, of course, there’s the metaphoric Gordian Knot, which — legend tells us — Alexander the Great decided to slice rather than untie. The phrase, of course, has become a means of representing having to face an intractable problem.

What’s absent in this dazzling play is artifice — despite the presence of polemics and diatribes.

What’s present is actors whose performances are flawlessly multi-layered, facilitating my feeling their respective pain.

I flinched as the mother asked disingenuously, “This doesn’t have to be adversarial, does it?”

But the sold-out audience was right there as the mother, Corryn Fell (Jamie J. Jones), and teacher, Heather Clark (Stacy Ross), struggled to untangle the web of what really happened.

Where a playgoer travels emotionally and intellectually will determine whether “Gidion’s Knot” is loved or tagged offensive and too harrowing.

I fall in the first niche, glad I was there despite the work required.

The opening night crowd also had no doubt: In unison, it gave it a thunderous standing ovation.

“Gidion’s Knot” runs at the Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley, through March 9. Night performances, Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Tuesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees, Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $16-$50. Information: www.auroratheatre.orgor (510) 843-4822.

 Woody’s [rating:5]

“Man in a Case,” the new Mikhail Baryshnikov star turn, melds uncountable elements.

Radiantly.

But the dramatic Berkeley Rep re-invention of two Anton Chekhov short stories is so complex, so augmented with symbolism and stagecraft, I’m sure a single viewing is insufficient to absorb it all.

And, frankly, I suspect I might feel the same after two or three more times in the audience.

“Man in a Case,” which was adapted and co-directed by the dazzling duo behind the Big Dance Theatre, Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson, fuses movement, theatrics, music and video.

Parson may deserve the most credit.

She alone was responsible for the piece’s choreography, which not only fit Baryshnikov’s dance and acting chops like skintight leggings but lent itself to integrating disparate elements — projections of titles and 1890s Russian characters re-dressed in modern garb, a quintet of TV terminals blinking in unison, infinite paper caricatures wafting from above, a strobe ball rotating ever so gently, accordion melodies blaring in contrast with scratchy old recordings, and a canopied Murphy bed sliding effortlessly into a wall.

Amazingly, like a perfectly practiced drill team, everything works in synch.

And Parson put it all together with a surrealistic cleverness that made me think she might have been channeling Salvador Dali after he’d stumbled upon Marcel Marceau and Spike Jones in the afterlife and convinced them to come back to Earth and pool their talents.

“Man in a Case” spotlights two modern-day hunters who swap poignant stories after initially wielding their microphones like comic weaponry, as if they were doing early morning drive-time radio.

The first — and longer — tale centers on Belikov, an uptight, reclusive Greek teacher who’s feared by his fellow pedagogues — and, indeed, “the whole town.” He falls for a cheery woman but, calamitously, can’t sustain the relationship.

The second story depicts a guy who grieves for his unrequited love, a married woman.

According to Parson, both Baryshnikov protagonists “have preconceived ideas how to live, even if it means living life in a case…of their own construction.”

She also said, in an interview with the Hartford Stage’s senior dramaturg, that even though the title piece is “prose, not a play, it’s eminently actable.”

Baryshnikov, who’d grown up reading Chekhov stories and plays, validates that notion.

And so do the other six actors in the ensemble cast, especially Tymberly Canale, his dance-and-love companion in both segments.

One stagey conceit of “Man in a Case” is showing onstage what normally goes on behind the scenes. It took me a few minutes to adjust to the “transparency,” but once I had, I found it refreshing.

Exactly what were the two co-directors trying to achieve?

Lazar has said, “It’s Chekhov’s unvarnished contemporary quality and his not feeling at an historical distance that we’re going after.”

Mission accomplished.

Baryshnikov, a Latvia native, started studying ballet at age 9. He became the principal dancer of the Kirov Ballet in 1969, and five years later defected from the former Soviet Union to dance with major companies around the world.

His film work has included “The Turning Point” and “White Nights,” and he appeared in “Metamorphosis” on Broadway.

His most famous role, however, may have been in the television series “Sex in the City,” in which he’s dumped by Carrie Bradshaw for Mr. Big.

In 2012, Baryshnikov starred in the Berkeley Rep  production of “In Paris,” a tragic love story that garnered only mixed reviews. He’d sunk $250,000 of his own money into the project.

Although the actor-dancer recently turned 65, he’s been quoted as saying, “I never celebrate my birthdays. I really don’t care.”

He also said: “Your body actually reminds you about your age and your injuries — the body has a stronger memory than your mind.”

Does his body hold up as he effectively makes the leap from one Chekhov short story to the other?

Absolutely.

Last year, Baryshnikov told the Washington Post, “I have been in successful productions sometimes. And I’ve sucked many times, too.”

Hey, Misha, there’s zero suckage this time.

“Man in a Case” plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre‘s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through Feb. 16. Night performances, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $22.50 to $125, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.

 Woody’s [rating:5]

If you’ve seen one acrobatic troupe, you’ve seen ‘em all — except, perhaps, for an occasional act in Cirque du Soleil.

Or every one of The Peking Acrobats.

I caught the latest rendition of the latter at a Cal Performances matinee the other day at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley.

It was fabulous.

Basing their work on folk traditions that date back to 221 B.C., the youngsters push their balancing and gymnastics beyond anyone’s expectations.

Fabulously.

And the Jigu! Thunder Drums of China company that’s been inserted into the tour for the first time as “special guests” also are fabulous.

The dexterous acrobatic troupe, which first came to the United States in 1986 and currently features performers ranging from 13 to 25, particularly enjoys defying gravity.

And contorting lithe bodies.

And risking youthful life and limb without a net.

Some of the acts are indescribably complex. To be believed, they must be witnessed. Despite seeing them with my own big brown eyes, I still found several unbelievable.

Being human, the acrobats are not perfect. But when they err, they do it again and inevitably get it right.

The showstopper clearly was a young man who put four wine bottles on a tabletop, then carefully balanced the first of eight white chairs on them. After he stacked high the other seven and was almost into the rafters, he performed three handstands, the last on one hand.

Extraordinary. Inspired. Breathtaking.

And fabulous.

His solo was followed by five girls balancing on the same six chairs, stacked not as high but maybe even more treacherously because they were diagonal.

Before the stunning finale, which featured almost a dozen performers perched delicately on a single bicycle, the combination visual-audial cornucopia provided so much more, most of it unique:

A guy who juggled while standing on one leg and while tap dancing on two, a clown who tripled as emcee and tumbler, stunningly choreographed gymnastics and dancing and drumsticks, a young man who stuck four bricks on his head so they could be smashed with an immense hammer, a man held mid-air on the points of four spears, and a lion dance with four dragon-like critters animated by eight males.

Plus, of course, acrobats who jumped from pole to pole, others who danced gracefully on long fabric, females who spun plates while twisting their bodies every which way, foot-jugglers who rotated drums, and a group that playfully juggled hats, hats and more hats.

The center-stage and background music was unusually wide-ranging, from booming synchronized drumming to almost eerie sounds emanating from traditional Chinese instruments such as the erhu, a small bowed instrument with only two strings, and the yangquin, a dulcimer played with bamboo mallets.

Most melodies were unfamiliar, but that didn’t hold true for a medley that included Tony Orlando and Dawn’s “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” and the Beatles’ “Yesterday.”

The audience, which mainly consisted of young children and bald men, presumably fathers of the kids, applauded everything.

I’d say the crowd found The Peking Acrobats, well, fabulous.

“Calm down,” squeals the moderation-safety valve in my head. “This review’s become an over-gush.” But I can’t help myself — individually and collectively, they’re that good.

A cautionary announcement before the two-hour-plus fast-paced show told us not to try the tricks at home.

For me, that message was unnecessary.

I’m neither double-jointed nor willing to risk breaking every bone in my body.

In case you missed “The Peking Acrobats,” Cal Performances offers other excellent choices for families. Try, for example, Aesop Bops!” with David Gonzalez and the Yak Yak Band on April 6. Information: (510) 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/.

 Woody’s [rating:5]

“Journey’s End” is no “War Horse.” I saw no fantastical puppets.

“Journey’s End” is no “Apocalypse Now.” I heard no Wagnerian explosions or deafening helicopters.

“Journey’s End” is no “Saving Private Ryan.” I witnessed no gore.

What I did find, however, was considerable poignancy and a tough look at what war does to young men.

Regrettably, it mirrors the many wars across today’s globe.

It’s an exceptional anti-war drama, despite playwright R.C. Sherriff’s insistence — according to director James Dunn — that he didn’t set out to create that type of play.

It’s also the best Ross Valley Players show I’ve ever attended, and that’s saying a lot because I’ve seen many of their shows that were superb.

“Journey’s End” is a saga of disposable lives in the so-called Great War.

Its setting is a 1918 WWI British infantry dugout/bunker near St. Quentin, France, that’s about to be assaulted by German soldiers (“the Boche”). Its twin focus is on the interminable waiting (which may portend death) and a rushed 12-man patrol sent out to seize an enemy warrior.

The protagonist is Stanhope, a captain who drinks a lot to deaden the pain caused by the conflict and his fears that his men don’t respect him.

David Yen brilliantly portrays Stanhope, who originally was played by a young Laurence Olivier. Yen’s facial expressions and eyes become transparent windows to his character’s tormented soul.

His stage bouts with half a dozen bottles are neither over-the-top nor maudlin.

Yen is impressively supported by Tom Hudgens as Lt. Osborne, an ultra-proper officer who’s purposefully morphed into a kindly uncle to the soldiers, and Francis Serpa as 2nd Lt. Raleigh, a young, idealistic ex-school chum of Stanhope who’s stuck in hero-worship mode.

The rest of the all-male cast also is convincing: Philip Goleman as 2nd Lt. Hibbert, a cowering whiner; Sean Gunnell as Pvt. Mason, comic relief as a cunning kitchen worker always scrambling to make up for supply deficiencies; Stephen Dietz, Jeff Taylor and two actors who each assume dual roles, Steve Price and Ross Berger.

Special tribute must go to Dunn and his assistant dialect coach, Judy Holmes, for training the nine actors so well each accent stayed authentic throughout.

And never turn into caricature.

Deserving extra compliments, too, are Ron Krempetz for his set design (from real dirt on the floor to a hint of barbed wire peeking through an opening); Dietz for his sound design (crackling armaments getting closer and closer yanked me right into the action, and scratchy recordings of “Mademoiselle from Armentières” and “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” became instant time machines); and spot-on costumes by Michael A. Berg.

The two-hour play, despite having first been staged in 1928, miraculously avoids the clichés of the hundreds of war dramas, films and teleplays that came after.

There’s no token black, no token Latino, no token Jew.

There’s no super-patriot, no Dear John letter, no townie with a heart of gold.

Most importantly, there are no heroes.

There are, however, little touches that work especially well to break the tension — the awkwardness of a Brit and German trying to scale language barriers, the reading aloud of passages about the walrus and cabbages and kings, and a bizarre description of an earwig race.

By sidestepping most stereotypes and zeroing in on the human condition, Sherriff, who’d won a Military Cross after being wounded in the battle of Passchendaele in 1917, penned a play with multiple layers that retains its meaning almost a century later.

It won a 2007 Tony for best revival.

Dunn now has breathed new life into it by bringing to the production a rich history of directing and teaching theater arts for 50 years, including three decades at the helm of the Mountain Play.

Is war hell?

In the WWI battle of the Somme, 21,000 British soldiers died on the first day, and 38,000 more became casualties. Mankind apparently didn’t learn much from that episode.

Unfortunately, neither “Journey’s End” nor a multitude of anti-war tracts since have had the power to change anything.

“Journey’s End” will run at The Barn, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, through Feb. 16. Night performances, Thursdays at 7:30, Fridays and Saturdays at 8; matinees, Sundays at 2. Tickets: $13-$26. Information: (415) 456-9555 or www.rossvalleyplayers.com.

 Woody’s [rating:3]

I feel like a nine-year-old boy who’s found a crisp new $100 bill on the sidewalk.

Reveling in discovery.

I’ve never been to the Gough St. Playhouse before, but I’ve obviously missed out on a lot if “The Pain and the Itch” is a typical example of what the CustomMade Theatre Company produces there.

“Pain,” a mega-black comedy by Bruce Norris, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of “Claybourne Park,” proffers a Thanksgiving meal piled high with biting insights into faux family values, racism, hypocrisy, wealth, dementia, a negligent death and, maybe, pedophilia.

When a financially comfortable, liberal, ultra-judgmental and phony family gathers for a Thanksgiving meal in New York, its members and hangers-on munch on Brussels sprouts and long festering resentments.

Norris unhurriedly peels the skin off the family’s smugness as adroitly as if he were wielding a paring knife and onion.

He’s skillful in warding off an audience’s tears but doesn’t avoid the cringe factor as his characters attack each other in overt, sometimes cruel ways.

Sometimes “Pain” is shockingly funny.

Sometimes not so much, like when the wife forces the husband to euthanize a cat to create a hypoallergenic situation for a second child.

 

Norris’ main tool is flashback — an effective freeze-frame device for the most part, but occasionally jarring and confusing.

Both the playwright and director Dale Albright make good use of Mr. Hadid (Dorian Lockett), an African American cab driver, an observer/participant who usually sits on one sideline or another but sometimes asks seemingly oblique questions about the cost of things.

The play centers on the hysteria of Clay (Justin Gillman), a golf-playing, porn-addicted, emasculated house-husband whose young daughter, Kayla (Gabriella Jarvie), has a major genital rash of unknown but possibly creepy origin.

He’s preoccupied by an unseen entity that’s been gnawing at the family avocados.

Clay lives in a world of hyperbole (“Why don’t I just move out? Why don’t I go upstairs and hang myself?”).

His wife, Kelly (Karen Offereins), a standoffish lawyer who tries to hide her own pain behind a cloak of intellectuality, continually puts him down.

Her excuse?

She feels she’s been abused — by “sarcasm” and “neglect.”

Cash (Peter Townley), Clay’s self-centered plastic surgeon brother, the black sheep of the family because he’s a Republican, is involved with a bigoted, coarsely sexual 23-year-old émigré, Kalina (Eden Neuendorf), who’d been repeatedly raped in her native Eastern European country.

The brothers’ condescending, saccharine, baby-talking mother, Carol (Jean Forsman), is a socialist on the brink of dementia.

With the possible exception of Neuendorf, whose accent is so thick it makes some phrases impossible to make out, all the performers acquit themselves rather well. Especially considering that Norris’ words are so barbed and that the actors are asked to talk over each other with great frequency and volume.

“The Pain” isn’t quite as polished as “Claybourne Park,” which it pre-dated by six years. The nastiness in “Pain” verges, in fact, on mean-spirited and vicious.

Moreover, the play shows that Norris (himself Caucasian) is slightly obsessed with ridiculing the hypocrisy of rich, white folk.

Still, the show’s absolutely worth a look-see.

And so is the almost hidden CustomMade troupe, ensconced in a bright but intimate black-box theater with exceptionally comfy seats and dedicated to “producing plays that awaken our social conscience.”

Opening night, more than a few of those 55 seats were empty. That’s a crime: They certainly deserve to be filled for the entire run of the two-hour show.

“The Pain and the Itch” plays at the Gough St. Playhouse, 1620 Gough St. (in the basement of the Trinity Episcopal Church, at Bush), San Francisco, through Feb. 16. Performances Thursday through Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. Tickets: $22 to $35. Information: (415) 798-2682 or www.custommade.org.

 Woody’s [rating:4]

My father wanted me to taste everything that wasn’t life threatening and become a well-rounded member of the literati.

So he took me at age 8 to “Man and Superman,” George Bernard Shaw’s battle of the sexes comedy.

The play was way, way over my head.

And way, way too long.

I eventually became hooked on Shavian wit anyway (though I didn’t learn where the “v” came from when the form of the Irish playwright’s name was changed).

I also became hooked on theater as a whole, and I did understand why: It could instantly transport me into an alternate world or lifestyle, one I’d not experienced before (and might never, in fact, experience in “real” life).

Seeing the new American Conservatory Theater production of Shaw’s “Major Barbara” instantly transported me backward, to those halcyon days of my youth, into a mental place that caused me now to smile throughout the 109-year-old play (which I’d first watched half a century ago).

In short, I enjoyed it.

Yet somehow the talky ACT political comedy — despite impeccable performances, set and costuming — came off as too intellectual and (even with ostensibly passionate speeches) too impassionate.

I had the feeling it too frequently tickled my cerebral cells rather than my funnybone.

Besides, being in a theater for 2 hours and 40 minutes, was slightly more than my hindquarters could comfortably endure — although the play itself didn’t feel long at all.

“Major Barbara” unfortunately proves, however, that not much has changed in 109 years, especially if you consider the growing gap between ultra-rich and ultra-poor, the continued cynicism of business (particularly regarding the manufacture of weaponry), and the blind zeal that religious faith can spawn.

The storyline is straightforward: Barbara Undershaft (Gretchen Hall), daughter of a ruthless millionaire whiskey distiller and bomb manufacturer (Dean Paul Gibson as Andrew Undershaft), is happily saving souls within the framework of the Salvation Army.

But when her father buys favor through a big donation, she quits — even as the plutocrat’s money saves the mission and leads to 117 conversions in a single day.

Her subsequent quest for reconciliation and inner peace shapes what, in the final analysis, becomes the crux of this morality play.

Along the way, the two leads are superbly supported by Kandis Chappell, who steals the show with her hilarious performance of Barbara’s controlling mother, Lady Britomart Undershaft, and Nicholas Pelczar as Adolphus Cusins, who adores and virtually stalks heroine Barbara.

Not one person in the 15-member cast, in fact, is anything but excellent.

Aiding the theatrical illusions, the massive, mobile set by Daniel Ostling is incredibly effective (though sometimes dwarfing the actors).

And costuming by Alex Jaeger leaves no doubt about the era of the action.

The show is a co-production with Theatre Calgary, a Canadian troupe. Its director, Dennis Garnhum, has noted that the result is what happens when “two theaters from two countries…share our similarities and our differences.”

He’s written, too, that he and Carey Perloff, ACT’s artistic director, selected ‘Major Barbara’ for the same reason: its “overwhelming relevance” to 2014.

Good choice.

Garnhum, not incidentally, managed to extract every possible laugh from the script, then added a few of his own via direction that underscores the inherent humor by means of an exaggerated glance or toss of the head.

While most of the themes tackled by Shaw resonate currently, his women display leadership qualities but few touches of feminism. Early on, for example, the matronly head of family states succinctly (while trying to encourage her son to take more familial responsibility):

“I am only a woman.”

Similar to most episodes of “Law and Order,” Shaw outlines both sides of each issue yet, ultimately, makes sure his thought process isn’t left to the fancies of an audience: Consider when the father proclaims that poverty is “the worst of crimes” and that poor people “kill the happiness of society.”

The playwright’s sharpest tools aren’t polemics, though. They’re swift, clever banter between characters, and they’re sarcastic or sardonic outbursts.

Shaw, of course, was an Irish playwright with well-defined opinions, a writer who won both the Nobel Prize for literature and an Oscar (for “Pgymalion,” the film forerunner of the hit Broadway musical, “My Fair Lady”). His creations, it could be argued, cleared the path for latter-day theatrical masters such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Tom Stoppard.

A perfect sidelight: An honest-to-goodness, four-piece Salvation Army band played outside the theater before the show, its familiar strains foreshadowing a major component of “Major Barbara.”

And a last thought: Barbara’s father’s consistent intimidations were strikingly reminiscent of recent bullying by a New Jersey governor.

“Major Barbara” plays at the American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco, through Feb. 2. Performances Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Tuesdays, 7 or 8 p.m.; matinees, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $20 to $140. Information: (415) 749-2228 or www.act-sf.org.

 Woody’s [rating:4.5]

It was a one-night stand.

But I’ll long remember it as a theatrical ménage à quatre, which, clearly, is one person better than a ménage à trois.

The harmonious homecoming of the Kinsey Sicks took place at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. And, as might have been prophesied, the quartet’s social satire was both outrageous and outrageously funny.

And as raunchy as ever.

I hadn’t seen the drag queen tour de farce in more than a decade. My loss.

This go-round, a 20th anniversary bash by “America’s favorite ‘dragapella’ beautyshop quartet,” spoofed — mainly through original lyrics and music — a potty-load of 21st century TV reality series.

The foursome labels its musical comedy “America’s Next Top Bachelor Housewife Celebrity Hoarder Makeover Star Gone Wild!”

I doubt if I’d have laughed harder even if I’d ever seen any of the original reality shows they were lampooning (or if I’d known beforehand that the show was an outgrowth of their having once been contestants on “America’s Got Talent”).

The Kinseys (who wear male attire when not on stage) were, as always, downright irreverent.

No body parts were safe from their wit.

And, naturally, there were endless overt and innuendo references to gay sex, gay sex and, in case you missed it, gay sex.

The Kinsey Sicks website provides a quick rundown of the current cast — “The Boys Behind the Girls.” Its cheeky tone is in keeping with the act, but there are serious undertones.

Ben Schatz (“Rachel“) co-founded the Kinsey Sicks with Irwin Keller and is its chief lyricist. A Harvard Law grad, he started the first national AIDS legal program and was on President Clinton’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

Keller (“Winnie”), who’s responsible for many of the group’s musical arrangements, is a linguist and lawyer who authored Chicago’s gay rights ordinance. He also acts as lay rabbi of a small Cotati synagogue.

Jeff Manabat (“Trixie”) joined the Kinseys in 2004, and Spencer Brown (“Trampolina”) jumped on the vocalwagon in 2008.

The homecoming show also briefly featured Maurice Kelly, who’d originated the Trixie role. She sizzled while doing offering an updated rendition of “Fever” in a white gown that recalled Glinda the Good witch from “Wicked.”

The cavernous Castro has 1,400 seats, and a quick glance showed virtually none was empty. I, in fact, got there somewhat late and was relegated to the last row of the balcony, from which I could hear almost every barbed phrase, many of which (including countless f-bombs) can’t be reprinted by family newspapers or websites.

If lyrics became too dense or too fast to discern, however, I simply tuned into a cappella excellence that the Kinseys’ vocal instruments command.

The throng appeared to be 99.4 percent gay male, with a smattering of lesbians. A handful of others, including me, represented the straight population. If there were any LGBT-bashers, they stayed in hiding.

Parents wisely kept their tiny kids at home.

Pre-show slides on a big screen set the mood. They skipped through the Kinseys’ history, mostly in color but occasionally dating back the full 20 years to black-and-white stills.

The concert-burlesque also included tidbits from old but still vibrant concoctions.

For instance, the two-Jew, two-Gentile, big-haired, big-harmonied quartet offered excerpts from “Oy Vey in a Manger,” which they just presented on the Sonoma State University campus, proving that the Kinseys and their fans prefer naughty over nice.

Highlights of “America’s Next Top…” were retooled versions of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” and “Santa Baby,” as well as aggressive originals that asked the question, “Why the F—k Aren’t We Famous?”

The encores were superb.

One gospel-based piece truly jumped, and the poignant closing tribute to former Kinsey performer Jerry Friedman (and, presumably, AIDs casualties) brought the entire crowd, many of whom had been only one or two degrees of separation removed, to its feet.

Throughout the show, pop and cultural references were rife. Inserted, for instance, were often-snarky mentions of Rachel Maddow, Frida Kahlo, Simon Cowell, Susan Boyle, Dick Cheney and George Clooney.

Throwaway lines rocketed in every direction.

Like an old Henny Youngman routine, if you didn’t laugh at this gag, that phrase, or any specific alliteration or allusion, there’d be another along in a second.

Some were groaners.

Such as: “Van Gogh didn’t have an ear for music.”

After the two-hour show, which featured smatterings of audience participation, came a bonus: Deborah Doyle, president of the California Library Association, moderated a question-and-answer verbal roundelay featuring Kinsey input, serious and not.

The uproarious but thoughtful quartet has appeared in Las Vegas, off-Broadway and in 42 states — and they’ve put out two DVDs and eight CDs.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that in keeping with their clever, dense-and-dirty delivery, the four drag queens would probably rejoice in my indicating that they’d put out at all.

A 20-year retrospective about the Kinsey Sicks will be displayed at the James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center of the San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St., third floor, from Feb. 8 through July 10. For information on upcoming appearances of the group, check out www.kinseysicks.com or call (415) 326-4679.