Woody Weingarten

 Woody’s [rating:4.5]

The decibel count in Davies Symphony Hall grew as fast as a Miley Cyrus stunt going viral on the Net.

Hundreds of kids squealed in unison — and glee — as actor John Lithgow interactively drew big pictures of animals and narrated Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” and a musical composition he co-wrote, “The Bandshell Right Next to the Zoo.”

The former piece rewove the original tale into a politically correct saga: The hunters don’t shoot the wolf dead but participate, instead, in a buoyant procession to the zoo.

And the duck that the wolf swallowed lives “rent-free” and warm in its belly, with plenty to eat.

Not quite what I experienced.

“Peter,” my introduction to symphonic music as a four-year-old, scared me.

But the narration was softened years later when I took my son and daughter. And this go-round of an event that pops up annually — with my six-year-old granddaughter in tow — was by far the easiest for innocent children to handle.

“Bandshell, ” which references (besides the usual monkeys, tigers and such) the likes of yaks, jackals and ferrets, is an especially interesting piece for kids — because it features a healthy but brief dose of dissonance, which Lithgow described as what might happen if “a bunch of animals [tried] to play music.”

The musicians seemed to enjoy thoroughly the musical ruckus they were creating. Many of them smiled broadly.

They also appeared to relish — along with a matinee crowd that collectively copied his rhythmic clapping — the headliner’s remaining on stage during Johann Strauss’ “Radetzky” march.

Kids and adults alike consistently focused their attention on Lithgow, who besides being a living cliché (“star of stage, screen and television”) is an award-winning author of nine children’s picture books and a memoir.

San Francisco’s Davies Hall was jam-packed for the event, with at least half the attendees well under four feet tall.

A bunch, indeed, may not have reached their third birthday.

Most youngsters remained motionless, their eyes and ears glued to every note by — and every musician in — the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra.

More than a few, possibly fledgling music students, were fingering air-horns, air-clarinets or air-flutes.

A handful, not spellbound by the proceedings on the stage, were staring at the ultra-high ceiling, jabbering, fidgeting, curling up in a ball or climbing over the backs of their seats.

Nobody wrestled a sibling, though.

The 75-minute performance began with five excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet, “The Nutcracker Suite” (with Donato Cabrera, who’s been the youth orchestra’s music director since 2009, pointing out passages underscored by celesta, harp and flute).

And the show ended with three sing-along chestnuts including “Jingle Bells” and “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

The 108-piece orchestra, which began three decades ago, currently features well-rehearsed musicians between the ages of 12 and 21 — every one excellent (if any of them flubbed anything during the holiday concert, I missed it).

Parents and grandparents of the young concertgoers, as well as the numerous relatives of instrumentalists, delighted in the presentation.

And in their charges’ delight.

Looking for other family-oriented events? Cabrera will lead the adult symphony in 2 p.m., 90-minute concerts (including intermission) on Jan. 25 (“Music Here, There, Everywhere!”) and May 3 (“Musical Postcards!”). Both are intended for youngsters seven or older.For families wanting to learn about music, the symphony also provides a website — SFSKids.org.

It’s a cool way to encourage navigating the learning curve.

Most San Francisco Symphony concerts take place at Davies Hall, Grove Street (between Van Ness and Franklin), San Francisco. Information: (415) 864-6400 or www.sfsymphony.org.

It’s a paradox.

Alan Babbitt doesn’t see well. But his vision is sharper than most.

The sixtysomething Fairfax resident is succinct: “I was born with a whole bunch of eye problems, so I was wearing thick glasses from the age of 2 or 3. There’s no question — without contacts, I’d be legally blind.”But he refused to let the impairment get in his way.

It certainly didn’t block his becoming a successful film and video producer, webmaster or award-winning photographer.

Babbitt’s online site clearly shows his skill. One portfolio spotlights the Santa Cruz boardwalk on a winter’s day. Another contains dramatic, artsy New York City street scenes. A third focuses on lighthearted images.

Showcased are unusual angles and perspectives, brilliant colors and poignant black-and-white shots.Babbitt’s originality makes the scenically difficult look easy to capture. And he loves peppering his explanatory text with dubious puns and any remnants of humor that happen to be lying around.

He confesses, for example, that he once “joined a therapy group for photo addicts based on the ‘12-Stop program.’”

Ten years ago, though, Parkinson’s Disease invaded his life “like a loud, uninvited house guest who won’t ever leave.”

The physical shaking made him totally reexamine his life — and shelf his camera for a while.

Not that long ago he and I sat in a quiet Thai restaurant in San Anselmo enjoying the sunshine streaming through the windows. He smiled, almost mischievously, like a kid about to let me in on a gigantic secret.

“Parkinson’s adds to my vision,” he said. “Recognizing I could use the tremor freed me up like nothing else.”

I needed no follow-up question; he was on a roll.

“The disease is about losing control. Finding I could use it was empowering.

“When you first learn photography, they tell you over and over about crispness, about keeping the camera steady with a tripod. One evening in Las Vegas, where I was alone with a digital camera, I just started shooting. I was able to see right away what I got. Blurs. Streaks.

“And then people started reacting to it, liking it.”

So that became his style for some time — “tremor-enhanced photography.”

His web site — www.abproductions.com — contains portfolios dedicated to that innovative technique, “Movement Disorder” and “Shake Me Out to the Ball Game,” for example.

Babbitt grinned as he chatted about “crossing the border” and journeying to metaphoric “other lands” through his camera lens — speeding past his disability: “The tremor is only one kind of movement. I can shoot from a moving car, and move the camera around as well. It’s sort of what I call ‘un-still photography.’”

He, too, is very much un-still.

Babbitt’s taught at the de Young Museum Art School in San Francisco, exhibited at galleries and studios in the city and Marin, held shows at the Richmond Library, Half Moon Bay and Washington state.

His photos sold out at a December exhibit/silent auction/fundraiser in Santa Monica for the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the American Parkinson’s Disease Association.

In Marin, he’s part of a group show, “Artisans!” — that will continue, after a holiday break, from Jan. 2 through March 8 at the Falkirk Cultural Center, 1408 Mission Ave. (at E St.), San Rafael. Works from his new “Photo Blendo series” that fuses “symmetry, synthesis and serendipity” also can be viewed on the walls of San Rafael’s Miracle Mile Café, 2130 4th St., through the end of January.A while ago Babbitt participated in an Art for Recovery program in San Francisco featuring readings from letters exchanged by patients and medical students.

“One of the gratifying things is that people have seen the work and been inspired by what I’m doing,” he tells me. “It feels good getting those e-mails and letters.

“Some of them have been from photographers.

“And a 12-year-old girl wrote me and asked to use me as the basis of a school report. That’s the kind of thing that inspires me to do more.”

Still, it can feel pretty heavy — until you fully grasp the positive attitude that springs from the bearded, gray-haired guy with brown eyes that frequently display a twinkle:

There’s no doubt Babbitt cultivates his tendency to be upbeat, his affinity for the amusing.

“Soon after I got the diagnosis,” he recalled, “I thought of occupations that would be possible by using tremors: egg-scrambler, paint can-shaker, human vibrator. Sure, having Parkinson’s can be depressing, but humor can help fight that.”

His occasionally dark humor is quickly evident online, sprinkled be

tween his straightforward photos and experimental tremor shots that highlight bright streaks and patches, rings and blotches of light, geometric shapes.Spoofing a Viagra ad, he warns that “if feelings of giddiness…persist for more than four hours, just turn on the news for a few minutes.”

Want to witness what he labels “titters, snickers and snorts”? Or, more to the point, want to be visually impressed? Check out his work and see for yourself.

 

I’m ignorant about oh, so many things.

So it amazed me that I wanted to interview Joseph Zaccardi, Fairfax resident and Marin’s poet laureate.

Joe’s scarcely the only poet in Fairfax. There’s also Kay Ryan, Pulitzer  Prize-winner and U.S. poet laureate whom Barack Obama just handed a major medal (along with filmmaker George Lucas, a San Anselmo resident).

Can I deduce poetry’s as popular hereabouts as Indiana Jones and Yoda (who are standing tall  — and short — in San Anselmo’s Imagination Park)?

No way.But down-to-earth Joe Zaccardi could become the antidote for anti-poets.

His tips: “Don’t be afraid of poetry. You have to cultivate a taste for it. Read widely. Try writing free verse — you’ll surprise yourself. You’ll find yourself writing about love, or the death of someone. You’ll remember something someone said. Or you might ask yourself a question, really off the wall, like, ‘I wonder if they ever fried insects.’”

Of his work, the 65-year-old notes, “Every once in a while my sense of humor slips into my poetry and I leave it there. But I’m usually serious.”

He cites as a solemn for-instance, “Arroyo’s Soul,” which emphasizes subject matter “that’s really quite deep — about our not believing in anything anymore.”

Joe’s background isn’t riddled, however, with the snooty posturing sometimes attributed to writers.For much of his life, after apprenticing as a butcher, he functioned as “a barber, not a stylist, and I used to tell people I do one style — it’ll be shorter.”

He hung up scissors and combs in 2003.

Retirement means he now can take whatever time is necessary, rather than jotting down a word or two between clients. First drafts average 30 to 40 minutes. “Of every 10 of those, I only continue one or two” — and then his editing process “can be another month.”

He’s published 240 poems so far but is “sure I’ve written 1,000.”

“Written” is precise.Although he utilizes a computer for other tasks, he creates poems in longhand, in a notebook, in pen.

Joe gets $5,000 for his two-year stint as poet laureate, barely enough to buy writing materials. But the meager honorarium isn’t the point: The position enables him not only to promote poetry but use the bully pulpit to stage a panel discussion on “bullying and bystanders.”

He remembers being 13.

“A fat kid was picked on at lunch every day. One day six guys were doing it. I’m not brave, but I stepped in front of him and said, ‘Hit me instead.’ The leader said, ‘Let’s leave them alone.’ And I realized one person could make a difference.”

Also as a teenager, Joe — who last month married his longtime partner, Dave Eng — recognized he was gay.A teacher concurrently spurred his interest in poetry through William Carlos Williams, a New Jersey native like Joe, and advised him not to worry about punctuation marks or rhymes.

At 25, though, he started punctuating. “Now I love it,” he says, “especially semi-colons.”

Today he’s drawn to Jane Hirshfield of Mill Valley, Pablo Neruda, Gerald Stern “and lots of Chinese poets.” Earlier favorites? Shakespeare, Chaucer and Allen Ginsberg.

Ginsberg, in fact, had hit on him.“I was in my 20s and I met him. He bought me a Heineken’s beer, put his hand on my leg and said, ‘You have very nice thighs,’ and I said, ‘The thigh’s the limit.’”

Joe laughs at both pun and memory.

The skinny, six-foot poet’s totally animated when speaking. His hands perpetually move, and he occasionally jabs a finger at something invisible. Off and on go his wire-rimmed eyeglasses.

His soulful eyes remind me of actor Steve Buscemi’s.

“They used to be brown, but now they look gray, really strange,” Joe says, not

ing that as a schoolboy he asked a nun what color Jesus’ eyes were. “The color of yours, I’m sure,” she replied.Since the early ‘80s, he’s been hanging out at the Marin Poetry Center in San Rafael, which “puts on monthly sessions with visiting poets, an open mic once a month, and a wonderful thing called the Summer Traveling Show, which sponsors about 125 readings in various venues.”

He likes reading aloud: “You can feel an audience when you read a poem.”

When, at his request, I audibly read one — about his father, from his anthology “Render” — I’m overwhelmed by its power.

And I understand why Zaccardi’s a very special Joe, not an ordinary one.

 

Expectations can be killer, especially high ones.

I often find I like performances better when anticipating less. So I was slightly worried about attending “Tristan & Yseult” at the Berkeley Rep.My hopes had been dialed up to max.

It was, you see, a revival from Kneehigh Theatre, Cornwall creators of “The Wild Bride,” an earlier Rep spectacle I’d found thoroughly enchanting. Charming.

And unadulterated fun.

Regretfully, my trepidation about “Tristan” was justified.

It definitely incorporates elements that are wonderful, in both the delightful and filled-with-wonder senses of the word.

And like “Bride,” it’s an amalgamation of music, comedy, dance, ingenious staging and passion.As stunningly surreal as a Dali painting magically come to life.

It also dabbles in acrobatics and simulated sex.

But its major problem is being way overladen with gimmickry (such as a carnival-like “love-ometer”). The cornucopia of theatrical tidbits can become extremely tiresome.

Some of the humor, moreover, is veddy British and may be difficult for Americans to absorb — though the accents can easily be discerned.That said, “Tristan,” is a mesmerizing, one-of-a-kind two-hour funny melodrama with a sad worldview that unleashes the story of an adulterous affair. It bursts with all the inherent, predictable dangers of a love triangle.

And, just for spice, it stirs into the concoction a love potion both toxic and intoxicating.

Emma Rice imaginatively adapted the play from a Cornish myth dating to the 12th century. She also directed it. The book, by Carl Grose and Anna Maria Murphy, is fantastic, in both the fanciful and incredible senses of that word.

And music by Stu Barker (played by a quartet under the direction of Ian Ross) runs the proverbial gamut — from country & western to jazz and Latin rhythms, from rock to classical.

The ensemble cast of eight can fairly be labeled (you can pick the appropriate word, or all of them) splendid, excellent, inspired.

Cornish King Mark (Mike Shepherd, Kneehigh’s founder) rules with his brain until he falls from a distance for his enemy’s sister, Yseult (Patrycja Kujawska, who also starred in “Bride”).

She not only becomes the king’s wife but the lover of Tristan (Andrew Durand), a buff warrior and Mark’s neo right-hand man.

Add to that mix the exaggerated Frocin (Giles King), Mark’s psychotic henchman, and Mistress Whitehands (Carly Bawden), part-time narrator, part-time singer, part-time part the story.

Finally there’s Craig Johnson, who splits his time cross-dressing in a chiefly comic role as Brangian and an understated one — Yseult’s brother, Morholt.

Most fascinating, though, is the morphing of male performers into balaclava- and anorak- and horned-rim-glasses-wearing Everyman “lovespotters” who often peer at the world through binoculars. Their buffoonery (and use of bird and other stick puppets) contrasts with their slick knife-fighting choreography and mock brutality.

In effect, they form a modern-dress Greek chorus that occasionally dons floppy headdresses with crushed tin cans and various other amusements.

“Tristan” is a show filled with tension, drama, rhyming verse and Monty Pythonesque hijinks — including an audience release of squealing balloons and a shower of small proclamations containing threats of exile or death.

Plus exciting lighting by Malcolm Rippeth, sonorous sound effects by Gregory Clarke, and a nifty set by Bill Mitchell.

“Tristan & Yseult” was the show that made the fledgling Kneehigh troupe’s reputation a decade ago. The myth on which it’s based, not incidentally, is a forerunner to the legendary triangle of King Arthur; his Queen consort, Guinevere; and Arthur’s main knight, Sir Lancelot.

If you want the ultimate tragic version of the Tristan story, you might want to skip this production and to seek out, instead, a production of Richard Wagner’s epic opera, “Tristan und Isolde.”

I’d suggest, though, that you ignore any expectations you believe I’ve set up.When all things are considered, it’s actually a no-brainer:

If you enjoy “different,” go.

“Tristan & Yseult” plays at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through Jan. 18. Night performances, 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Sundays; matinees, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $14.50 to $99, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.

Woody’s [rating:5]

Three humans in full frog costumes sit silently at centerstage. They don’t move.

For what seems a long time.

That alone makes much of the audience laugh — most likely in expectation.

When one head finally bobbles, I smile. My wife laughs. Our six-year-old granddaughter giggles aloud.

Moments later, when all three are leap-frogging, stretching via calisthenics and frog-kicking wildly, I smile a bunch, my wife laughs again, and the kid giggles and giggles and giggles.

She also squeals in delight.

And that’s the way it continues, intermittently, for an hour and a half at the multi-costumed, masked Cal Performances show in Berkeley — charming both children and adults in the cavernous, 2,000-seat Zellerbach Hall.

Who says today’s entertainment must be filled with sexploitation, f-bombs or blood and guts?

Not I certainly.

Wholesome family entertainment obviously still exists.

My wife and I had seen the Portland-based Imago Theatre’s signature piece before, years ago. Watching it with the kid made it even more pleasurable.

There were times when it became extremely difficult to decide where our attention should be — on the antics of the five performers or on the delighted face of our granddaughter.

The wordless but musical two-act performance was fantastic, in every sense of that word.

Mostly whimsical. Almost magical.

Momentarily, a viewer might find hints of the mask-mime performers of Mummenschanz, the dancers of Philobolus, the acrobats of Cirque du Soleil or the illusionists of Momix.

Somewhere over the rainbow — perhaps in Kansas, maybe in Brigadoon — there may be another show that features penguins playing musical chairs, sloths that have trouble spelling, papa and mama and baby accordions that move like a Slinky, flittering lights and flying schools of fish, huge balls that momentarily squoosh an equally huge toddler, an alligator and lizard that squirm into the audience, and a singing cowboy with a non-stop changing head.

But I doubt it: “Frogz” is special, one-of-a-kind.

Flawlessly, it blends lively cartoonish characters with imaginative illusions that utilize mime, dance, acrobatics and puppetry.

Carol Triffle and Jerry Mouawad, artistic co-creators, dreamed up the show in the late 1970s. And it’s clear they dreamed in comic relief and primary colors.

The original sound design of Katie Griesar complements their efforts.

Griesar, the program guide acknowledges, “makes music with guitar, antique and toy musical instruments, found objects, collected sounds, wrong notes, and awkward gestures.”

Imago began as a mask theater company, inspired by French mime-actor Jacques Lecoq’s idea that performers could show emotions and characters through moment despite their faces being hidden.

Since its inception, it has performed all over the world — including three Broadway runs.

The troupe also has ventured into purely adult fare such as Harold Pinter’s “The Carpenter,” Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” and Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.”

In case you missed “Frogz,” Cal Performances offers other excellent choices for families. Try, for example, these upcoming show: the Peking Acrobats, Jan. 25 and 26; Michael Cooper’s “Masked Marvels & Wondertales,” Feb. 9; and “Aesop Bops!” with David Gonzalez and the Yak Yak Band, April 6.

  Woody’s [rating:5]

“Arlington” is a harsh study in contradictions.

Its world premiere at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco is all about naïveté and forced awakening.

It’s about distortions and truth.And it’s about a war across the globe and a girl-woman’s introspective fight to ease her mind and soul.

I find the play’s themes neither profound nor original yet am pleased it intentionally focuses on a couple that’s “not special…just normal…boring, in fact…like people in love.”

It’s a creative masterwork, a theatrical tour de force.

Possibly because it concentrates on those patriotic kids next door who can’t possibly fathom in advance what lies ahead.

“People are a mystery,” she confesses.

Sara Jane, a Pollyanna type, futilely tries to keep things upbeat while waiting for her husband, Jerry, who’s trapped in the middle of the muddle called Iraq.

She’d been coping well until he emailed videos of atrocities — women and children being killed and burned in a ditch.

Did he only photograph them, or did he participate? She excuses either action: “Sometimes the cost is innocent people…innocent people always die in a war.”

And I doubt that she could dwell on the notion she might have become a distant chunk of collateral damage.

She does, however, ponder the possibility of her husband’s death, mentally and emotionally tying it to her brother being blown apart in another war and her visit as a child to Arlington National Cemetery with her colonel father.

She considers, too, her husband’s current horniness and past crudeness and voracious sexual appetite. But she justifies those as well: “All men are sort of pigs.”

Analisa Leaming is amazing as Sarah Jane in this odd, unique one-hour, sing-through.

Her voice any given moment can totally express joy; a fragile, paralyzed Barbie Doll the next. Her face, similarly, can portray happiness or the anguish of questioning everything she’s believed in forever.

I find it marvelous that she gets to sing lyrics that aren’t fancy but in completely accessible, everyday language.

Obie-winner Polly Pen’s music distinctly adds to the atmosphere. It’s as choppy and fragmented as Sarah Jane’s thought processes (with the resultant dramatic pianistics overlaying the jerky James Joycean stream-of-consciousness).

Meanwhile, multiple sprinklings of humor — dark and sometimes unsettling — add texture to the play, which is skillfully directed by Jackson Gay.

Some mysteries, on the other hand, become minuses because they’re never resolved, merely hinted at.

For example, will Sara Jane, despite being pregnant, become a frequent drinker like her plastic surgery-addicted mother?

In toto, though, “Arlington” is unlike any musical I’ve ever seen — basically a one-woman show with the added fillip of a second strictly-in-her-head character onstage playing the piano.

And the piano artistry of the casually dressed, bearded Jeff Pew (a triple threat since he’s also the musical director and portrays Jerry) is astounding, especially when he’s in sync with thunderstorm sounds created by Sara Huddleston.

His percussive piano chords eventually become a deafening metaphor for Jerry’s losing control.

On reflection, I think the play itself may be a metaphor for what are alluded to as “bad dreams” and “devils of the past.”

Are those devils fabricated, or are they the real “foreigners” Sara Jane thinks may be terrorists? Are they akin to “little black bugs” that should be exterminated?

It makes me wonder if, in fact, the new American military mantra has been boiled down to, “Kill them before they kill you.”

There may be no uncomplicated or definitive answer, but either way, Pen, an Obie-winner, correctly labels this production a “musical that delights with breaking rules.”

It’s her first collaboration with Victor Lodato, who wrote the book and lyrics.

Lodato, whose award-winning play, “The Eviction,” was staged at the Magic in 2002, refers to “Arlington” as an “audacious new work” and says he and Pen are “doggedly trying to explore some uncharted territory in music theatre.”

I’ve become a true believer: In “Arlington,” the Pen and Lodato team may have reached the apex of their joint aspirations.

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

 

I wished for an instant I was curled up in fetal position, sucking my thumb, in bed at home in San Anselmo.

Instead, I was in Yonkers, a New York City suburb, watching my wife, Nancy Fox, play a concert grand Steinway piano to a nearly empty 300-seat library auditorium following a total publicity failure by the staff.And that misadventure followed a 9-1-1 call for my daughter, Jan Brown, who’d had a diabetic meltdown in a fancy-schmancy deli.

Not quite the 50th birthday celebration for her we’d envisioned.

Toward the rear of the auditorium sat an elderly couple that reminded me of Fred and Ethel Mertz from “I Love Lucy.” My daughter, son, grandson and I scattered around the room, pretending we were part of a mob scene.

“Looks like I’m playing for my family, two new friends and 294 ghosts,” said my wife, a pro.“I was scheduled to play Oscar-winning songs,” Nancy announced, “but if any of you have requests, I’ll play them instead — after I start with the first Academy Award tune, ‘The Continental,’ which has special meeting for me: It was my parents’ song. It was playing the night they met, the same night my father proposed.”

Vigorous applause — robust considering there were only six of us — greeted her finish.

Jan asked for “Sunrise, Sunset,” a mega-sentimental tune from “Fiddler on the Roof,” and the couple followed with requests for Cole Porter songs: “Begin the Beguine” and “Let’s Do It.”

Nancy cheerfully played them — and dozens more.Six people swayed to her hour-long artistry. The ghosts? Well, I couldn’t hear their applause, but I’m positive they gave her a standing ovation, too.

My wife had planned the concert as a surprise gift, intending to dedicate it to Jan. But my disabled daughter had been so excited to see us she’d forgotten to eat breakfast — and then taken her insulin anyway.

Blood sugar tailspin!

The paramedics helped her recover just in time for me to whisk her to the auditorium.

Regrettably, a similar incident occurred days later.Jan’s top birthday wish? No diamonds. No cavier. Just toilet paper that wouldn’t stop up her apartment toilet like the brand she’d been using.

So I drove her to Costco.

But Jan’s blood sugar decided to react badly to meds she’d taken.

Nosedive No. 2!

My daughter eventually got her wish, but the purchase jerked me back to a happier moment in Guasco’s market in San Anselmo.

A day after I’d interviewed Ram Dass, he was in an aisle buying odds and ends. Nancy giggled.“What’s funny?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, pointing to the toilet paper the world-renowned thinker had stuffed under his arm, “that’s the great cosmic equalizer, isn’t it?”

We all chuckled.

Being able to give life’s pitfalls a horselaugh, I’m convinced, is the best medicine.

Heading back home, Nancy and I sailed through airport security. Putting my belt back on, however, it broke. Using one hand to pull my carry-on, the other to keep my

pants from dropping to my knees, I entered every shop that might peddle belts. None stocked anything to fit my size-43 waist.So Nancy and I laughed.

I bought one later, at the other end.

Meanwhile, I also had time to ponder a pair of anecdotes Jan had happily recalled.

“I remember listening — as child lying on a couch in your den — to the tick-tick-tick of your typewriter, and staring at the thousands of books that went up to the ceiling,” she’d said.

“And I remember having the school call home to ask where I was — I was methodically chipping away at ice because there was a dollar frozen in it.”

Her memories moved me.Being a dad can be tough in the best of times. Being the father of a disabled person can be especially difficult, particularly when she lives 2,560 air miles away.

But I don’t plan to trade her in.

Jan’s bright, sensitive and generous with her love and time and money. A caring mom and daughter.

My trip was emotionally draining, mentally draining, physically draining. But worth it. After all, she’ll always be my little girl.

Besides, I was able to bask in her smiles when I bought her some new clothes and a dresser to keep them in.As her great-grandma used to beseech God, “Let her use them in good health.”

  Woody’s [rating:3.5]

The more things change, the proverb screams, the more they stay the same.

Except, maybe, when the change-maker is Cirque du Soleil.

Then it’s mostly different.

In the case of the famed circus’ latest creation, “Amaluna,” in which Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus gender-bends Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” into a feminist panorama, I could swiftly hear the changes as well as see them.

They shook me out of my comfort zone.I’d grown contented over the years with the Cirque’s signature new-agey, otherworldly stringed melodies. But now, behind AT&T Park in San Francisco, I needed to deal with rhythmic, drum-heavy world music with vibrating overtones of electrified rock chords that, well, rocked.

High energy. Emotion-packed.

And undoubtedly aimed at a new generation of circus-goers.

But for white-haired types such as myself, the music sometimes came in three-stage waves: Loud, louder, too loud.

The show, a women-power fable that blends coming-of-age and royal-romance themes, starts and ends with a dancing scarf that resembles a lithe, floating feminine body. Those moments bookend sundry acts from a 52-member multi-racial cast that, for the first time, is more than 70 percent female — and that even includes a 100 percent estrogen-laden band.Perhaps the most memorable segment is the 15 minutes that spotlight Lara Jacobs as a Balance Goddess.

She creates an eerie but mystical skeleton-like mobile out of 13 palm leaf ribs, using her toes to grasp each delicate piece. Her increasingly labored breathing, seemingly broadcast via a body mic, adds tension to an otherwise quiet, almost meditative slo-mo sequence.

Paulus inspires “Amaluna,” a fabricated word that fuses two that signify mother and moon, with a simple switch of letters, an “a” for an “o.” She transforms the Bard’s Prospero into a female shaman, Prospera (Julie McInes).

And she shows her personal wizardry by turning a youthful Miranda (Iulia Mykhailova) into a romantic partner to Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin).

The director then showcases Mykhailova’s talent as a handstander and contortionist in and out of a bowl that weighs 5,500 pounds when filled with water — and Kurkin’s athletic ability to plunge headfirst down a pole.

Paulus utilizes, too, the superb juggling skills of Victor Kee, who portrays Cali, a half-lizard, half man who momentarily traps Romeo in the bowl.What else can be expected?Typical Cirque spectacles — imaginative and flashy costumes; dancing lights that complement dancing humans; a fast-moving assortment of Valkyries, Amazons and goddesses; and a pair of clowns who do an oblique, sometimes funny number on childbirth that even features an homage to “Brahms Lullaby.”

Most of the music, by the way, is sung in French, not the invented languages for which the circus gained renown.

Cirque du Soleil has produced 32 shows so far. I’ve seen 10 or 11 of them, and “Amaluna” is neither the best nor the worst. Many of its components, however, lingered with me long after I left its big tent.

So did the sensation of having had a melt-in-your-mind treat.And I recalled that if I weren’t particularly impressed with any given component, the chunky woman seated next to me still kept blurting out in amazement, “Oh my God, oh my God.”

The Quebec-based troupe employs a total of 1,300 artists from 50 countries. More than 100 million spectators have watched their animal-free performances in 300 cities, and a few thousand more will catch “Amaluna” in San Jose starting Jan. 22.

It’s not required to have had any familiarity with Willie the Shakes to enjoy “Amaluna,” nor is it necessary to be female to appreciate that the show represents a woman’s prospective. The only requisite is to like colorful, animal-less circus extravaganzas.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” the Bard proclaimed in “The Tempest.”

“Amaluna,” for me, is crammed with dreamy stuff.

“Amaluna” plays in the big top behind AT&T Park in San Francisco through Jan. 12. Night performances, Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; matinees, Fridays and Saturdays, 4:30, and Sundays, 1 and 4:30. General tickets: $50 to $270. Information: (800) 450-1480 or www.cirquedusoleil.com.

Charles Dickens referenced the best and worst of times. Samuel D. Hunter prefers focusing on the latter — and on the “end times.”

But he’s funnier than Dickens ever was.

More disturbing, too.

“A Bright New Boise,” Hunter’s dark, edgy comedy about faith and forgiveness, made me fidget in my seat at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley — even as I laughed aloud.

Pew Research Center studies apparently have determined that 128 million Americans believe Jesus will return by 2050 and that a small group will go to Heaven while the rest of us are left to face chaos and war.

Will, the play’s quixotic protagonist, is trying — like hell — to be one of the elite who’ll be saved in The Rapture.

But he’s having major trouble, perhaps because he thinks he “may be a bad person” with a shadowy past involving an Evangelical church and a boy’s death. His interactions with co-workers at the big-box Hobby Lobby chain store are awkward at best, excruciatingly painful more often.

Robert Parsons plays the lead role exquisitely, an in-your-face guy tormented by both this world and his inability to gain entrance to another.

In contrast, the play’s two women provide gobs of mirth.

Will’s boss, Pauline, is strident, controlling, swears like a stevedore and despises having to do conflict resolution. As inhabited by Gwen Loeb, the character is almost a perpetual laugh machine.

Anna can be hilarious, too.

She’s a timid blonde who, like Will, hides out in the Boise store to gain access to the employee break room after hours.

“I thought I was the only wacko who did this,” she says.

While he blogs his novel in an attempt “to spread God’s word,” underscoring his own fervent Christian beliefs, she constantly reads tedious books on which she wants to superimpose exciting endings.

As Anna, Megan Trout’s rubbery face consistently evokes giggles as she fumbles for words and repositions her body at unfixed points somewhere between clumsy and coyly sexy.

Rounding out the cast are Daniel Petzold as Alex, the brooding, panic-attacked son Will had given up for adoption 17 years before, and Patrick Russell as Leroy, Alex’s brother-protector who gleefully flaunts obscenities on his T-shirts.

Tom Ross, who’s directed 24 productions for Aurora, which he inauguarated with Barbara Oliver in 1992, is at the helm of “A Bright New Boise,” which won a 2011 Obie.

He makes it all work, even for those like me who aren’t one of the 128 million.

Helping Ross achieve a theatrical triumph is a comparatively spare set as well as a marvelous monitor that, when not spewing in-house commercials, goes bonkers and broadcasts grisly medical channel operations.

I found 32-year-old playwright Hunter, a native of northern Idaho who attended a fundamentalist school growing up, adept at taking unusual subject matter and non-stock characters and cobbling together a theatrical work that tugged at both my mind and heart.

His use of Hobby Lobby, a real entity, as a fundamentalist foil also captivated me.

Critics have labeled its founder, David Green, a religious zealot. The Oklahoma City-based company, whose website says it is committed to “honoring the Lord in all we do,” made headlines by initiating a court fight over providing emergency contraception in its employee health-insurance policies — and for its stance against carrying Chanukah or Passover items alongside its Christmas and Easter decorations.

Theatergoers, depending on where their heads are, may find the play’s ending shocking or predictable, anticlimactic or powerful, muddy or clear.

No matter: The gestalt should be worth the price of admission.

“A Bright New Boise” runs at the Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley, through Dec. 8. Night performances, Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Tuesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees, Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $16-$50. Information: (510) 843-4822 or www.auroratheatre.org.

 

Woody’s [rating:5]

“Porgy and Bess” debuted in 1935 to mixed reviews and scattered cries of racism.

It took until 1976 for the controversial jazz-laced, four-hour folk opera to win legitimacy via a Houston staging, and until 2011 for a truncated form, “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” to become a New York smash and win a Tony.

That more easily appreciated two-act Broadway version now is embedded at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco through Dec. 8.

It’s a must-see for anyone who gets off on George Gershwin’s music.Or brother Ira’s lyrics.

Or re-hearing classics such as “Summertime,” “I Got Plenty of Nuttin’” and “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing.”

Or seeing the melodramatic, larger-than-life, tragic characters operas thrive on.

The difference between the 2009 version presented by the San Francisco Opera and this compressed one becomes obvious with the first notes of the overture.

This SHN offering is brassier, funkier.

It swings more.

The vivifying, I suspect, owes a thank-you to slice-‘n’-dice tactics employed by Diedre L. Murray, who adapted the music; Suzan-Lori Parks, who adjusted the book; and Diane Paulus, the director (who won a Tony for “Pippin” and also is responsible for the new Cirque du Soleil show that’s now in San Francisco).

Some still may consider “Porgy” a stereotypical portrait of impoverished blacks that dwells on drugs, knife-fights and killing.

As I watched, I mulled if a truly modernized version set in Harlem or Watts would spur the usual outsized outrage from Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson. The fallout would be akin to the reaction when Al Jolson purportedly wanted to play Porgy in blackface.

The now-familiar storyline highlights disabled beggar Porgy (Nathaniel Stampley), who liberates Bess (Alicia Hall Moran) from a life of sex and addiction. She’s pursued, however, by her combative ex-lover Crown (Alvin Crawford) and Sportin’ Life (Kingsley Leggs), a dealer who continually tempts her with “happy dust” (cocaine).

Bess, who’s initially ridiculed as “a liquor-guzzling slut,” tries overhauling her life. It’s just not that simple in the fictitious all-black Catfish Row slum of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1930s.

Drugs are too easy to come by; sexism is rampant.

“These gals,” says Sportin’ Life, “ain’t never gonna understand the ways of us menfolk.

The performers’ voices generally are strong — principally Alicia Hall Moran on “I Loves You, Porgy” (and throughout), Kingsley Leggs on “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and “There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon,” and David Hughey as Nate on “It Takes a Long Pull.”

The 23-piece orchestra behind them is buoyant, even though only three of its instrumentalists were plucked from the Broadway production.

George Gershwin had visited the James Island Gullah community that preserved its African musical traditions, and injected some of it into “Porgy.”

He also used his own interpretations of spirituals, work songs, blues, arias and recitatives — and borrowed from the liturgical music of his Jewish culture, particularly for “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”Other tunes worthy of mention are a lovely, lush duet, “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” and a rare comedic moment via “I Hates Your Struttin’ Style.”

Both set and props enhance the atmosphere. Their minimalism allows appropriate costuming by ESosa to transport theatergoers quickly into the bigoted Southern landscape.

Often sensual, sexual choreography by Ronald K. Brown helps, too. He leans on Gullah movements but contrasts those with more traditional musical comedy modes.Flaws? Only one jumps out.

Ethnic dialect makes it tough sometimes to understand what’s being said or sung.

But that’s an infrequent, minor irritation.

More lofty criticism was aimed at the producers (who number in double digits) by composer Stephen Sondheim — for being arrogant and depreciating the original creators’ intentions.

He especially bemoaned the new production deemphasizing DuBose Heyward, who co-wrote the lyrics with Ira and created a libretto from his own novel and play, “Porgy.”

But the opening night crowd here — which, unlike the usual San Francisco audience, was layered equally with whites and blacks, straights and gays, young and old — didn’t seem to care about anything other than enjoying what was on stage.

Nor, in the long run, did I.

“The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess: The Broadway Musical” runs at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St. (at 6th and Market), San Francisco, through Dec. 8. Night performances Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Matinees, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $40 to $210. Information: (888) 746-1799 or shnsf.com.