Woody Weingarten

Woody’s rating:3.5 (3.5/5 stars)

How many American Marxists can dance on the head of the pin?

Emma (Jessica Bates) learns the truth about her blacklisted grandfather from Ben (Rolf Saxon, seated) as Leo looks on (Victor Talmadge) in “After the Revolution.” Photo: David Allen.

“After the Revolution,” the Aurora’s Theatre’s cerebral immersion in the ethical struggles of three generations of a left-leaning family, doesn’t answer my cheeky question.But it does deal with other Big Issues.

Such as whether the Machiavellian aphorism that the end justifies the means has validity, if right and wrong are written in concrete, and how yesterday’s actions impact today’s decisions.

Along the way, the dramedy makes sure to swipe at the Red-baiting, witch-hunting tactics of Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

Watching the show is like gazing into a retroscope — and then deconstructing what you think you’ve seen. Not that far removed from a multi-pronged Talmudic discussion about the essence of truth.

In effect, it’s a history lesson wrapped in secrets and lies.It helps if you’re familiar with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, with the Verona Project (that led to decryptions that in turn revealed data about U.S. spies), and with initial Jewish hopes and subsequent disenchantment with Josef Stalin.

But if you’re not, the program guide will give you an abridged crash course.

Playwright Amy Herzog and director Joy Carlin, an actor and theatrical teacher who has an unforgettable scene opposite Cate Blanchett in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” do their utmost to sketch a living portrait of a family ruptured by an old secret.It’s a serious look in the rearview mirror.

But they also extract the max from two roles that lend themselves to laugh-lines.

That of Vera, the rickety but still feisty widow of Joe, the Joseph family’s blacklisted hero, and Jess, the drugged-out sister of Emma, an overachiever who just graduated from law school and is determined to spread the clan’s social-justice messages.

Vera becomes a carry-over character in Herzog’s subsequent play, “4000 Miles,” a comic drama that shows the playwright’s evolution as an artist and that has infinitely more charm and tenderness than “Revolution.”When I reviewed the American Conservatory Theatre’s “Miles” production in January, I wrote that Herzog leaned on the six months she’d lived in Manhattan with her 96-year-old grandmother, the natural resource for the Vera persona.

Here she’s immensely likable.

But Em, the focus of the play portrayed by Jessica Bates, is not. She’s robotic, humorless and abrasive.An intellectual, cold fish.

The story takes place in 1999, when Em wants to use the foundation that bears the name of her grandfather to free accused Black Panther cop-slayer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

We learn early on, however, that Joe wasn’t quite so innocent: He’d given the Russians classified material. We also discover that Emma’s dad withheld that information from her. So Emma suddenly must deal with both father and grandfather having clay feet.

“After the Revolution” has numerous positive attributes.

Ellen Ratner is the top one. She steals the show many-faceted Vera, the cranky die-hard lefty with a big heart.

Rolf Saxon is also outstanding, as Ben, a history instructor who gets off on rubbing people the wrong way (even at parent–teacher confabs).And Sarah Mitchell depicts Jess, the sister who’s repeatedly been confined to rehab but ultimately snaps her twin bonds of agony and isolation, as concurrently weak and strong.

The dual-level set by J.B. Wilson, compact and simple (with plain wooden tables and chairs, a distinctly indistinct couch and a backdrop telephone poles and wires), allows quick scene changes.

The cast, not incidentally, frequently and artfully accomplishes those changes in the dark.

Costuming by Callie Floor, with robes and pajamas establishing a contrasting tone to commonplace daily apparel, also is highly effective.As are the frequent upswept hairstyles adopted by the protagonist, each a hint of where Emma’s head is at any given point — hopeful, depressed, angry, elated.

Herzog occasionally tries to sum up her thinking.

Notes Emma, for instance, “‘Good politics’ in my generation is different from ‘good politics’ in your generation.” And Peter Kybart, playing Morty, an elder who wants to leave his estate to the foundation, refers nostalgically to a past in which, in the East Village, you could throw a stone anywhere and hit a spy.Ben sets the mood: “Clinton is a big-business president, the poor are getting poorer, racial divides are deepening…and it’s hard to image things getting much worse.”

Because McCarthyism targeted a member of my own family, I went to “After the Revolution” with high hopes of being able to relate. I left disappointed  — because I’d wanted to be touched.

And my brain was but my heart wasn’t.

“After the Revolution” runs at the Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley, through Sept. 29. 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 Weingarten

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I’m not the least bit objective.

Doyle Ott as The Cat in the Hat. Photo: Woody Weingarten.

I’m 129-percent convinced that Hannah, my six-year-old granddaughter, is a bright delight.

She loves to watch YouTube with me — caterpillars’ transforming into butterflies, volcanoes spewing lava, scientific marvels galore.

But she can instantly revert to a bounce-in-her-seat, giggle-out-loud little girl fascinated with Disney princesses.

Or “The Cat in the Hat,” an interactive show we just caught at the Marin Theatre Company, squeezed in a squeal-and-fun-filled Saturday between Strawberry’s In-N-Out Burger and the Presidio’s Family Day Kite Festival.

The 45-minute play was the first of a first — that is, the first of five shows aimed at kids, four of them produced by the Bay Area Children’s Theatre, in the MTC’s initial theater series for youthful audiences.

The show convinced me anew that I’m not the least bit objective: I was as impressed with it as my granddaughter — for slightly different reasons.

I know she thoroughly enjoyed the exaggerated antics from ever-so-familiar characters originally penned by Theodor Geisel (she knows him as Dr. Seuss), particularly the unmanageable juggling of The Cat and the flummoxed scurrying of the blue-haired Thing 1 and Thing 2.

At the same time, the show blew me away because it emphasized exceptionally age-appropriate, relatable action for youngsters; featured perky primary colors in both costumes and set; retained the monosyllabic sing-song rhymes expected from a Seuss story; and showcased six cast members who clowned and sang and danced with a degree of professionalism I hadn’t expected.

Especially Doyle Ott, who gleefully portrayed The Cat, a guy with both circuses and the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival in his résumé.

I reveled, too, in the perfectly timed, cartoon-like sound effects added by Beryl Baker — not to mention the brief recorded excerpts of classical music (“The William Tell Overture” and “Sabre Dance,” for example).

The production — and director Erin Merritt — happily stuck to Seuss’ text and his unwritten theme: When mom’s away, the kids (and The Cat) will play

Silly choreography by Laura Ricci added to everyone’s pleasure — as did The Cat playing golf with a black umbrella, riding a pink-wheeled unicycle, and strumming a tennis racket like a guitar and pseudo-creating lively Flamenco rhythms.

The biggest laugh, as might be expected with an age group of people all under four-feet tall, came from an outrageously loud burp.

“The Cat in the Hat” has been so well liked since being created in 1954 that the book’s been translated into a dozen languages. It has more than 11 million copies in print.

The staged version can only build on that popularity.

If the remainder of the Theater for Young Audiences season can come anywhere near the gusto of The Cat, I can guarantee matinee happiness.

Check out “A Year with Frog & Toad,” starting Jan. 11;  “Mercy Watson to the Rescue,” beginning March 8, and “Ladybug Girl and Bumblbee Boy” in May. Or MTC’s own production, “Rapunzel,” a Nov. 2-10 show that focuses on “taking risks and overcoming fear rather than being the subject of a witch’s petty grudges and a prince’s daring deeds.”

Theater for Young Audiences tickets at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, cost $15 for children under 14; $20 for adults; $17 for seniors 65 and above. Information: (415) 388-5208 or marintheatre.org.

Woody Weingarten

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Ian McKellen (left) and Patrick Stewart star in the pre-Broadway engagement of “No Man’s Land.” Photo: Kevinberne.com.

What’s real?

That’s the real question behind many an absurdist Harold Pinter play.

The query’s especially pertinent — when the playwright’s elongated pauses and word-spurts are done — with “No Man’s Land,” which is entrenched at the Berkeley Rep through the end of the month.

The play’s been around since 1975, at which point its debut starred Ralph Richardson as Hirst, the drunken upper-class person of letters, and John Gielgud as Spooner, the failed poet who also knows close-up and personal the decaying consequences of alcohol. Now Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart exquisitely fill those roles. But only through Aug. 31 at the Rep before moving to Broadway.

Is Spooner an old university classmate of Hirst’s, an inner- or outer-circle chum who shared acquaintances and relationships?

Maybe.

Is he a liar, a charlatan — “a lout,” as Hirst declares at one point?

Maybe.

The mystery of who Spooner really is — or was — is left to the audience’s verdict as the final curtain rings down.Along the way, however, Pinter’s consistently rapier-sharp dialogue evokes copious laughter from his sporadically impenetrable, always serious-minded and thought-provoking reality vs. fantasy brainteaser.

Sir Ian, 74, a world-renowned British Shakespearean actor, has also mastered fantastic “X-Men” and “The Lord of the Rings” characters. Sir Patrick, 73, likewise an adroit British Shakespearean actor, saw his fame go viral not when he portrayed “Hamlet” but as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

Both had wrung the last drop of evil out of the “MacBeth” title role. Now they’re whipping the intellectual crap out of “No Man’s Land” at the Rep.

And starting Oct. 26, the two (as well as supporting actors Billy Crudup and Shuler Hensley as a pair of possibly gay manservants) will take the classic to the Great White Way and alternate performances with “Waiting for Godot,” a standard from the pen of Pinter’s mentor/friend, Samuel Beckett.I went to “No Man’s Land,” which I hadn’t previously seen, with huge expectations.

After all, Pinter, who died in 2008 after writing 30 plays (including “The Homecoming,” “Betrayal,” “The Caretaker” and “The Birthday Party”), had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, hadn’t he?

And hadn’t the Swedish Academy cited his work for unveiling “the precipice under everyday prattle”?

I wasn’t the least bit disappointed, even when forced to strain on occasion to hear McKellen’s mumbled words (which alternated with ultra-precise diction in his characterization of a staggering, impossible-to-pin-down drunk).

Or when, once in a while, Pinter’s use of British slang made clarity momentarily impossible.I found McKellen’s performance so magnetic that even when he was a ragtag background figure clutching his overcoat and a bottle of booze, and another character was speaking, I often watched him.

But Stewart (almost unrecognizable with hair) also could be compelling, depicting Hirst’s underlying insensitivity and threats with a simple look. He could exhibit, too, social differences that can be delineated with few words. Such as, “This is another class…it’s a world of silk.”

I loved that director Sean Mathias wisely let his actors display all their theatrical gifts and thereby heighten the vaudevillian humor of set pieces (McKellen’s bouncy movements while tying the laces of his tennis shoes, for instance).And I adored that Mathias let the often-enigmatic quality of Pinter’s pithy phraseology float unshackled in the air: “I will be kind to you” and “I have known this before…a house of silence and strangers.”

And allow, as well, seemingly irrefutable statements to stand on their own: “I am too old for any expectations,” “I am yours to command” and “Do I detect a touch of the hostile?”

I found the lone set — an elegant, sparingly furnished room designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis — big enough to dwarf the players and put their human transience and frailties in proportion.With both leading thespians being about my age, I was exceptionally pleased to find they’re still perfecting their stagecraft, with majestic, nuanced brilliance.

Opening night of the most star-studded play seen in the Bay Area in many years, the audience gave all four actors a standing ovation and multiple curtain calls.

They earned them.

For their superlative interpretations of characters who, despite its frequent splashes of humor, reside in a “No Man’s Land” that disturbingly “never changes [but] remains forever icy and silent.”

And perplexing.

“No Man’s Land” plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre‘s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through Aug. 31. Tickets: $17.50 to $135, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.

Woody Weingarten

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Terence Keane enjoys kayaking with Sarah Barker-Ball, then his fiancée, now his wife.

Terence Keane’s reinventing himself — again.

He recently moved from the East Bay to San Anselmo. He just got married. And he just started a new job as executive director of the Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma.I’d say that comprises a brave new world.His brave old worlds were scarcely humdrum. “I had a lot of wanderlust as a young man,” the 42-year-old informed me over breakfast in Hilda’s on San Anselmo Avenue, “and I took a lot of odd jobs.”

And maybe a course in understatement.He’d worked at a ranch in the Rockies (“in the insanely beautiful middle of nowhere”), a circus in New England, a village dump in the Hamptons, a hostel and organic farm in Ireland, a Fulbright teaching assistant post in Austria, a Louisiana bayou fish-and-wildlife gig, a volunteer position with the American Museum of Natural History, and an isla

nd in the Atlantic that’s a breeding colony for seabirds, “a species we brought back from the edge of extinction.He’s written — I’m not sure with wit or regret — that he’s never been a rodeo clown.

He spent years as communications director for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, spearheading a million-dollar ad campaign that proclaimed, “M.S.: It’s not a software company.”

Then came eight years at the Berkeley Rep, where, as public relations manager, he publicized 75 shows.

I’d met Terence there and learned he liked doing things in non-standard ways. No surprise he became engaged to Sarah Barker-Ball while vacationing in Iceland.

Nor did it stun me to find he planned to sport cowboy boots at their Rancho Nicasio Bar and Restaurant wedding, a throwback to his ranching.

“There were two main things we wanted for our wedding  — to have it outdoors and, since she and I met dancing, a rocking blues band. We [planned to] have both, with musicians I know from jazz school.”

Terence studied blues singing in Berkeley. He still sings, monthly, with buddies in Oakland.

Regarding his outdoorsy bent, it expanded while working at U.C. Davis. He now relishes “kayaking, seeing sea lions, camping at Point Reyes seashore.”

San Anselmo lured the ex-Long Islander when he sought roots. “We count our blessings every day this is where we get to live, like we’ve won the lottery. The area’s beautiful, calm, soothing.”

His sigh was audible.

Afterwards he elaborated: “We live close to Robson-Harrington Park, and it’s a favorite. We often stroll through on our evening walks or on our way to town. I love it when the owls are nesting in the park and you can hear them call one another.”

I couldn’t, since I did it for decades.

When queried about his first foray into theater, he replied, “Working the candy counter” in a movie house at 15.

He then cited playing “all the minor parts in ‘Sweet Charity’ — a waiter, a man with a dog in the park — lots of quick costume changes.”

Oops. “I was a smiley face in pre-school.”

In high school and at the Boston University School of Theatre, he acted, wrote plays and made short films. At Berkeley Rep, he mingled with celebrities.

A favorite? “Maurice Sendak, when we were working on ‘Brundibar.’ Having grown up with his books, it was a delight to discover he was just as mischievous off the page as on it.”

Terence’s pet recollections, though, “are about behind-the-scenes collaborations with our photographers and the folks in the costume shop and all the other unsung heroes of this business.”

He loves the challenge Cinnabar provides.

He’s emphasizing the business side — fund-raising, administration, marketing — working alongside artistic director Elly Lichenstein.

What attracted him to that non-profit theater, in its 40th year, was its “unique mix of music and theater. They do two plays, two musicals and an opera each season, and a series of concerts in a wide variety of genres — classical, jazz, country, world music. High quality.”Also, “its long history of educational programs for kids, and that they don’t turn anyone away for lack of funds. Plus, the organization has deep roots in, and a commitment to, the community.

And it’s a chance to grow.

“If they only wanted me to do what I already knew how to do, I wouldn’t want to do it.”

Obviously.

Woody Weingarten

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Detail from “Dragon and Tiger,” part of “In the

Moment” exhibit at the Asian Art Museum.

Photo: Courtesy, Larry Ellison Collection.

Peanut butter and jelly. Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Beauty and the beast.

Famous couplings that trickle off my tongue.

I’m sure you can conjure up dozens more. But you’d probably never list Larry Ellison and Emily Sano.

You should.

Few would dispute that Sano, who was its executive director, was the driving force in moving the Asian Museum to the old San Francisco Library building opposite City Hall and growing its collection to a world-class status.

That was 10 years ago.

Then, in 2008, the billionaire founder of Oracle surprised virtually everyone — including, perhaps, Sano, who’d announced her retirement the year before — by offering her almost a blank check to become his personal consultant and build his collection.

The two obviously have shared a lot more than “J,” their middle initial.

Like philosophy and taste in art.

Now, coinciding with the running of the America’s Cup, which Ellison also has a little something to do with, 60 pieces of his collection that span more than 1,100 years are on display at the museum through Sept. 22 (though a few components are slated to be rotated out this week).

Folding screens, hanging scrolls, lacquer-, metal- and woodworks prove the Ellison-Sano collaboration has worked well.

Consider, for instance, the amazing introductory display that showcases folding screens and fluctuating lights that, in a three-minute span, simulate the passage of a single Japanese day. It’s a visual echo of the way artworks were seen in pre-electric times, by natural sunlight or flickering candlelight.

“In the Moment: Japanese Art from the Larry Ellison Collection” ranges from “Waves and Rocks,” a pair of screens with ink, light colors and gold on paper from the early 1600s, to exquisite sculpture from the 4th century.One of the most striking items is a scroll from the 1300s that depicts the death of Buddha (which traditionally had been removed from its box and unrolled for display only one day a year).

Another favorite of mine is the 20 painted fans that are part of “24 Paragons of Filial Piety,” a pair of folding screens addressing “the self-sacrificing behavior of Chinese children [and their] strong respect, obedience, and care for parents, elderly, family members and ancestors.”A superb cultural synopsis, if you ask me — like the exhibit itself.

Other not-to-be-missed items include screens titled “Dragon and Tiger,” a 1780s work (purportedly Ellison’s favorite object) in which the former symbolizes yang and the latter yang, and “White Elephant,” a hanging scroll from 1768 that shows the Japanese can superimpose a sense of humor onto their sense of seriousness.

Jim Brown, a friend who’s just begun his last leg of a three-year intensive course at the museum so he can be certified as a docent, guided my wife and me through the show (which was curated by Laura Allen).

His torrent of words — a distinct contrast with the spare, spartan exhibit — mesmerized me.

He later showed us more of the building (a mere hint of the 2,200 objects on display

, out of a more than 15,000-piece permanent collection that covers 6,000 years) — focusing his “practice tour” on one of his leanings, art that depicts mythical and real animals.I enjoyed experiencing “Buffalo,” a rock crystal sculpture in the jade room; a bronze ritual wine vessel in the shape of a rhinoceros (whose inscription I could see in the reflection of the glass case if I tilted my head and twisted my body pretzel-like); and a Taoist ceremonial robe with countless critters (including dragons and phoenixes) that emphasized longevity plus balance and order in the cosmos.

But a “Money Tree” sculpture that incorporated scores of animals that represent

ed Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist beliefs of “creation, birth and rebirth” in one piece utterly captivated me.And since we only scratched the proverbial surface of both the Ellison exhibit and the rest of the museum, I definitely plan to return.

Soon.

The Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St., San Francisco, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays to Wednesdays and Fridays to Sundays; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursdays. Tickets: $8 to $12. Information: (415) 581-3500 or www.asianart.org.

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Josh Kornbluth emotes about his childhood, egged on by Amy Resnick. Photo: Heather McAlister.

Josh Kornbluth’s been making me laugh aloud for more than 20 years.

But he is changing.

In 1992, he was a bald, bespectacled chubby monologist in his 30s whose intelligence and offbeat sense of humor tickled me.

And made me think.

Today, he’s a bald, bespectacled chubby guy whose intelligence and offbeat sense of humor tickles me. And makes me think.

But he’s 54, graying at the temples.

And, in a colossal departure from his string of one-man shows, he leans on actress Amy Resnick (who does mock French and Valley Girl accents and uses a huge shawl to convert herself into God) and a four-piece band.

It’s easy to see, though, that Kornbluth’s new material at the Ashby Stage in Berkeley is infinitely more mature than previous introspections, interweaving themes without the scruffy seams he used to display.

“Sea of Reeds,” like its title, is multi-layered.

It’s a 90-minute-plus comedy that sporadically reveals Kornbluth’s earnestness and complexity — and leads playgoers to what promotional materials alternately call “the Promised Land of paradox” and “a story of faith and procrastination.”

It’s his latest exercise in cerebral self-pleasuring.

Yet his storytelling skills make it impossible not to enjoy the impressive flip side — his thorny wit.

The writer-performer draws chortles from unlikely places: having his violin ripped off by a Jewish/Hispanic street gang, childhood Red Christmases (his folks having been devotees of Marx — Karl more than Groucho), Exodus (the Bible book, not the Leon Uris novel) and the Dead Sea (“a good place to visit if you’re a scroll”).

He draws his biggest LOLs, however, from a risqué, slapstick oboe lesson designed by a spellbinding young temptress at camp, Monique.

Conversely, he bemoans his youthful inability to make a “leap of faith” off a diving board at an amusement park in suburban New Yawk.

The lifelong atheist segues into his decision to have an adult bar mitzvah two years ago in Israel atop a water tower in the desert — an outgrowth of an idea nurtured by his rabbi-friend, Menachem Creditor of Berkeley’s Congregation Netivot Shalom.

That mentor had paved the way for Kornbluth to reconcile his Communist upbringing with his cultural Jewishness by defining God with a catchall phrase, “the collective potential of the human imagination.”

But despite Hebrew terms and phrases being translated immediately, almost as if they were in parentheses, “Sea of Reeds” may be too sectarian for non-Jews.

And too Jewish for many Jews.

Some may flinch, too, when he dismembers his designated Torah portion, utilizing exaggerated body motions and fiery word-pictures to depict its violence and murder.

For those willing to remain open, his twin searches — for proficiency with his instrument and for faith — will make it all worthwhile.

Kornbluth, a Princeton dropout who’s been labeled “Berkeley’s favorite intellectual and provocateur” and who formerly stressed being a luckless bumbler, indicates his director and friend, David Dower has helped him grow — while structuring the chaos of the comedian-playwright’s improvisations.

“Sea of Reeds” was commissioned by the Shotgun Players, which co-produced the show with Jonathan Reinis (who just won a Tony for the Broadway revival of “Pippin”). Like Kornbluth’s previous efforts, it superimposes silliness onto soul-searching.

I’ve seen almost all his creations.

I became something of an addict-stalker after his first big stage hit, “Red Diaper Baby,” where I first noticed his addiction to red socks (shades of Garrison Keillor).

“Haiku Tunnel,” about being an incompetent legal assistant, solidified my high regard.

So did “Love & Taxes,” about the fiscal implications of not reporting royalties to the IRS, and “Ben Franklin Unplugged,” about his affinity for the historical figure he resembles.

In “Sea of Reeds,” Kornbluth uses an especially piquant line: ‘This is how rabbis roll.”

Well, this stretch is how he rolls these days — and I applaud it. Again he’s made me cogitate all sorts of stuff. And I still find him funny.

“Sea of Reeds” runs at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby St., Berkeley, through Aug. 18. Show times, 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 5 p.m. Sundays. Tickets: $20 to $35. Information: (510) 841-6500 or www.shotgunplayers.org.

Woody Weingarten

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Kenny Loggins

Jessye Norman

I have a couple of highbrow friends who braved all four parts of Wagner’s Ring cycle a while back in San Francisco.

And then they had the stamina to sit through the whole thing again in Manhattan.

Frankly, I wouldn’t endure that on a bet.

I also know some lowbrow folks who’ve been on pins and needles waiting for the next “American Idol” or “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” reality show.

Not my druthers.

On the third hand, I and my middlebrow colleagues agree we’ll attend carefully selected symphony, ballet and opera events, Shakespearean festivals, art-museum openings and the like, as well as pop this ‘n’ that — and, as a rule, thoroughly enjoy our cherry-picking.

Which brings me to the San Francisco Symphony and its recent variegated concert in tribute to John Goldman, who has relinquished the symphony’s presidency after 11 years.  

Pieces by Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Stephen Schwartz and Rodgers and Hammerstein, and guest performers Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Gil Shaham, Lisa Vroman and Kenny Loggins (in a “surprise” appearance) have all ranked among Goldman’s favorites.

The result? A potpourri of pleasure.

Said he to an appreciative audience, “You can tell I have eclectic tastes — some would call it weird.”

But it wasn’t a weird night at all, merely another extraordinary one.

Many uncommon nights can be expected in the near future — such as an orchestra-less concert with Jessye Norman Aug. 9 at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

She’ll sing a collection of songs, in the first half, by George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Kurt Well, Leonard Bernstein and Duke Ellington. After intermission, she’ll perform homages to Nina Simone, Lena Horne, Odetta and Ella Fitzgerald.

The soprano, who’ll be backed by pianist Mark Markham, rescheduled from July 31 because she wanted to sing instead at a U.S. Congress ceremony for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

Other future San Francisco Symphony goodies will include “Disney in Concert: Magical Music from the Movies,” a Sunday afternoon pops event July 28; a “Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration” featuring Allman Brothers and Gov’t Mule vocalist/guitarist Warren Haynes; and the new season’s “Opening Night Gala” with Audra McDonald on Sept. 3.

The night of the Goldman tribute, Michael Tilson Thomas led the orchestra. Brilliantly. And the guest artists radiated talent as they played and sang.

The truth is, MTT and the SFS provide the extraordinary so often it’s become what’s anticipated. Certainly it’s what I always expect.

One glance at the diverse pops-loving folks jamming Davies — many decked out, some in chinos and jeans — proved the musicians had collectively fashioned one thing this balmy June evening: Fun.

That was especially palpable in the final piece of the evening, which found Tilson Thomas trying “to bring all these musical worlds together” as the symphony intermingled passages from Beethoven’s 5th with Loggins’ vigorous vocal of Chuck Berry’s 1956 rhythm ‘n’ blues smash, “Roll Over Beethoven.”

The pop hit’s lyrics, ironically, suggest R&B should replace classical music, a concept the Davies crowd would never accept.

Loggins also drew untamed applause when he performed the raucous “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” and the more pensive “Return to Pooh Corner.”

But the crowd was equally delighted with classical strains.

My own favorite was the excerpts from Ravel’s “Piano Concerto in G major,” with Jean-Yves Thibaudet displaying finger gymnastics with both soft and percussive segments.

Gil Shaham’s violin skills headed my wife’s list. His mastery of Tchaikovsky’s finale from “Violin Concerto in D major, Opus 35” was immediately clear, his confidence in full evidence as he fiercely stroked his instrument.

Lisa Vroman, a Broadway veteran with a striking voice, drew the biggest laughs with her rendition of “Honey Bun,” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” — her high-stepping and white sailor suit comically augmented by a chunky male accomplice in fright wig, grass skirt, mock-coconut bra and spats.

Vroman also delivered a couple of Schwartz tunes from his score of “Wicked,” with resident conductor Donato Cabrera on the podium, following her quick-change into a shimmering turquoise gown.

MTT, as is customary, was at the top of his game, whether leading the finale from Rachmaninoff’s “Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Opus 27” or Gershwin’s sprightly “Walking the Dog.”

Tilson Thomas drew chuckles when he dedicated the latter to concertgoers who have dogs and then added he wasn’t ignoring “those of you who have lemurs — we love them, too.”

Speaking of pooches, I spied two: a small Spaniel service dog on a leash inside the theater, and a smaller Chihuahua in the arms of a homeless woman beggar just outside.

Were there any hiccup in the concert itself, it came when the nearly 100-member strong San Francisco Symphony Chorus, under the leadership of Ragnar Bohlin, presented excerpts from the soundtrack of “2001: A Space Odyssey” — that is to say, György Ligeti’s “Lux aeterna.”

That piece — though exquisitely performed — is definitely weird. To me, it emphasizes eeriness and what seems like hollow, metallic echoes.

Before the event, The Martini Brothers entertained in the lobby with dance tunes. Eight or nine couples gleefully strutted their stuff as many onlookers stared — and one wag talked about taking what she called “a tour of some of the finest facial surgery in the Bay Area.”

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

Woody Weingarten

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Their fantasies come alive as three female book club members scrutinize “50 Shades.” Photo: Clifford Roles.

Seconds after the musical comedy’s second tune ignited, I was positive I wasn’t the show’s target demographic.

I was decades too ancient and absolutely the wrong gender to get off on the sophomoric parody, “50 Shades! The Musical!”

Clearly I wasn’t a 20- or 30-something woman with a hyperactive libido given to shrieks of joy and raucous laughter at the less than subtle, salacious lyrics and text of the cartoonish show.

(I’d pre-assessed what was ahead by seeing a theater crowd unusual for San Francisco: heterosexual, mostly female.)

To make matters worse, I hadn’t read Word One of the runaway best-selling E L James novel, “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which the production was burlesquing.

Yet, despite my apparent mismatch with both characters and audience, I found the show funny more often than not.The book  — 32 million copies sold in the United States, and counting — and its two sequels center on sexual novice Anastasia Steele’s erogenous explorations with super-wealthy Christian Grey, a “beautiful, brilliant and intimidating” man “tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control.”

“50 Shades! The Musical!” — written in effect by a “committee” of half a dozen men and women — focuses on what three ladies reading the first novel fantasize about.

It’s somewhat more than a revue, less than a full-blown musical.And considering that the concoction is aimed at the so-called weaker sex, it’s surprising comic Chris Grace, as a pot-bellied Grey, steals the show through exaggerated gestures and body movements (and an over-the-top rendition of “I Don’t Make Love”).

Amber Petty, as the virginal Anastasia Steele, and seven others ably reinforce his labors.

(Petty, not incidentally, can hold a note with the best of ‘em, and draws thunderous applause early on for “There’s a Hole Inside of Me.”)

Director Al Samuels deserves major plaudits for successfully integrating tons of slapstick with outrageous mock-eroticism.

Choreographers Joanna Greer and Brad Landers merit praise as well, their spoofs being the antithesis of what theatergoers normally expect.A robust three-piece band, featuring musical director/pianist Dan Reitz, bassist Christopher Ditton and drummer Douglas Levin, keeps everything amped up.No one gets credit for the set, and that’s a good thing because there really isn’t one — a makeshift couch and end table are basically it.

The opening night audience was oddly noisy before the show, but quickly channeled their energy into hoots, hollers and howls — and frequent laughter. But the musical presented me with a problem because of what goes on (simulated, ad infinitum sex acts and voluminous use of vulgar language).It leaves me with nothing to quote.

Promotional materials insist the musical “is not for those under the age of 19, but does not cross boundaries that would make general audiences squirm.”

I didn’t see anyone squirming, cringing or leaving the theater.

But one befuddled male could be heard to comment, “I don’t get it. It’s midway between pure raunchiness and pure porno.”A movie based on the book will be released in about a year. That guy may skip it.

But hordes of women most likely will turn it into a box-office smash.

“50 Shades! The Musical” runs at the Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter St., San Francisco, through July 28. Performances: Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m.; Sunday, 6:30 p.m. Matinees, Saturday and Sunday, 3 p.m. Tickets: $30 to $65, (888) 746-1799 or www.shnsf.com. Info: www.50ShadesMusical.com.

Woody Weingarten

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Hershey Felder portrays the legendary composer in “George Gershwin Alone” at Berkeley Rep. Photo: Mark Garvin.

Hershey Felder may be channeling George Gershwin.

If that’s not what’s going on, he must at least be sensing the composer’s fascinating rhythms through the fingertips of both hands.

He also has a nuanced, carefully researched understanding of Gershwin’s colorful, truncated life.

The charismatic performer exhibits all that as he plays the musical genius’ melodies on a concert grand Steinway, and dramatizes tidbits of his bio, in a solo 90-minute Berkeley Rep show titled “George Gershwin Alone.”

The work is an outgrowth of five years of study (interviewing family members and biographers, perusing correspondence and checking out original manuscripts, listening to old audio recordings).

Felder’s been touring the show across the globe for 13 years (including a Broadway stint).

But he jokes that what came before this run was merely preliminary — practice sessions for his East Bay appearance.

He also claims he’s tired.

So many performances (3,000 and counting), yet to me he’s as fresh as if this were his world premiere.

My wife, a highly talented jazz pianist and “spoke-alist” who’s performed in countless senior venues in Marin, San Francisco, Sonoma and the East Bay, labels him a virtuoso.

I’m biased, of course, but, considering her skill level, I find the pronouncement high praise indeed.

Not to mention astute — and accurate.

She particularly lauds his flying fingers and classical flourishes, and calls him “a confident pianist, confident vocalist, confident raconteur.”

I’ll add “confident humorist.”

The show’s prime conceit of having Felder inhabit Gershwin’s persona works divinely, thank you, except for the moments he’s depicting the composer’s death at age 38 from an undiagnosed brain tumor. They’re awkward.

Thankfully, Felder doesn’t end the show that way.

He plays “Rhapsody in Blue” at length instead, then involves the audience in a boisterous, half-hour sing-along “encore” (which includes an “It Ain’t Necessarily So” call-and-response and an uproarious, unfamiliar novelty tune penned with Irving Berlin).

The bulk of the show, naturally, focuses on standards — in addition to excerpts from “Porgy and Bess,” “An American in Paris” and Gershwin’s concerto: “S’Wonderful,” “Embraceable You,” “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” “The Man I Love,” “I Got Rhythm” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”

But the character study also pinpoints the composer’s flaring insecurity when berated by movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn for not writing tunes simple enough to whistle — a la Irving Berlin.

And his anger after being targeted by auto tycoon Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic rants.

Although Gershwin’s legend has outlasted such commentaries (probably because he wrote more than 1,000 tunes), his fame, according to some other critics, was mainly due to Ira’s lyrics — or stemmed from the luck of having superstar Al Jolson sing his first hit, “Swanee.”

This tour de force starts with poignant chord-less notes from “Porgy,” the composer’s jazz opera about poor Southern blacks that initially flopped and caused the affluent son of immigrants to lose his shirt.

And it glimpses a childhood in which Gershwin wandered “the streets of lower Manhattan with my hoodlum friends.”

Felder also touches on the composer’s tenure as a rehearsal pianist with the “Ziegfeld Follies” (“they used to call us piano pimps”), and he deftly performs duets with antique recordings of Gershwin and Jolson.

His anecdotes, for the most part, are extremely amusing.

Such as his recounting Gershwin’s father (a cutter of shoes) mistakenly believing “Fascinating Rhythm” to be “Fashion on the River.”

Felder, who created his own book for this show, is abetted by the smooth direction of Joel Zwick, who’d spearheaded the comedy film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,”

Scenic designer Yael Pardess also helps via a lean set that features blown-up covers of sheet music, a plush curtain implying wealth, and two chairs that enable Felder to get closer to the audience at either end of the stage.

He’s aided, too, by projections that capture images of George’s lyricist brother, Ira, and best friend/lover, Kay Swift.

The night I saw the show, the Berkeley crowd was more gray-haired, wrinkled and frail than the usual Rep audience.

Many, like a blissed-out woman across the aisle from me, were so familiar with the material they quietly sang or hummed along with Felder throughout.

Audience reaction to Felder approaches ecstasy.

I understand.

Because he’s that good.

“George Gershwin Alone” plays at Berkeley Rep’s 400-seat Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley, through July 7. 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 $77, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.

Woody Weingarten

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Some things we should never forget.

Like, the Holocaust wasn’t limited to Jews. And, Jews did fight baWe certainly must remember the six million dead. But the Nazis also killed millions of non-Jews — Soviet prisoners of war, Polish citizens, Gypsies, the disabled, political and religious dissenters, gays.

Decades ago, my first day at the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, a man who’d survived Auschwitz-Birkenau and four other World War II camps pleaded, “No matter what else you do, don’t let anyone forget the Holocaust.”

Sonia and Paul Orbuch. Photo: Woody Weingarten

I never forgot him, or the slogan “Never forget!” — the rallying cry for Jews the world over.

But it was a while before I’d encounter anyone who’d joined the resistance.

They, too, bear scars — physical, emotional.

A month ago I met octogenarian Sonia Orbuch. She fought Nazis as a teen, part of a partisan unit whose mission was resistance and sabotage, including the mining of train tracks.

Mostly she was an impromptu field nurse, helping doctors amputate limbs, treating the wounded with skimpy supplies and blood-soaked bandages — and cradling the dying.

The Corte Madera resident can’t forget the nightmare, or a brutal winter hiding in a Ukrainian forest.

She lived fearfully “all the time” then, and knows she’ll never forgive. “Even when it’s a happy moment or a holiday, I cannot smile, cannot laugh,” she told me. “The pain is tremendous.”

In a book aimed at teenagers, Sonia said, “Every day my heart aches for the loss of my mother and two brothers, dozens of other relatives, and nearly all of my childhood friends.”

But she also knows it’s crucial to dispel the myth that Jews didn’t resist the Nazis.

Her son, Paul, a San Anselmo resident, actualized his legacy by co-founding the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, www.jewishpartisans.org. It, he noted, is “seeking 100,000 teachers, Jewish and non-Jewish” to inspire new generations by showing “the history and life lessons of the Jewish partisans.”

What’s it like being a survivor’s child?

“I always go back to what Sonia’s said, ‘You have to stand up early against tyranny, oppression, discrimination, anti-Semitism, whenever and wherever it occurs, and you have to teach the kids.’”

Yet even as his messages spread hope, others dispense hatred: The Associated Press reported a 30 percent worldwide surge in anti-Semitic violence and vandalism last year, economic nosedives again making Jews scapegoats.

Paul once told a Marin Jewish Community Center audience about hearing Sonia’s friends reminisce “about the war, their losses and their survival experiences. They did so with tears and sometimes with humor. And almost always there was anger and the refrain…of ‘never again.’”

His daughter, Eva, who lives in San Jose, subsequently recalled that she’d told her bat mitzvah tutor she “understood what my grandmother had gone through. My tutor challenged me…and I came to realize…I may never be able to truly understand or feel what my family and millions of others endured. I will only be able to ask questions and grapple with my past.”

Another resister, Paula Ross, lived in Fairfax since 1990 but just moved to the Veterans Home of Yountville.

Paula Ross outside Whistlestop in San Rafael. Photo: Yvonne Roberts.

The Vienna-born 92-year-old can’t forget either — how she fought with the resistance to retaliate: “They killed my uncles, aunts, cousins and friends.”

She still doesn’t “like to talk about it, because it was very traumatic,” but, despite misgivings, she returned to Austria two years ago “and taught teenagers about the Holocaust, telling them exactly what the Nazis did.”

Morgan Blum, a Tiburon native, is director of education for the Holocaust Center, part of Jewish Family and Children’s Services in San Francisco. She says a survivor once was defined as someone who’d been in a death camp but now signifies “anyone who was targeted for death and survived.”

That means they “may have been in an extermination camp, may have been a hidden child, may have been a Partisan, may have fled in 1936.”

Morgan recently gathered “600 students and teachers from 101 private, public and parochial schools to participate in our annual Day of Learning. About 95 percent were not Jewish. Over 70 percent had never heard a survivor before, but meeting one, they could make a connection.”

One attendee, after hearing about Rwandan, Cambodian, Bosnian, Darfur genocides, vowed “to prevent this from happening again, to not be a bystander.”

Another told Morgan it’s critical “to carry on this story because the next generation won’t be able to hear from a living survivor.”

Yes!

Woody Weingarten

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