Woody’s [rating: 5]

Stuart Ward and Dani de Waal share a tender moment in “Once.” Photo by Joan Marcus.

The multi-talented “Once” ensemble sings, dances, plays instruments and acts. Photo by Joan Marcus.

When it comes to theater and films, I differ from most critics: I embrace sentimentality and romance.

And I cry a lot.

It figures, then, that I loved the 2006 film “Once.” I thought it was sweet.

And sensitive.

Now I’ve fallen in love with a new staged adaptation at the SHN Curran Theatre in San Francisco.

It re-defines what a staged musical can be.

It’s not for those who want leggy chorus girls in skimpy, glitzy costumes; choreography that finds fresh but often maddening ways for bodies to move; huge props flying overhead; or light shows that make strobes feel a thousand years old.

But it is for anyone who wants to taste the potential depths — and heights — of the human condition.

Like me.

Both bittersweet film and play concern a romance in modern day Dublin that can’t quite be actualized, a situation many in the youngish opening night audience related to — to the degree they gave “Once” a standing ovation.

Stuart Ward and Dani de Waal head a multi-talented ensemble that sings, moves rhythmically and collectively plays guitar, fiddle, accordion, cello, mandolin, banjo, piano and cajon (a box-shaped percussion instrument).

Its 10 members also portray a pack of colorful secondary characters.

Those include a laugh-evoking shopkeeper, a dorky loser drooling over a hoped-for promotion, a banker who vocalizes atrociously, a sleazy woman with proverbial heart of gold.

Ward and de Waal portray un-named characters in limbo, the guy a disheartened singer-songwriter whose day job is repairing vacuum cleaners, the girl a separated young mother struggling to cobble together a life with her mom and daughter.

Both protagonists want to heal and move forward past unsatisfying relationships.

By linking musically, they help each other get un-stuck.

While unearthing quashed emotions.

Songs range from the familiarity strains of Irish pub and folk tunes to the angry complexities of “Leave” and the simple, plaintive melodies of “When Your Mind’s Made Up,” “Gold,” and the Oscar-winning “Falling Slowly.”

“Once” won eight 2012 Tony’s, including best musical. It’s easy to see why.

Even though it takes a minute or two to get used to the accents — the guy’s Irish, the girl’s Czech. Even though it’s much less subtle than the movie (in which the star-crossed duo never overtly discusses their relationship).

The musical, in contrast, has tons more verbal and physical humor.

And every bit as much tenderness.

Such as when the girl tells the guy in Czech she loves him, but when he asks what she said, she retreats and translates it as, “It looks like rain.”

“Once” also utilizes the gimmick of letting the crowd onstage, pre-show and during intermission, to inspect the antique-mirrored, semi-circle, bi-level set by Bob Crowley — replete with cash bar selling booze, wine, beer, water.

The show also features beguiling slo-mo movements (I hesitate to call them choreography) created by Steven Hoggett.

And innovative touches such as projected supertitles in Czech; fast-paced, unpretentious direction by John Tiffany; spot-on costumes by Crowley; and lighting by Natasha Katz that helped me effortlessly switch moods.

“Once,” of course, merges the talents of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, whose original songs from the film are replicated, and Enda Walsh, who wrote the musical’s book — two elements that caused one theatergoer to exclaim as she was exiting: “It’s a breath of fresh Irish air.”

Halfway through the second act, my tears started to flow — and didn’t stop until after the final scene.

That duplicated my reaction to the film.

I seem to favor entertainment that makes me laugh and cry.

So I adored “Once” on film. And now the touring company has allowed me to love “Once” once again.

“Once” will play at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St. (between Mason and Taylor), San Francisco, through July 13. Night performances Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $45 to $210 (subject to change). Information:(888) 746-1799 or shnsf.com.

Woody’s [rating: 5]

Stand-up comedian Will Durst, not exactly standing up.

Clownish Geoff Hoyle created an ingenious one-man show, “Geezer.” It featured multiple characters and a storyline.

Will Durst apparently doesn’t need either.

His uproarious 85-minute monologue, “BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG,” is all about him and his aging process.

Artfully skewed.

As stand-ups love to say, he killed.

The gray-haired, gray-goateed comic in gray suit and white sneakers was so hysterically funny recently that half a dozen folks in front of me often doubled up with laughter and nearly fell off their seats in Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater.

As a baby boomer, the 62-year-old confesses, life once was filled with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll — “now, naps.”

Folks his age are still doing drugs, he says, “only now there’s a co-pay.”

And urinating three times a night, he informs his audience, is “highly effective for home security.”

Durst’s rapid-fire delivery meant that if one joke didn’t get me to laugh aloud, I had only to wait a second or two and the next undoubtedly would.

His rolling eyes, ersatz pained pauses and intentionally sloppy use of an ancient overhead projector all added to my pleasure.

I can’t remember being more amused by anything in years.

My stomach ached from laughing.

If you’re aching for a similar experience, you’ll  have to wait a while. But you can catch him, for at least a few minutes, on Sept. 14 in Golden Gate Park — where he’s been for the previous 33 years (the only performer to walk softly and carry a big shtick in every one of the annual Comedy Day events there).

Durst, most familiar for his political satire, couldn’t have known it but he, himself, had primed me for his Cinnabar show.

I’ve been a picnicking regular for two decades at the Comedy Day events that have drawn such names as Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Ellen DeGeneres, Dana Carvey, Paula Poundstone and Margaret Cho. And although I laughed at each of them, I never admired anyone more than Durst, whose political insights have been rightfully compared to Will Rogers and Mort Sahl.

As if to keep me in thrall, before dealing in “BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG” with the daily technological hells we all face these days, Durst slyly injected a soupçon of politics by exposing presidential candidates as Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Yet all of it, in a sense, might be considered just a preamble to his unique vision of The Meaning of Life, a seriocomic subtext on pulling the plug.

Durst, an always-dependable master of sarcasm and sardonic one-liners, is hardly a one-trick pony. A five-time Emmy nominee, he claims PBS fired him thrice. But he still writes a syndicated newspaper column, does broadcast commentaries and weekly podcasts, and has written three books.

His radio commercials about creating state jobs have become ubiquitous.

So has he.

He’s been on TV 800 times.

One of his previous one-man shows, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” ran for a while off-Broadway.

And he still regularly produces “The Will Durst Journal” online, under the rubric “Comedy for people who read or know someone who does.”

His heroes, he insists, remain the same as when he was 12 — Thomas Jefferson and Bugs Bunny.

In a moment of pure weakness, the acerbic Durst revealed his hobbies include pinball, a lifelong passion of my own. Oh My God, could that be the underlying reason I’ve liked him so much?

Upcoming one-man shows at Cinnabar, 3333 Petaluma Blvd. N., right off Hwy. 101, include a revival of “Wretch Like Me,” David Templeton’s coming-of-age tale July 25 and 26, and “I Am My Own Wife,” with Steven Abbott playing 40 roles Feb. 6-15. Information: (707) 763-8920 or cinnabartheater.org.

 Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

“Mound of Butter,” oil on canvas by Antoine Vollon, is part of the Legion of Honor’s “Intimate Impressionism” exhibit. Photo, courtesy National Gallery of Art.

George Seurat’s oil on panel, “Seascape (Gravelines),” is a prime example of the technique he labeled Pointillism. Photo, courtesy National Gallery of Art.

“The Artist’s Sister at a Window” is a Berthe Morisot oil on canvas. Photo, courtesy National Gallery of Art.

Artistically speaking, does “small” translate into “intimate”?

In the case of “Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art,” the current show at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor, the answer is a definite “probably.”

All in all, the 21 artists on display created the 68 paintings, mainly oils on canvas, not for exhibit or salons but for drawing rooms or to share with friends and relatives.

The title is mildly misleading, however.

The 19th century artworks (which range from a tiny 5×7 — that’s inches, not feet — to about 24×29) represent pre- and post-Impressionist artists as well as the eight mainstream Impressionists.

All the usual suspects are paraded — among them Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet (the most prolific, yet under-represented in the Legion show), and Édouard Manet (though he’d appeared in none of the famed original Impressionist exhibits in France).

The pieces that most drew my attention, however, were done by others — Antoine Vallon’s “Mound of Butter,” George Seurat’s “Seascape (Gravelines)” and Berthe Morisot’s “The Artist’s Sister at a Window.”

I found Vallon’s painting exceptionally fascinating.

Oddly, I loved his oh-so-yellow dairy product and the knife swathed in it, his delicate see-through cheesecloth and the accompanying two oh-so-white companion eggs, but couldn’t bring myself to like the gestalt.

Seurat’s Pointillism has always been one of my favorite genres, so this 1890 oil on a panel made my color-ometer jump off the scale.

And Morisot’s fixed-figure study caught my attention simply because women were virtual pariahs in the Parisian movement, a direct reflection of the tenor of the times.

Individual Legion rooms were devoted to Renoir, Jean-Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard (the latter two being studio-mate post-impressionist Nabis, a group of artistic rebels).

Each contained material I’d call must-see’s.

Check out, for instance, Renoir’s wistful “Young Woman Braiding Her Hair” and, nearby, his “Woman with a Cat,” both sensual, both typical in regard to the artist’s palate and palette. And his flora spectacle, “Picking Flowers,” and his “Portrait of Claude Monet.”

Also, Vuillard’s “Child Wearing a Red Scarf,” an oil on cardboard, as well as several of his works with faceless figures disappearing into the canvas.

And Bonnard’s “The Yellow Curtain,” in which a woman pulls it back to find — well, your guess is as good as anyone’s.

Other items worth viewing include Degas’ “Horses in a Meadow,” a far cry from the more familiar images of “Dancers Backstage,” ensconced later in the exhibit; Eugene Boudin’s “Yacht Basin at Trouville-Deauville,” a colorful oil on wood depicting a multitude of flags that garnish sailboats; Paul Gauguin’s “Self-Portrait Dedicated to [the writer Eugène] Carrière,” Cézanne’s “The Battle of Love,” a Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1885 oil on wood (“Carmen Gaudin”), Vincent van Gogh’s “Flower Beds in Holland” (a rarely seen work with a gloomy background that contrasts sharply with the bright colors he’s known for); and a striking Manet still life, “Oysters.”

Regrettably, much of the exhibit, which is on tour while the National Gallery revamps its D.C. facility, is over-framed with mega-ornate woods.

And that adds to my overall impression that ”Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art” doesn’t compare well with last summer’s “Impressionists on the Water” at the Legion — or, for that matter, with previous impressionist exhibits at both the Legion and the de Young.

Still it contains sufficient exceptional material to more than enough merit a trip to the museum.

“Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art” will be shown through Aug. 3 at the Legion of Honor, 100 34th Ave. (at Clement St.), San Francisco, in Lincoln Park. Closed Mondays. Tickets are free for members and children 5 and under, $11 to $24 non-members. Information: (415) 750-3600 or contact@famsf.org.

 Woody’s [rating:3.5]

Morris Robinson (Joe) sings “Ol’ Man River,” with chorus behind him, in “Show Boat.” Photo: ©Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera.

Among 14 principals in “Show Boat” are (from left, foreground) Kirsten Wyatt (Ellie Mae Chipley), John Bolton (Frank Schultz), Bill Irwin (Cap’n Andy), Patricia Racette (Julie La Verne) and Patrick Cummings (Steve Baker). Photo: ©Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera.

Soprano Heidi Stober (Magnolia Hawks) and baritone Michael Todd Simpson (Gaylord Ravenal) find love in “Show Boat.” Photo: ©Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera.

As a young buck, I’d often catch performances at the New York City Opera or the Met.

Embarrassing to admit, my tastes ran to the ultra-popular.

I’d see “Carmen,” “Figaro,” “Madama Butterfly” and “Rigoletto” and the like — again and again.

And if someone hinted I substitute part of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, or experimental compositions such as Alban Berg’s “Lulu” or Dimitri Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of the Misensk District,” I’d recoil.

Then, a budding love of jazz replaced opera in my entertainment life.

Almost entirely.

But seeing “Show Boat,” the new, panoramic San Francisco Opera production, makes me want to re-think my predilections.

And even venture beyond opera’s Top 10.

“Show Boat” certainly isn’t opera — and not truly an operetta either.

But it compares favorably with many of both when discussing spectacle, especially considering Paul Tazewell’s multi-hued costuming and Peter Davison’s resourcefully mobile sets.

And the musical’s 60-plus performers.

Happily, no one bumps into anyone else — unlike an opera I saw not long ago in Vienna, where the stage was so crowded by supernumeraries none could move.

To me, the most satisfying takeaway from “Show Boat” is the historical perspective it offers.

Followed by Bill Irwin’s antics.

The musical about life on the Mississippi had expanded theatrical parameters in its 1927 debut by introducing seriousness to Broadway houses that were previously rife with Ziegfeld’s “Follies” and similar girlie shows, implausible operettas or thoughtless musical comedies.

It may seem tame today, but “Show Boat” also confronted racism and miscegenation then by injecting an interracial love story.

Merely providing a storyline, in fact, broke new ground.

As for Irwin, the Tony Award-winner plays Andy Hawks, the floating theater’s captain, and steals every scene he’s in by stretching his rubber-ish body in ways that ensure all audience eyes stay on him.

This marks Irwin’s second San Francisco Opera appearance. His first was in “Turandot” as an acrobatic, when he was with the Pickle Family Circus.

Two more comic “Show Boat” sensations are Kirsten Wyatt as Ellie Mae Chipley and Harriet Harris as Parthy Ann Hawks.

Wyatt uses her squeaky voice as a laugh-inducing tool, much like the one Kristin Chenoweth rode to fame in “Wicked,” and Harris utilizes a gruff persona not unlike that of Bebe, the agent-manager she played on TV’s “Frasier.”

Some of Jerome Kern’s old-timey music (and Oscar Hammerstein II’s lyrics) may be as familiar as modern-day hits by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Tunes such as “Ol’ Man River,” “Can’t Help Loving’ Dat Man” and “Make Believe.” Others (“Hey, Feller” and “Dance Away the Night,” for instance), I don’t remember hearing before — despite seeing the show in New York years ago.

“Ol’ Man River,” of course, is a tune nearly everyone walks out singing, humming or whistling.

Few know it became Kern’s good luck charm. He purportedly played it each time he left for a trip.

And again when he returned.

Few also know Hammerstein’s wife claimed it was “my husband who wrote ‘Ol’ Man River.’ Jerry Kern only wrote dum-di-dah-dah, di-dum-di-dah-dah.”

At the revival’s opening, several white-haired theatergoers equated Morris Robinson’s show-stopping “Ol’ Man River” to those of James Earl Jones and Paul Robeson.

More strong voices?

Check out the soprano tones of Heidi Stober as Magnolia Hawks, and baritone Michael Todd Simpson as her suitor, Gaylord Revenal.

Musical director John DeMain blends everything as smoothly as a perfect gimlet.

But let’s not ignore the dancing in “Show Boat,” a co-production with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera and Houston Grand Opera.

It’s dazzling.

Choreography by Michele Lynch shrewdly melds old hat with a touch of modernity.

David Gockley, company general director (who previously staged “Show Boat” in 1982 and again in 1989 with the Houston company), says the new production is “the way the creators conceived” it. While director Francesca Zambello notes the original show employed a black and white chorus in an era when black cast members couldn’t even have their own families in the audience.

“Show Boat,” remember, trail-blazed the way for George and Ira Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” — and countless other musical works.

In a sense, though, it’s like a treasured 1927 photo album brought to life.

“Show Boat,” which runs in repertory with “La Traviata” and “Madama Butterfly,” will play at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave. (at Grove Street), San Francisco, through July 2. Tickets: $24 to $379 (subject to change). Information: www.sfopera.com or 864-3330.

Woody’s [rating:2.5]

Three sisters — from left, Jenny June (Liz Sklar), Gertrude (Megan Smith) and Nelly (Kathryn Zdan) — display temporary happiness in “Failure: A Love Story,” accompanied by Brian Herndon on trombone and Patrick Kelly Jones on snare drum. Photo: Kevin Berne.

Brian Herndon (right) and Patrick Kelly Jones, with musical accompaniment from Megan Smith, end a song and dance number in “Failure: A Love Story.” Photo: Kevin Berne.0

My main takeaway from “Failure: A Love Story” is that the Grim Reaper doesn’t always have to be grim.

He can, if re-imagined, almost be the life of the party.

Philip Dawkin’s curious tragicomedy, as inventively stylized by director Jasson Minadakis at the Marin Theatre Company with a hefty overlay of music, flourishes in numerous ways.

But it trips over its own ingenuity in others.

All five actors are outstanding. Costumes by Jacqueline Firkins are sunny and upbeat.  The clock- and instrument-packed art deco set by scenic designer Nina Ball, though cluttered, has a lot of eye appeal. And the lighting effects are effective.

But the play itself, with third-person narratives that are staggeringly verbose, is too cutesy.

Besides, I believe, it tries too hard.

We’re told early on, and then again and again and again in a feeble swing at humor, that the three perky Fail sisters die after a blunt object to the head, a watery disappearance and consumption “in that order.”

But death can’t stop any of them from first finding love — in the form of one guy, an investor in stocks who also invests in women.

Mortimer Mortimer (played charmingly by Brian Herndon) initially falls for Nelly (a bouncy Kathryn Zdan), but ends up as a hand-me-down serial suitor for both Jenny June (a buoyant Liz Sklar) and Gertrude (Megan Pearl Smith as a held back mother hen).

Mort (an undisguised reference to death) also befriends their adopted brother, John N. (an appropriately cheerless Patrick Kelly Jones), found as a baby floating down the river in a basket.

As John N. matures, he clings to critters rather than humans, making friends of the snake, which has evolved into a huge, spitting boa constructor called Moses; a dog, Pal; and two green parakeets — all puppets.

Death thrives.

And is almost as ubiquitous as the play’s bad puns, especially about time, as the sisters keep their parents’ clock shop functioning.

Not only do all three girls expire, following the accidental demise of mom and dad, but a couple of animals perish as well.

And then there’s a stillborn baby.

Sad?

Not really, at least not until the end of the 1928 Chicago-centric play is nigh.

Dawkins and Minadakis conspire to use Jazz Age music to ward off any heavy audience gloom-and-doom sensations.

Unfortunately, the MTC distancing gambit works too well.

Upon learning in advance that the sisters die, I became protectively distanced from them. And my difficulty in relating was amped up, later, by Mort’s being unable to touch either Jenny June or Gertie physically.

“Failure,” I found, also was burdened, beneath a glitzy exterior, with philosophical tenets never fully resolved. Like one character declaring that just because something ends, that “doesn’t mean it ain’t a great success.”

Dawkins gives directors free rein on staging the show.

A good idea?

Well, Minadakis commissioned original songs by musical director Chris Houston that supplemented standards like “In the Good Old Summertime,” “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” “Lover, Come Back to Me” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.”

Those musical reproductions should have fit exquisitely. But the players were sometimes melodically challenged.

Their voices and instruments — which include mandolin, piano, bass, guitar, violin, flute and horn from a Gramophone — were sometimes off key, sometimes flat, sometimes sharp.

But my favorite moment came when Herndon, then enamored with Jenny June, who yearned to swim across Lake Michigan, comically vocalizes his jealously of her idol, Johnny Weissmuller, an Olympic swimming champ.

Including Weissmuller’s throaty Tarzan movie yell.

Marinites who are chauvinists will relish the fact that three of the five actors are Marin natives — Jones hails from Larkspur, Sklar claims both Kentfield and Lucas Valley as home base, and Zdan is from Mill Valley.

Each person involved in “Failure” (behind-the-scenes folks, cast and crew) must be given credit for offering something fresh to an audience willing to take a chance.

Though the show falls short of wonderful, its peek at time travel and mollifying death is praiseworthy.

Flawed, yes; failure, no.

“Failure: A Love Story” plays at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through June 29. Tickets: $20 to $58. Information: (415) 388-5208 or www.marintheatre.org.