Woody Weingarten

[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

[Woody’s [rating: 4]

When “Head of Passes” ended, a stunned audience forgot to clap for a few seconds.

[Woody’s [rating: 4.5]

I was afraid I wouldn’t like it.

I’ve been going to the de Young Museum’s “Bouquets to Art” for so many years I thought I might be too jaded.

I wasn’t.

What I’d forgotten was that not only is each year’s floral art exhibit different by its very nature, trends spawn even greater changes.

The first time — when my wife had to drag skeptical me there because I was pre-positive it would be neither art nor good — I was totally blown away by how outstanding, how unique, the floral arrangements were.

Oh, how those designs enhanced and enriched the museum’s permanent collection.

That year, as the several before when my wife had gone alone, displays consisted basically of flowers, flowers and more flowers.

And green leaves.

A gadzillion varieties of flora to simulate the paintings and sculptures in front of which they rested.

Not many non-living materials.

Not many foundations.

Not many structures.

But inch by inch, year by year, like osmosis, those elements slipped in.

So it shouldn’t have surprised me that his year’s four-day displays were more structural than ever.

It turns out that that wasn’t a bad thing at all. It just meant more elaborate designs.

More — and more elaborate — eye candy.

And visceral joy.

Such as the Hunter-Lee Flowers’ impression of Picasso’s “Still Life with Skull, Leeks and Pitcher.”

Or life imitating art as a Plumweed Floral and Event Design construction simulated “Lady in Black with Spanish Scarf” by Robert Henri.

The bigger and better designs weren’t limited to displays favoring intricacy or heavy foundations, though.

Consider, for instance, the enormous, chock-full-o’-color bouquet by floral artist Valerie Lee Ow, who was celebrating her 16th year as a participant in “Bouquets to Art.”

It sat in front of “Rhapsody” by Richard Mayhew and, in fact, seemed to overpower it.

Want something a bit whimsical yet still colorful? The answer could be found in a floral peacock created by Natasha’s Designs in front of “The Flora and Fauna of the Pacific” by Miguel Covarrubias.

All in all, the evolved, more complex displays somehow helped my wife and me enjoy the show more than ever.

We can’t wait for next year.

Top billing at the de Young, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive at John F. Kennedy Drive, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, now goes to the “Botticelli to Braque” exhibit, which displays masterpieces from the national galleries of Scotland through May 31, and “Richard Diebenkorn Prints,” which will run through Oct. 4. Information: 1-415-750-3504 or contact@famsf.org.

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

[Woody’s [rating: 4.5]

I first saw Alvin Ailey’s choreography when I lived in New York City in 1960.

That was two years after he’d founded his troupe, one year after I’d returned from post-undergrad stints in Mexico and Hollywood — a time for both of us to be experimenting with innovation.

I embarked on a lifelong career as a journalist. He pursued his dream of coupling traditional African-American culture with modern dance.

And he drew upon his memories of his Baptist church upbringing in Texas, integrating traditional spirituals, gospel and blues in his legendary work, “Revelations.”

Now, 55 years later, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s still performing that ballet, still celebrating spiritual exuberance.

When I saw the Cal Performances offering at Zellerbach Hall the other night, it was as captivating, as viscerally exciting as ever.

Maybe more so.

I couldn’t help notice it’s aged without a wrinkle.

Two other reprises were equally compelling — the percussive “Uprising,” by Israeli-born Hofesh Shechter and Vex’d, performed with surging testosterone by seven male dancers, and “After the Rain,” a pas de deux by Christopher Wheeldon that gracefully enhances music by Arvo Pärt.

“Suspended Women” by Jacqulyn Buglisi, danced to music by Ravel, seemed flimsy by comparison with the others — almost like watching 14 ballerinas twirling atop a music box.

“Uprising” was intensity incarnate.

It featured mock wrestling, macho slapping and punching, with guys appearing and disappearing into a shadowy mist.

Riveting.

I found it impossible to look away.

But “Revelations” was the most fun to watch.

The “Wade in the Water” sequence was exceptionally eye-catching, with all its costuming and props white except for one blue sheet-like material that seamlessly simulated waves.

Most rousing were the portions devoted to the familiar — “Sinner Man” and “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.”

The traveling troupe’s performances run only through April 26. But if you can make it, do.

In my book, it’s the best dance troupe extant.

A few folks must agree.

The multi-racial New York City-based company has performed before 25 million people in 48 states, 71 countries and on six continents.

Ailey created 79 ballets for the troupe but long wanted it to include works of others.

It has.

More than 235 pieces by more than 90 choreographers now help constitute a repertoire for the company, which after Ailey’s death in 1989 was helmed first by Judith Jamison and now Robert Battle.

Both would have made him proud.

Upcoming Cal Performances dance dates include “Cinderella,” by the Marlinsky Ballet and Orchestra, Oct. 1-4; and Twyla Tharp’s 50th anniversary tour, Oct. 16-18. Information: www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/ or (510) 642-9988.

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