Woody Weingarten

[Woody’s [rating: 5]

I can’t remember ever feeling as white as when I saw “Choir Boy,” the new Marin Theatre Company drama.

The play, which provides scaffolding for the notion of tolerance, is incredibly powerful.

And incredibly black.

Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney immediately sets the tone with a black prep school commencement where the words “sissy” and “nigger” are hurled at a gay student.

I thought I’d been color-blind all my life.

I’d banded on civil rights issues in the early ‘60s with militant black attorney Paul Zuber and self-styled radical lawyer Paul Kunstler.

Earlier, I’d joined my father in welcoming into our home in a New York suburb what then were called Negroes. I’d enjoyed rhythmic, bluesy “race records” spun by “Moondog” (deejay Alan Freed) and spirituals by Mahalia Jackson and less famous African American artists. I’d been moved beyond belief by Billie Holiday wailing “Strange Fruit,” a musical lamentation for a lynching.

I thought I’d earned my liberal stripes.

In 100 “in-your-face” minutes, “Choir Boy” showed me I’ve been practically delusional.

Being Caucasian inevitably precludes a total understanding of the black condition.

“Choir Boy” is markedly pertinent today, when city after city in the United States face sharper racial divides than in decades.

During rehearsal of the show, director Kent Gash told his actors: “No play happens in a vacuum…As we have seen in recent events in Baltimore, African American male lives are at risk. It’s hard not to feel like an endangered species sometimes.”

But “Choir Boy” is more than more an eye-opener — it’s a masterpiece.

I’ve seen four previous plays by MacArthur “genius” grant winner McCraney — April’s “Head of Passes” at the Berkeley Rep, and each part of his “Brother/Sisters Plays” trilogy at the MTC, A.C.T. and Magic Theatre.

Each was extraordinary. Each was formidable.

This drama is better still.

Craney seems to be growing exponentially as a playwright as he matures (he’s only 34 now).

“Choir Boy,” a coming-of-age story but so much more, pits a gifted homosexual scholarship recipient, Pharus, against Bobby, a student with current and historic family ties to the Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys.

That fictional school is based on real black history.

Before desegregation, about 100 such schools existed in the United States (only four remain today), which I hadn’t known.

Jelani Alladin instills vitality and reality in Pharus, a young man caught between a desire to be accepted and one of being himself, a theme that’s also reflected in other characters, particularly David, a conflicted, wannabe pastor played by Forest Van Dyke.

Pharus contrasts sharply with Bobby, hot-headedly portrayed by Dimitri Woods as a privileged rebel.

The play, which premiered in London in 2012, is not without periodic injections of humor. But it’s the anguish and poignancy that are unforgettable.

And mind-blowing.

Each of the seven “Choir Boy” cast members is superb, with each of the six black performers layering individualized vocal chops onto their thespian skills.

Ken Robinson, who plays Headmaster Marrow, a rule-oriented man steeped in tradition, has the richest, deepest voice.

None of the others are vocal slouches, though.

Spirituals — both familiar (such as “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” and “Wade in the Water”) and not — are sprinkled throughout.

They definitely buoy the drama.

Were the originals uplifting and freeing, or did various slave songs include “coded messages”? A cerebral onstage debate may feel like a distraction from the plot yet is a meaningful connection to black history.

So’s the performance of the sole white in the all-male cast, Charles Shaw Robinson, who’s believable as Mr. Pendleton, a compassionate teacher who’d marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and participated in countless sit-ins.

You probably know somebody just like him.

Rotimi Agbabiaka, as Junior Davis, Bobby’s enabler and sidekick in delinquency, is responsible for most of the humor (though the Pharus character has his share).

And filling out the cast is Jaysen Wright as Anthony (“AJ”), a sensitive athlete-scholar.

The play, it should be noted, includes full-frontal nudity.

Alladin — in a post-play “talk-back” response to a question — explained it well: “The nudity is more than about being naked. It’s a moment when the audience is being asked, ‘Are you comfortable in your skin?’”

Most significantly, the play shows that African American men, like all others, are not one-dimensional, not stereotypes, but complex human beings.

It’s a lesson I’m unlikely to forget.

“Choir Boy” plays at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through June 28. Night performances, 7 p.m. Sundays; 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Matinees, 1 p.m. Thursdays; 2 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $10 to $55. Information: (415) 388-5208 or marintheatre.org.

Contact Woody Weingarten at www.vitalitypress.com/ or voodee@sbcglobal.net

 

Donations of $500 and iPods — from students at San Domenico School in San Anselmo — got the ball rolling.

So residents of WindChime of Marin, a memory-care facility in Kentfield, just over the line from Ross, now can derive pleasure from personalized music playlists on the digital devices.

As a bonus, the portable players typically open what’s been called “a backdoor” to memory and the mind.

I call it a coming-out party.

Stemming from an unpretentious program that can temporarily steer men and women back from the isolation that dementia, Alzheimer’s and other serious ailments sometimes dictate.

“The more specific the playlist,” explained Tanja Obear, WindChime’s activity director, “the more effective it is. And it’s best if songs from the teenage years to the mid-20’s, their ‘fun-time,’ are selected.”

But there’s a wide spectrum of likes, Tanja noted, “ranging

from music of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s to others — younger — who want to hear Led Zeppelin.”

Gina Pandiani, president of Marin Activity Coordinators (MAC), cleared my attendance at the group’s recent 90-minute meeting at WindChime. There, nine women watched three snippets from a documentary, “Alive Inside,” and discussed how “Music & Memory,” the program that generated the video, could be implemented throughout the county.

I was encouraged.

I’d screened the video about a month before. And wept.

It was that touching, that inspiring.

A clip from it, featuring “Henry,” a dementia patient “awakened” by music from his iPod, has gone viral.

More than 11 million views.

And counting.

A thousand senior facilities and nursing homes have instituted the memory program so far. But the hope is for way more — 16,000 in the United States, 65,000 throughout the world.

WindChime began with only 10 iPods.

By the time MAC met, all but three of 48 residents had playlists (after a three-month process to fully implement the program).

The biggest problem the facility encountered, reported Bradlee Ann Foerschner, its executive director, was “keeping all the iPods charged.”

Not really an obstacle.

The music itself can occasionally be challenging, though.

One meeting attendee encountered “a banjo player who wanted only bluegrass music on his iPod” and insisted he “couldn’t abide Frank Sinatra.”

Marie Van Soest, a WindChime resident who’d previously lived in San Anselmo, differed.

She adores Sinatra.

And oldies like “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “New York New York” and “Lady Be Good.”

She told me she looks forward to hearing them.

Again and again.

The main aim of “Music & Memory” seems achievable.

That is, to improve the quality of life for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, for the depressed and infirm, for the lonely, for the elderly in general — by supplying easy access to music they once loved.

“The program’s not going to reverse the effects of dementia,” said Bradlee, “but it’s going to evoke memories from the past — and the joy of those memories.”

Cognitive abilities can improve as well as mood.

I’ve seen both happen, in fact, while watching my wife, Nancy Fox, play piano and provide patter in senior and memory-care facilities in Marin.

Immobilized residents mouthed words from long-forgotten tunes.

And rhythmically tapped their toes and fingers.

I’ve watched deer-in-headlights eyes light up — and stay alert for a while.

“Music & Memory,” I’m also convinced, can cut costs by reducing the need for certain medications. And it can produce residents’ desire to interact with others.

Bradlee gave an example.

One WindChime resident is French and “loves to dance to the music. Her entire playlist is French songs. She’s very sweet to watch, and wants everyone else to hear what she hears, to enjoy what she enjoys.”

Some residents prefer keeping to themselves, however.

Another resident, Bradlee observed, just blissfully and wordlessly “plays invisible piano.”

Virtually everyone involved with the iPod program listed the same caveat: Despite its genuine promise, personalized music is no magical cure.

Still, Gina, who’s also the Community Life Services director at Aldersly in San Rafael, suggested the devices offer “a perfect way for volunteers to step up” since residents need only push a single button to start or stop the music.

Bradlee summed up why she’s sanguine about the program: “I’m always talking quality of life and this program enriches the residents lives.”

One coordinator’s reaction was succinct: “It’s such a great idea — so cool.”

I concur.

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or at www.vitalitypress.com/

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

Good things come in threes.

Like “Annie the Musical,” which just opened at the SHN Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco.

It has, to start with, bouncy tunes, talented cast and uplifting theme.

It also has a knack of bringing synchronized pleasure to three generations — at least in my family.

My 8-year-old granddaughter, Hannah, loved it.

So did Laura, her mom: mid-lifer. And so did I: geezer.

Issie Swickle, a 9-year-old Floridian whose long brown hair was cut and dyed red for her “Annie” title role, is absolutely professional.

And has a strong voice.

Yet I believe two other performers have even more charisma.

The first, scene-stealing Lynn Andrews, turned orphanage queenpin Miss Harrington into the best villainess since Glenn Close’s portrayal of Cruella de Vil in “101 Dalmatians.”

Andrews, like Melissa McCarthy, uses her plus-sizedness as a hilarious comic prop.

She’s so over-the-top it’s impossible to stop grinning when she’s on stage — whether singing like a snarling witch in “Little Girls,“ embellishing a raunchy song-and-dance trio such as “Easy Street,” or lip-synching a Jello commercial.

Then there’s a challenger to Shirley Temple as cutest kid actor ever, Lilly Mae Stewart, who sings, dances and even cartwheels as Molly, one of seven little orphaned girls.

She’s a teeny 10.

Speaking of cute, Sunny, a 4-year-old rescue terrier mix who plays Annie’s adopted pooch, Sandy, fits that bill.

Hannah, in fact, confided that one of her favorite “Annie” moments was “when Sandy yawned.”

Her others included two numbers, “It’s the Hard Knock Life” and “Tomorrow, “ the show’s optimistic anthem, and the fun idea of bunk beds (though she wouldn’t want to be stuck in a lower).

Laura, meanwhile, “thoroughly enjoyed the show, which can be appreciated on both adult and kid levels.”

She’s right, of course.

Though most youngsters will be clueless about The Great Depression and Hoovervilles, FDR and the New Deal, or, indeed, orphanages, they certainly can comprehend kids’ plaints about drudgery, meanness and a desire to be part of a family.

When “Annie” first appeared on Broadway in 1977, it won seven Tony’s, including best musical.

Martin Charnin, who doubled as lyricist, directed it then. His direction of this touring company is his 19th go-round.

“Annie” spotlights a capable cast of 25 (plus or minus the dog), and an orchestra of 21. And although the girls shine in choreography by Liza Gennaro, particularly a number featuring a Rockettes-like chorus line, their high-pitched voices make words difficult to distinguish.

Some theatergoers might consider the show’s length — about 2-1/4 hours — excessive for younger children.

Others might object to Annie not looking like the original comic strip character.

Until she’s “gussied up” in Act II by billionaire Daddy Warbucks’ minions. That’s when her straight hair suddenly turns curly and she dons the red dress we all recognize.

Some also may find fault with a knife threat, a doll’s head being torn off, and the word “damn” being used repeatedly.

Never, however, is Annie anything but an optimist, spouting such niceties as “You gotta have dreams.”

The show’s an old-fashioned happy-ending creation likely to force you to hum songs by Charles Strouse, who also co-wrote “Bye Bye Birdie.”

A key by-product, by the way, stems from SHN joining the St. Anthony Foundation in its “Socks in the City” campaign. Seat-holders are asked to bring a new pair to a performance and deposit it in SHN Golden Gate Theatre lobby barrels. Collected items will be given the homeless.

Because my family isn’t homeless, Hannah could smile a lot during “Annie.” And Laura could smile while watching Hannah smile.

And I could smile while watching them both.

Hannah’s mere existence gave me an excuse to go in the first place. I probably wouldn’t have without her, and I’d have been the loser.

But I believe after this run is successful, “Annie” will turn up again — tomorrow.

“Annie the Musical” runs at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St. (at Market), San Francisco, through June 14. Night performances, 5:30 p.m. Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. Matinees, noon Sundays, 2 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays. Tickets: $40 to $160 (subject to change). Information: (888) 746-1799 or shnsf.com.

Contact Woody Weingarten at www.vitalitypress.com/ or voodee@sbcglobal.net

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

My wife nailed it.

“You gotta look at it in a historical perspective,” she told me as we exited A.C.T.’s “A Little Night Music” amid my doubts about how to assemble this review.

So I started thinking about time.

• About the musical’s setting being Sweden at the turn of the 20th century.

• About Ingmar Bergman, whose 1955 partner-switching film, “Smiles of a Summer Night,” was heavily mined in 1973 by Stephen Sondheim for his “Night Music” music and lyrics and Hugh Wheeler for the book.

• About its revolving door sexuality and aging themes retaining their relevance in 2015.

My wife’s always liked Sondheim better than I, branding his lyrics, humor and internal rhymes brilliant (we agree his music’s more non-melodic and difficult than most Broadway composers).

I’d never argue with his genius, yet he’s always been too bleak for my tastes.

Sondheim’s initial materials for “Night Music,” it should be noted, were much darker and melancholy than eventually staged.

No surprise.

But “Night Music” does include one of my favorite ballads, the show-stopping “Send in the Clowns,” as well as the lilting “A Weekend in the Country.”

I also admit to enjoying three short, wistful pieces that together put the time arcs in focus (“Now,” “Later” and “Soon”).

And a tone poem extolling the glories of yesterday (“Remember”).

And the waggish “You Must Meet My Wife.”

I was less enthusiastic about “The Miller’s Son,” which the opening night crowd applauded wildly because of a powerful delivery by Melissa McGowan as Petra, a sexpot maid who frequently flaunts her body in hopes of a hook-up.

Yes, it’s the actors who ultimately make the difference, especially Tony Award-winner Karen Ziemba as a disarming, lusty older stage star, Desiree Armfeldt.

Also topping my list is Patrick Cassidy, a Great White Way veteran who plays Fredrik Egerman, Desiree’s then-and-now suitor despite having being married for 11 months to an empty-headed, still virginal 18-year-old Anne (Laurie Veldheer) who contemplates studying Italian only “if the verbs are not too irregular.”

Others I applaud are Dana Ivey as Madame Armfeldt, family matriarch whose facial expressions bring to mind the best of Maggie Smith and who believes that “to lose one’s husband can be vexing…but to lose one’s teeth can be a catastrophe,” and Emily Skinner as Charlotte Malcolm, wife of a philandering warrior (she cynically thinks “love is a dirty business…disgusting…insane”).

Deserving her place in the sun, too, is Brigid O’Brien, a Novato eighth-grader previously featured in The Mountain Play’s “Sound of Music” and “Music Man” and the Ross Valley Players’ “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Here she portrays Fredrik’s teenage daughter, Fredrika, and is quite remarkable.

For any age — but particularly for hers.

Most of those singing voices are excellent (so commendable, in fact, they make Paolo Montalban’s in the Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm role seem humdrum).

And costumes and hats by Candice Donnelly are so lush — in effect, a parade of fashion worthy of a de Young Museum exhibit — they nearly outdo everything else on stage.

The plot?

Well, it resembles a classic French sexual roundelay and could play as a farce if it didn’t want to deal at least superficially with life’s major dilemmas and dramas.

Lust’s the operative word.

Fredrik pines for Desiree, who excites Count Carl-Magnus, too. Madame Armreldt pines for royal liaisons past. Henrick, Fredrik’s son, pines for Anne. And Petra pines for males in general.

Mark Lamos, who was challenged to equal legendary director-producer Hal Prince, who led the ‘73 “Night Music” version, directed this company.

But he accomplishes his apparent goal — to make the show, like its onstage waltzes, “all about flirtation and eroticism.”

He’s aided by Val Caliparoli’s elegant choreography that incorporates lots of mystery, masks and twirling.

Bottom line: Although flawed, the musical’s a grand peek into youthful passions and aging memories, a who-wants-to-bonk-who tableau set against a midsummer night’s dream-setting at a country estate to Sweden in the late 1900s.

It’ll probably still be playing somewhere in 3015.

“A Little Night Music” plays at the American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco, through June 21. Night performances, 7 p.m., Tuesday, June 2 and Sunday, June 21; 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Matinees, 2 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $20 to $140. Information: (415) 749-2228 or www.act-sf.org.

Contact Woody Weingarten at www.vitalitypress.com/ or voodee@sbcglobal.net

[Woody’s [rating: 5]

“Peter Pan” is the most age-appropriate musical performed on Mt. Tam in several years.

For my granddaughter’s bracket, at least.

Hannah has now reached the ripe old age of 8.

With minimal prompting, she told me she really liked the dancing, the costumes and the songs.

But best of all, she said, were the special effects.

“It was fun watching them fly. I wish I could have done that.”

“But I didn’t like Captain Hook,” she added, forgetting to mention that she never likes a villain (no matter how droll).

When I complimented her for her behavior throughout the picnic-show afternoon, she rebuked me for calling her “a young lady” because, “like Peter, I don’t want to grow up — it’s cool being a kid.”

Though she generally enjoyed “Sound of Music,” the last Mountain Play she’d attended, it didn’t enchant her as much as this particular show did, and I doubt she’ll be nearly as mesmerized with next year’s Romeo and Juliet update, “West Side Story” either.

At her age, she has no concept that Nicole Heifer was responsible for the Jerome Robbins-like choreography of “Peter Pan,” Heidi Leigh Hanson for the primary-color costuming, or Michael Schwartz the fast-paced direction.

But I do.

So I mentally jotted down that all three deserve high praise.

God or Mother Nature, too, for making the day perfect at the outdoor Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre in Mount Tamalpais State Park on Highway 1 in Mill Valley.

Not too hot. Not too cold.

As the baby bear kept saying, “Just right.”

Although we, as usual, had prepared — by layering — for virtually any weather.

Admittedly, however, I wasn’t prepared to enjoy the musical as much as I did.

I guess that means that in my final analysis, the show must be age-appropriate for grandparents, too.

“Peter Pan,” the Mountain Play, will be performed at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 7, 14 and 21 and Saturday, June 13. Tickets: $20 to $40 (children 3 and under, free). Information: (415) 383-1100 or www.mountainplay.org.

Contact Woody Weingarten at http://vitalitypress.com or voodee@sbcglobal.net

[Woody’s [rating: 5]

The new Berkeley Rep farce, “One Man, Two Guvnors,” stirs the most good feelings — by far — of any feel-good show this season.

Despite the play being a throwback to English music hall shtick (with vaudevillian antics, burlesque sight gags, a little male crotch-grabbing, the breaking of the Fourth Wall, an avalanche of alliteration, a spot of audience participation, and skiffle band/faux Fab Four music tossed in just for the fun of it).

All wrapped in a whopping, fluffy cornball.

But the entire theatrical patchwork quilt — and 15-member acting ensemble — made me grin, smile, chortle and laugh — from beginning to end.

Quite a feat considering the first act’s 90 minutes long, the second another hour.

Don Donohue recently played a somewhat serious character, Richard III, in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and has played the villainous Scar in “The Lion King” on Broadway.

Here, as Francis Henshall, he’s what I’ll describe as a farce of nature.

He’s as skilled, exquisitely timed and rubber-bodied a clown as Pickle Family grads Bill Irwin or Geoff Hoyle, which is high praise indeed.

So easily muddled he can convince himself he’s his own alter ego, Francis fights with himself — verbally and physically. And he turns the moving of a trunk, and serving a feast while he’s starving, into pantomine works of art.

Donohue’s magnificently supported by, in particular, Ron Campbell as Alfie, a fright-wigged, off-balance geezer with a penchant for falling down stairs; Brad Culver as Alan Dangle, wannabe lover and wannabe actor always prepared to ham up his imagined lines; and Danny Scheie as Gareth, screechy-voiced food-server and scene-stealer.

Scheie, not incidentally, delivers the funniest pre-show cell-phone/exit instructions I’ve heard in eons.

The zany, simplistic plot?

The protagonist is hired separately but simultaneously by two men — Roscoe Crabbe, a dead gay mobster now being impersonated by his twin sister, Rachel, and Stanley Stubbers, a snooty criminal who’s her lover, her brother’s killer and a guy prone to such inane comments as, “I felt like a floral clock in the middle of winter.”

Francis’ main job is to flit between the two without either learning about the other.

Sounds like a farce to me.

Relying heavily on suspending belief about mistaken identities.

Since it is a farce, I’d expected dozens of slamming doors. Director David Ivers, a San Rafael, native, didn’t disappoint me.

But he manages to inject virtually everything he thought might add manifold touches of silliness — including oodles of slapstick and other visual hocus-pocus, non sequiturs, pure babble and off-center lines (such one from Rachel, who’s terrified of moving to Australia because she’d have to face “a terrible — outdoorsy — life”).

The play, written by Richard Bean, is set in 1963 Brighton. But it’s really an update of “The Servant of Two Masters,” a 1743 Italian Commedia dell’arte  style work by Carol Goldoni.

Almost 300 years old and still hilarious.

Not too long in the tooth after all.

The current South Coast Repertory co-production — which trails the show’s Broadway opening by only four years — features a quartet of lively musicians — two guitarists, a bass and a washboard player — who perform original Grant Olding tunes under the rubric “The Craze.”

Yes, it’s all unabashedly British — but there are definite overlays of rockabilly and Beatles and an estrogen trio oozing glitz.

“One Man, Two Guvnors” ends up being unadulterated joy, and doesn’t miss a comedic trick.

Well, that’s not quite true: I saw no pie in the face.

“One Man, Two Guvnors” plays at the Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley, through June 21. Night performances, 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Sundays, 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays. Matinees, 2 p.m. Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $14.50 to $89, subject to change. Information: (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or http://vitalitypress.com

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

Sarah Ruhl tells anyone who’ll listen she hates that her plays and characters have been labeled quirky and whimsical.

She and her distorted creations are just that, of course.

Need proof? Check out the Ross Valley Players production, “The Clean House.” It’s filled with quirkiness and whimsy.

I’d actually gone there in search of those attributes.

But what I didn’t anticipate was for them to be intertwined so intricately with poignancy.

“The Clean House” is about many matters: falling in love, a search for the perfect joke, cleanliness and clutter, sibling rivalry, friendship and forgiveness, mourning, living life to the fullest.

But Act I evolves at such a slow pace, despite fitful turns, and is so surreal, so Dali-esque, I kept looking for clocks or Apple wristwatches that were melting.

I found none.

I did, however, locate an ingenious multi-leveled set, designed by David Shirk, that allowed me to easily follow characters from room to room, from New England to Alaska, from past to present, from reality to imagination.

It included a screen that projected pithy storyline and relationship summaries, translations of foreign phrases, and shots of falling snow, tossed apples and swimming fish.

True plot points.

But Ruhl, MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” winner, actually consigned her creations to “Metaphysical Connecticut,” whatever that means.

“The Clean House” is the play that put the then-31-year-old on the theatrical map in 2005, when it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize a year after first being produced.

Ultimately, it centers on a main character being overtaken by breast cancer.

My wife, who’s been free of that affliction for 20 years, found its climactic scenes tough to watch — despite a nuanced, uplifting performance by Sumi Narendran as Ana.

So did I.

But neither of us ditched the show. Nor did anyone else. The drama part of the comedy-drama had become compelling.

Ruhl previously dealt with cancer in her work. Her father had died of it in 1994, and she purportedly wrote “Eurydice,” a 2003 play, to “have a few more conversations with him.”

“The Clean House” is adroitly directed by JoAnne Winter, co-founder of San Francisco’s Word for Word.

She notes in the playbill that “everyone is a mess, broken, needy, and frightened, even the people who seem to have it all together. We may not ever fully understand the jokes life plays on us [so] it is a joy to be reminded…to embrace the messiness of life.”

Though “The Clean House” at first seems to be about disorder, it is, in fact, about putting your house in order.

Its plotline isn’t quite linear, but the evolution of its characters is.

A Brazilian maid, Matilde, who finds feather-dusters, vacuums and other cleaning materials abhorrent, lazes around the home of her employer, Lane (an uptight doctor married to a breast surgeon).

Lane’s sister, Virginia, is a compulsive-obsessive housewife seeking something to do with her life, so she offers to assume Matilde’s cleaning responsibilities and free her to work out “the perfect joke” in Portuguese.

Livia Demarchi makes Matilde believable in spite of the character’s being grounded somewhere in mid-air.

Tamar Cohn appropriately portrays Virginia as ditzy, childlike (innocent and primal) and desperately hungering to be helpful.

And Sylvia Burboeck effortlessly converts Lane into the kind of arrogant, stressed-out doc we all know (“I didn’t go to medical school to clean my own house”).

The sole male in the equation, Lane’s husband Charles, abandons Lane after being smitten by Ana, a patient.

But that ends up nowhere near as unloving as it portends.

Not incidentally, Steve Price runs a beguiling gamut as Charles — from abominable snowman-like seeker of a Yew tree and operatic/choreographic physician to compassionate human being hurt by not being able to heal.

I’m sure I wasn’t meant to immediately get some ruminations within the play.

Or ever.

Some enlightenment might have been expected to arrive hours — or days later. After all, Ruhl originally wanted to be a poet, and much poetry is initially unfathomable or mysterious, right?

Like an elongated Portuguese joke never translated.

I surely wasn’t sure what I thought of the whole eccentric, moving enchilada while watching it, nor instantly after exiting. Yet the next morning I recognized it had a deliciously subtle, flavorful aftertaste.

One that absolutely left me looking forward to the Bay Area’s next show by Ruhl.

“The Clean House” plays at The Barn Theatre, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, through June 14. Performances: Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14 to $29. Information: (415) 456-9555 or www.rossvalleyplayers.com.

Contact Woody Weingarten at http://vitalitypress.com or voodee@sbcglobal.net

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

I was barely out of short pants when Ray Bolger starred in Broadway’s “Where’s Charley?” in 1948.

But I remember bouncing around the neighborhood singing “Once in Love with Amy,” the biggest hit from the musical, for anyone who’d listen — even though I knew no one with that name and had no real concept of boy-girl passions.

I just saw the show again, a 42nd St. Moon production at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco.

It was deliciously quaint.

Keith Pinto, who takes on the title role with phenomenal gusto, is no Bolger — especially when it comes to soft-shoe dancing.

But his comic chops are superlative.

And his mock tango’s priceless.

Director Dyan McBride makes sure the other 13 cast members keep up with Pinto — particularly when it comes to wide-eyed, cartoon-like antics or outlandish melodrama.

The impossible-to-believe but amusing storyline was lifted from a popular 1892 play, “Charley’s Aunt.” What I watched, therefore, was a revival of a farce from the last century that referenced a play from the century before that.

England’s Oxford University is the setting. Chaperones are required for a proper woman to be in a man’s presence.

Charley Wykeham and Jack Chesney (James Bock) want to entertain the women they’re smitten with but Charley’s aunt, who could be the go-between, is late arriving from Brazil (“where the nuts come from”).

Jack convinces his buddy to impersonate the mega-rich relative, Dona Lucia D’Alvadorez (Stephanie Rhoads).

And two elderly male gold-diggers fall for her/him.

Soon afterwards, the real auntie shows up to complicate things.

The show, whose melodies and lyrics were penned by Frank Loesser, who later composed “Guys and Dolls,” tips its musical top hat to Gilbert & Sullivan operettas.

“Charley’s Aunt,” though men had filled female roles for eons, was credited with being the first staging of explicit drag in Western theater. It worked, too, as precursor to such cross-dressers as RuPaul, Dame Edna, Bruce Jenner — and, I guess, J. Edgar Hoover.

Not to mention drag performances in “La Cage aux Folles,” “Pink Flamingos,” “Some Like It Hot,” “Tootsie,” “Mrs. Doubtfire”— and a slew of mediocre movies with Tyler Perry as Madea.

The sweet spot of this revival, however, is the clowning.

Scott Hayes supplements Pinto’s tour de farce via an over-the-top performance as lecherous Mr. Spettigue.

The character repeatedly chases Charley, not unlike the silliness of a Road Runner episode.

An appreciative audience titters.

The crowd laughs even louder at set pieces — Charley awkwardly serving tea, his removing Spettigue’s wandering hands from his knees, and Amy (Abby Sammons) screeching “The Woman in His Room” (with timing as extraordinary as Lucille Ball could have delivered).

A trio singing “The Gossips” provides yet another great comic turn: Rosamund (Noelani Neal), Doretta (Katherine Leyva) and Violet (Marie Mikheyenko).

Musically over all, female voices are exceptional, males not so much.

I particularly enjoyed hearing two women in duets — Kitty Verdun (Jennifer Mitchell) with Jack, her suitor, on “My Darling, My Darling,” and Dona with Jack’s father, Sir Francis Chesney (John-Elliott Kirk) on “Lovelier Than Ever.”

Pleasurable, also, is when Charley breaks the fourth wall, asking the audience to sing along with him on “Amy,” a throwback to what Bolger, who won a Tony for his performance, originally improvised.

And colorfully subdued costumes by Rebecca Valentino are fetching.

Weaknesses, regrettably, appear as well.

The dancing, though mostly precision-like, lacks spark. I suspect the original Broadway movements by George Balanchine were slightly better.

And while accompaniment by pianist Lauren Mayer is appropriately invisible, her choppy overtures aren’t.

British accents rise and disappear with frequency.

And Act 1 feels drawn out (it runs 80 minutes) — like a Carol Burnett sketch that was extended — and extended, and extended.

Ticket-buyers, despite such negatives, expect 42nd St. Moon shows to be positive experiences over all.

They are (and this is).

And they should be: The troupe’s been doing classic musical theater for decades.

And doing it well.

“Where’s Charley?” will play at the Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson St. (at Front and Battery streets), San Francisco, through May 17. Evening performances, 6 p.m. Saturdays, 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays. Matinees, 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets: $21 to $75 (subject to change). Information: www.42ndst.moon.org or 415-255-8207.

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or check out his blog at www.vitalitypress.com/

[Woody’s [rating: 5]

As I left the American Conservatory Theatre’s “Let There Be Love,” I noticed an unusual number of men dabbing tears from their eyes with hankies.

Some openly.

But most, a bit embarrassed, swiped surreptitiously. Or prayed no one would witness their glistening cheeks.

Earlier, I’d seen the same guys rolling with laughter.

Stirring work by three actors and inspired writing by British playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah are the reasons why.

And classic jazz recorded by singer-pianist Nat King Cole — juxtaposed with smile-inducing moments triggered by Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and calypso champion Lord Invader — becomes the superglue that binds characters in the new A.C.T. comic family drama in San Francisco.

Cole’s lyrics particularly enhance the action at critical moments.

The setting — including intentionally mismatched wallpaper — is a contemporary London home that’s grown a tad shabby.

From neglect.

Attention is paid only a wood cabinet-enclosed gramophone that Alfred (an ill-tempered, seriously sick West Indian elder who emigrated to England four decades before) lovingly calls Lily.

Plus an oversized globe that houses a well-stocked liquor bar.

Alfred, in a masterfully sensitive yet nuanced performance by Carl Lumbly, has antagonized his estranged wife and both of his daughters — including Janet, the absent “born-again nut” and mother of his mixed-race grandson, and Gemma, the present but unhappy lesbian (played with appropriate anger by Donnetta Lavinia Grays).

The former goatherd and hospital porter regrets his distancing actions but feels powerless to fix what occurred long ago.

Enter Maria, a young, boyfriend-abused Polish immigrant who becomes Alfred’s caregiver, confidant, nurse, cook, friend and surrogate daughter.

Greta Wohlrabe, whose elastic face runs an expressive gamut that’s never unconvincing or mawkish, is impeccable in that demanding role.

Her solo dancing spurts are highlights, too.

Director Maria Mileaf — differing from most plays staged in the Bay Area (and anywhere else, in fact) — makes sure there are no slack spots in “Let There Be Love.”

No lagging whatsoever. No watch checking.

And no dropped accents.

Alfred isn’t above dropping an occasional f-bomb, though. The word, he insists, “brings a wonderful clarity to my…sentences.”

The play manages to cover a lot of ground in two hours: racial bitterness, social change, end-of-life dignity, redemption — and trips to both the local Ikea and faraway Granada.

While the first act of “Let There Be Love” offers mostly laughs, the second switches into a touchstone of courage and forgiveness.

The climax of the play, which I felt was now and then a bit too pat, is astoundingly sentimental.

But it’s also astoundingly poignant, the very definition of moving.

Which explains why the hankies came out.

Including mine.

“Let There Be Love” plays at the American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco, through May 2. Night performances: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Matinees: 2 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $20 to $85. Information: 1-415-749-2228 or www.act-sf.org

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or check out his blog at www.vitalitypress.com

[Woody’s [rating: 1]

Mom’s body and world are in a race to see which will break down first.

Even her garage is collapsing.

But armed with Paul Bunyanesque tall tales of the American frontier, a ukulele and an endless supply of cockeyed optimism, she’s hell-bent on retaining her pioneer spirit.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.

Nor does the play in which she’s the main character — the Marin Theatre Company’s “The Way West,” which is meant to be a whimsical but serious look at how a Central Valley family of three copes with the Great Recession.

A lot within the production does work, I concede.

The three main actors — Anne Darragh as mom, Kathryn Zdan as her older daughter, Manda, and Rosie Hallett as the younger, Meesh — are first-rate.

Costuming, set and sound all provide ideal trappings, and director Hayley Finn succeeds in keeping the play hurrying toward its abrupt end.

But original songs by Sam Misner and Meghan Pearl Smith don’t add much beyond a copycat Woody Guthrie folky flavor of the Old West — even though the three principals passably strum and sing.

A terminally shallow script by award-winning playwright Mona Mansour is the main stumbling block.

It attempts to tackle serious topics of financial ruin and homelessness and familial relationships but glosses over them with exaggerated, clichéd situations and forced humor.

“The Way West” is the third play on which the MTC has bestowed its Sky Cooper New American Play Prize. First came Bill Cain’s “9 Circles,” which I called “multi-faceted” and “dazzling.” Next was “The Whale,” which I found “touching.”

I suppose that, as the platitude goes, two out of three ain’t bad.

In “The Way West,” a 62-year-old mother has filed for bankruptcy and isn’t doing well physically. Yet she still stares through rose-colored glasses and embellishes already hard to swallow western mythology.

And hopes her daughters will follow her lead.

The kids, however, also are screwed up — and in deep emotional and fiscal trouble.

Mandy has overextended her credit cards and endangered her job back East by overlooking an obscene typo. Meesh has run into a legal hassle peddling stuff online.

“I always try,” Mansour has been quoted as saying, “to be equal opportunity about how messed up the characters are.”

She does accomplish that in “The Way West.”

But messes up the play in the process.

To be fair, the opening night audience laughed often, and a good deal more than I did.

I found most of the humor juvenile — including dialogue that demanded intentional overacting, and including satirical, melodramatic signs that resembled silent movie title cards.

“We are all in this together — and it’s not good,” one proclaimed.

To me, the line might also apply to performers and audience.

Toward the climax of the play, which at times crosses the fine line between clever and insipid, one character says, “Talking creates hysteria.”

The playwright creates stylized onstage hysteria, however, by having her inventions talk incomprehensively over each other — and panic because of a living room fire.

Having just published a book, I fully recognize what tremendous effort and perseverance goes into completing any creative effort, so I’m hesitant to pan any artist — especially a writer.

Sometimes, though, benevolence must give way to conscientiousness.

This is one of those times.

“The Way West” plays at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through May 10. Night performances, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays; 7 p.m. Sundays; 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays. Matinees, 1 p.m. Thursdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $10 to $53. Information: (415) 388-5208 or marintheatre.org.

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or http://vitalitypress.com