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Sep 17 2013
Love0

‘Revolution’ asks whether right and wrong can flip-flop

By Woody Weingarten

Woody’s rating:3.5 (3.5/5 stars)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here she’s immensely likable.

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

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

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

“After the Revolution” has numerous positive attributes.

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

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

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

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

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

Herzog occasionally tries to sum up her thinking.

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

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

And my brain was but my heart wasn’t.

“After the Revolution” runs at the Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley, through Sept. 29. Night performances, Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Tuesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees, Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $16-$50. Information: (510) 843-4822 or www.auroratheatre.org.

Sep 16 2013
Love0

Chapter Two–A Semi-Autobiographical Play by Neil Simon at RVP

By Flora Lynn Isaacson

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 Kate Fox Marcom as Jennie Malone, Jennifer Reimer as Faye Medwick in Chapter Two at Ross Valley Players.  Photo by Robin Jackson

 Chapter Two is widely perceived to be an autobiographical revelation of Neil Simon coming to terms with the death of his first wife, followed by his love affair and subsequent marriage to Marsha Mason.  This poignant play is based around four brilliantly penned characters—George Schneider (David Shirk), a mourning writer; Jennie Malone (Kate Fox Marcom), a level headed actress; Leo Schneider (Johnny DeBernard), George’s talkative but loving brother; and Faye Medwick (Jennifer Reimer), Jennie’s utterly clueless but enchanting friend.

George has not “moved on” from the untimely death of his wife despite Leo’s best efforts to fix him up with other women.  Then he meets Jennie who’s just walked out of a terrible marriage to a football player, and in a very short span of time, they’re in love and get married.  But George’s memories catch up with him, and he soon finds himself trapped between the past and present, and their relationship starts to crumble.  How does George reconcile his past and move forward with Jennie—a sentimental woman with a strong head on her shoulders?  Do they give up or can they work things out?

Although it seems like a heavy subject to deal with, Simon’s wonderful narrative and witty dialog makes Chapter Two an immensely likeable play.  In George and Jennie, Simon shows both complexity and simplicity.  In Leo and Faye, Simon presents two confused, yet adorable characters.

The play is sensitively directed by James Nelson (who combines Simon’s frequent phone call dialog in order to show the parallel nature of Chapter Two) He creates an invisible line through the middle of the stage, so each character only exists in half of their former world.   When the two come together, they form one “whole.”  Nelson also added, in several occurrences of what he calls “moments alone”—short transitioning scenes where we simply get a glimpse of the two main characters alone in their own space. The time and place is winter/spring 1977, in the New York apartments of George and Jennie.  This remarkable set design is by Eugene deChristopher.

David Shirk and Kate Fox Marcom work well together digging deep for the panorama of emotions that Simon intended.  Jennifer Reimer milks the audience for laughs in a fun, supporting role.  Johnny DeBernard is perfectly cast as George’s brother Leo.

Be sure not to miss Chapter Two, the opening play of Ross Valley Players’ 2013/2014 season. Chapter Two runs September 13-October 13, 2013. Performances are Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; Friday-Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Barn Theatre, home of the Ross Valley Players—30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, CA.  To order tickets, call 415-456-9555, ext. 1 or visit www.rossvalleyplayers.com.

Coming up next at Ross Valley Players will be their RAW Festival of four plays with “Unintended Consequences” from October 18-27, 2013. This will be followed by Harvey by Mary Chase and directed by Robert Wilson, November 15-December 15, 2013.

Flora Lynn Isaacson


Sep 15 2013
Love0

NEW EMPLOYMENT IDEA FOR WOMEN OF A CERTAIN AGE

By Uncategorized

Sugar Grannies?

Older women are like French bread.
The crust is tough, but soft in the middle.
Lynn Ruth

Teaching is such a poorly paid profession that many young educators have joined a dating website called Sugar Babies.  This is a service that pairs young women with older men for “companionship.”  They charge an average of $3000 a visit. Personally, having gone out with several very old men myself, I think they are giving themselves away.  Do they realize what they are getting into?  Once they discover that chronic erectile dysfunction, loss of memory and incontinence are but the tip of the iceberg, they will realize that the current fee is cheap at the price.

It seems to me that there is a neglected market here.  Why can’t older women do the same in reverse?  I am all for creating a website for Sugar Grannies to offer their services to younger men.  The benefits are so obvious.  There isn’t a young man in the world who can figure out how to romance a partner properly on his own.  The only person who can teach him these days is his father….and you know how unlikely it is that a daddy has any technique.  The older a man is, the more his strategy was get ‘em drunk, give ‘em a roofie or pay for a quickie. By the time he is settled and locked into a relationship, he thinks the best way to get laid is to remember to take out the trash.

The truth is that every young Lothario needs an impartial coach, and what safer, better teacher than a woman of a certain age?  Think of the advantages: no worries about becoming an unexpected father; no inconvenient time of the month; no problem if she gets possessive…she’ll kick off in a year or two anyway.

Every woman knows that young men in their twenties make marvelous raw material for women like me.  Think of it!  A dowager can teach him patience; she can show him what foreplay really means; she can encourage him when he is done before she has begun.  Sadly by the time men hit thirty, they are no longer good candidates. They get locked into nasty habits like never bathing, smoking too much pot and wanking in the shower)

I believe a service like this could well become a necessary prerequisite for a relationship of any kind. Every woman should insist that her partner-to-be enroll in a 6-month training period with an older woman to learn the ropes of a romantic communication and mutual satisfaction.  A course like this is far more important than a prenuptial agreement.  The truth is, if you get a young man trained soon enough, you won’t need a pre-nupt agreement.  He will be properly housebroken and ready to love.  In short, with proper discipline and good reinforcement, an older woman can transform any little devil into a keeper.

And let’s not forget the advantages to the national economy.  Women over 70 will no longer need government assistance.  After all, $3000 a night can buy a lot of oatmeal and the AARP takes care of the rest.

 

Sep 15 2013
Love0

Mephistopheles — San Francisco Opera Performance Review

By Joe Cillo

Mephistopheles

San Francisco Opera Performance

September 14, 2013

 

 

The title of this opera is Mephistopheles.  Mephistopheles is supposed to be the Devil.   But this is not about Mephistopheles or the nature of evil.   Mephistopheles becomes little more than a tour guide in this opera.  It seems to be about Faust more than it is about anything, the aging scholar who trades his soul to the Devil.  But it is not clear what he traded it for or what either of them got in the bargain.  This opera is a series of disconnected, incomplete vignettes that do not form a coherent narrative or portray any characters with clarity, or depth.     

It is a mediocre work by a mediocre mind.  I don’t understand why they even staged this.   The person who wrote this, Arrigo Bioto, does not understand evil.  This opera reflects a typical religious ascetic mentality that associates evil with the body, sex, and especially women, who are the inspirers and the objects of lust.  It is a celebration of conservatism, pessimism, asceticism, and archaic religious nonsense.   This man is not a deep thinker, not insightful, has no interesting ideas or perspective, and no psychological sophistication.  I have an extremely low opinion of him as an intellect. 

I wouldn’t say a word against the performance, however.  The imaginative staging, the singers, the chorus, the dancers, the costumes, the lighting and sets, create a brilliant spectacle that saves this lumbering monstrosity from becoming a total quagmire.  Unfortunately, all of this splendid display is in the service of an insipid concept.  If you can just sit there and watch it for its visual brilliance, without thinking too much about what it means or asking yourself what it is all about, you might like it.  The nudity, the strip tease, the simulated sex, the dangling penises, are all interesting to watch.  If you don’t get much chance to see naked human bodies you might be titillated, but this lurid sensuality does not save the story line, and it is done with a lightheartedness that underlines the shallowness of the whole performance.  It is cartoonish.  These are caricatures rather than characters.  It is not interesting, and it becomes increasingly ridiculous and repulsive as it goes along. 

The ending is extremely confusing and idiotic.  Faust, after making a bargain to sell his soul to the Devil, ends up going to heaven.  Margherita, his lover, whose mother he poisons and whose child is drowned in the ocean is executed (ascetics always blame women for sexual misadventures and punish them severely).   Mephistopheles is just a footnote to all of this.  He is a kind of master of ceremonies, but is never a principal in the action. 

The nature of evil could be an interesting subject and the Devil could be a fascinating character for dramatic portrayal.   This opera does not do justice to either of these topics.  Someone should write a different opera on this subject.  This one should fall into deserved oblivion.  It is quite long and slow moving.  There are two long intermissions.  There is not enough substance to make it worth sitting through.  This art form needs an upgrade.    

Sep 14 2013
Love0

AROUSAL and THE LOVER

By Joe Cillo

AROUSAL and THE LOVER

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

What? Bohemians living in Alameda? And, Thespians? Right here in River City?

Alameda’s own Laura Lundy-Paine is currently starring in a double-header at the Phoenix Theatre on Mason Street in San Francisco.

MS Lundy-Paine, a first class actress, has formally studied acting at Pomona College and has classically trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

She has graced west coast stages from the Portland Shakespeare Festival, to the Oregon Stage Company, Stinson Shakespeare and our own Rhythmix Cultural Works.

Presently at the Phoenix, the accomplished MS Lundy-Paine shares the Klieg Lights with John Steen; they open with George Pfirrmann’s AROUSAL followed by Harold Pinter’s THE LOVER.

In AROUSAL MS Lundy-Paine plays the sintering Albena: an exotic therapist of sorts; she is severed from her native Ukraine and for a small fee, she is willing to help Clifford, via very unconventional therapies, to overcome the isolating social handicaps associated Asperger’s Syndrome.

Albena proves that you don’t have be handicapped, to have a handicap; a turbulent history in a ruthless, lawless, post-Soviet wasteland and a family swine circus is more than sufficient.

At the end of her rope—okay extension cord—Albena finds that a human connection, rather than on-line Scrabble, might provide her a reason to go on living.

In THE LOVER, Lundy-Paine ratchets up her intensity, nearly setting off the smoke alarm with sangfroid sensuality.

She plays Sarah: a married woman trying to infuse a ten-year marriage with the brio, élan and endocrinal rush that it had back in the early days.

Sarah and Richard, mired in the doldrums of middleclass suburban London, fantasize the way most people do, only they share their fantasies to spool up marital intimacies and save on their heating bills.

This is high-intensity theatre in an intimate setting; no one is more than three rows from the end of the stage; you can almost smell Albena’s rot-gut vodka and cheap perfume.

MS Lundy-Paine is a resident member of the award winning Virago Theatre; the company includes Robert Lundy-Paine and Eileen Meredith, also from Alameda.

For a tantalizing and provocative evening visit www.ViragoTheatre.ORG.

The Phoenix Theater is on the 6th floor of 414 Mason Street in San Francisc

Sep 13 2013
Love0

Random Acts of Love a “should see” at SF Fringe Festival

By Kedar K. Adour

RANDOM ACTS of LOVE: 3 Dark Comedies by Lee Brady. Directed by Scott Boswell. Company Players at the SF Fringe Festival. Exit Theatre on Eddy, EXIT Stage Left, 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco. Tickets online www.sffringe.org.  

SEPT 7th@1:00, 11th@7:00, 14th@7:30, 15th@4:00
Random Acts of Love a “should see” at SF Fringe Festival
Getting a play or performance piece into the 22nd San Francisco Fringe Festival is completely the luck of the draw. The submissions are not scrutinized in any manner and the result is a mélange, thus selection of what to see is daunting. Luckily for this years audiences local auteur (playwright, songwriter, actor and director) Lee Brady has had her submission Random Acts of Love selected.
Brady’s virtues as a playwright and songwriter are  on display and her selection of a director and actors are equally virtuous. These selections are essential since most of the productions use  minimal props on black box bare bone stages. Director Boswell is a film maker by trade and is adept at keeping a tight rein on the actors and the acting.
The total evening is only 50 minutes long but are diverse and tied together by failings of love. The curtain raiser, Sunday Lovers,  is without plot but a series of verbal vignettes with the five male actors sitting on high stools sharing their thoughts with the audience without reference to each other. Brady’s use of dialog allows each to be distinctive even as they inter cut each other. Boswell adroitly  keeps a sharp tempo and at the same time allows the audience to form a complete picture of the tribulations of each character. It is a bittersweet experience and true ensemble acting by Nathan Brown, Paul Gerrior,  George Duryea,  Austin Nation and Steve Johnson.
Next up is Too Old To Ride a musical interlude about a man and his bike sweetly performed by Tom Shaw with book in hand and an off stage piano accompaniment. San Francisco is probably the city most  populated bicycles. There is a “love affair” between the bicyclists and the city. That is not the only tie in with love. The poor performer sings that he has love problems in the mid west and hops on his bike to San Francisco. All does not go well but his love persists.
The final show is the darkest of the evening and uses violence and strong language to make its point. Although BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and Antioch exist in the Bay Area, Brady’s play is metaphorical with realistic touches to whet the appetite. The train will never reach Antioch , the ancient city on the Mediterranean, that was torn asunder by battles. Brady throws in the “battle” actors have auditioning for parts. But it is the love (again) of the stage that keeps the actor always striving. So it is with Actor (George Duryea) who thinks he has nailed a part. A macho man called Cowboy (Austin Nation) gets on the train with the oversexed Solange (Danielle O’Dea) and conflict arises as it usually does when there is one woman and two men.  The tension builds slowly and erupts in violence. O’Dea has choreographed the violence and one would hope the actors have medical insurance.
Random Acts of Love most probably one of the better to be “selected” for the Fringe. Try not to miss it. 

Kedar K. Adour, MD
Courtesy of  www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

Sep 12 2013
Love0

Visual aspects mar ‘One Night With Janis Joplin’

By Judy Richter

By Judy Richter

Colorful boas, tie dye and peace symbols are back in vogue as San Jose Repertory Theatre opens its new season with “One Night With Janis Joplin,” a tribute to the ’60s musical legend and the black women singers who influenced her.

Kacee Clanton as Joplin, joined by four other women singers and an eight-man band, sings an array of Joplin’s greatest hits. In addition, Tiffany Mann as the Blues Singer recreates Joplin’s inspirations such as Bessie Smith, Etta James, Nina Simone, Odetta and Aretha Franklin.

In between songs, Clanton’s Joplin talks about growing up in Port Arthur, Texas. Her mother, a big fan of Broadway musicals, would buy one cast album per week and play it so much that Joplin and her two siblings knew every song by heart. She also gave the three kids singing lessons.

Eventually Joplin made her way to San Francisco, where she sang with Big Brother and the Holding Company and other bands. She quickly became an icon of rock ‘n’ roll with her raw, passionate interpretations of her own and others’ songs. No one had ever sung quite the same way before, and no one has sung exactly that way since. However, Clanton does a great job in this demanding, high-energy role.

Likewise, Mann is terrific in songs like “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” which she sings by herself. She’s also joined by Clanton in other songs like “Spirit in the Dark” and “Little Girl Blue.”

They’re backed vocally by the three Joplinaires: Cari Hutson (the alternate for Joplin), Shinnerrie Jackson and Tricky Jones. The instrumentalists sometimes chime in vocally.

Created, written and directed by Randy Johnson, this show is opening simultaneously on Broadway with a different cast but the same director.

Rick Lombardo, San Jose Rep artistic director, announced on opening night that the show was proving to be the biggest seller in the company’s history, resulting in a week’s extension.

While the show has an abundance of gems forJoplin fans, it’s not content with highlighting the music. Instead it’s greatly overproduced, especially the lighting and projections. Matthew Webb’s lighting design often sends blindingly bright lights into the audience. Some of the almost nonstop projections by Colin Lowry are interesting, especially the psychedelic posters from the period and examples of Joplin’s artwork, but other images amount to visual overkill.

Cliff Simon’s workable set features stacks of the huge (though nonworking) amplifiers used in rock concerts. Bottles of Southern Comfort whiskey, which became a Joplin trademark, are placed around the stage, but the script makes scant mention of her excessive drinking. Nor does it touch on the drug usage that led to her untimely death in 1970 at the age of 27.

Steve Schoenbeck’s sound design is expectedly loud. Susan Branch Towne has designed some eye-catching costumes for the women.

Because the show is so visually overdone, it’s not as effective as the earlier “Love, Janis,” which played atSan Francisco’s Marines Memorial Theatre in 2006. Still, many people in San Jose’s opening night audience seemed to love the show, especially when it showcased hits like “Piece of My Heart,” “Down on Me,” “Me & Bobby McGee,” “Ball and Chain” and “Mercedes Benz”.

“One Night With Janis Joplin” will continue at San Jose Repertory Theatre, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose, through Oct. 6. For tickets and information, call (408) 367-7255 or visit www.sjrep.com.

 

Sep 11 2013
Love0

ELLA, The Musical is backed up by a top-notch jazz quartet

By Kedar K. Adour

Yvette Cason* with Kelly Park, Mark Wright, Joe McKinley and Mark Lee  in Ella the Musical at Center Rep (Photo by Kevin Burn)

Ella, the Musical. Book by Jeffrey Hatcher. Conceived by Rob Ruggiero & Dyke Garrison. Musical Arrangements by Danny Holgate. Directed by Robert Barry Fleming. Starring Yvette Cason. Center REPertory Company, 1601 Civic Drive in downtown Walnut Creek. 925.943.SHOW (7469).  Or www.centerrep.org.

Through October 12, 2013

ELLA, The Musical is backed up by a top-notch jazz quartet

The PR notes suggest “. . . this swinging celebration is a must-see dazzling musical event for anyone who wants to fall in love with the magic and soul of Ella Fitzgerald all over again.” There is no suggestion for those of us who are not familiar with nor were in love with Ella and her music. This reviewer is one of the latter and is unable to comment on the ability of Yvette Carson to emulate Ella “The Queen of Jazz, the first Lady of Song.”

The show, under previous sponsorship has been around for about ten years with various revisions along the way. Center Rep’s version has a book by a talented triumvirate and is backed up by a jazz quartet of Mark Lee (Drummer), Joe McKinley (Bassist), Kelly Park (The Piano) and Mark Wright (Trumpet). They are by far the best of the evening even though their stints as actors taking part in the storyline will not earn them Equity Status,

The time and place is 1966 in a Concert Hall in Nice, France.  Ella’s manager Norman Granz (Cassidy Brown in the underwritten part) suggests that jazz is passé, “scat” is in and she needs to add patter to her routine. She insists to that she doesn’t do patter but the remainder of the show is patter about her life interspersed with song. Some of those songs are the best of best written in her era by Duke Ellington, Hoagie Carmichael, George and Ira Gershwin, Benny Goodman, Johnny Mercer, George Shearing and Gus Kahn. An audience favorite is one written by Ella with Van Alexander, “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” (I lost my yellow basket) that became her signature song.

Born in dire surroundings she ended up at the age of 17 living alone on the streets of New York. This was 1934 when she entered and won an Apollo theater amateur contest singing “Judy” (Hoagie Carmichael) and caught the attention of band leader  Chuck Webb. They end up playing in Harlem hot spots. When Webb died she took on the management of the band and hooked up with Norman Granz and the rest is history. She became the Queen of Jazz and on Granz’s suggestion added “scat” to her style.

According to Wikipedia “In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.” Ella Fitzgerald is considered to be the greatest scat singers in jazz history.

Yvette Carson as Ella

Without making any comparison to the great Ella Fitzgerald, Yvette Carson has an expressive voice and to this untrained ear is a marvel at singing scat. One of best comes late in the evening with a smash rendition of “That Old Back Magic.” She has a fun duet with The Man (Anthony-Rollins Mullins) imitating Louis Armstrong with “Cheek to Cheek” (Irving Berlin) and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” (George and Ira Gershwin).

For the second act she comes out dressed in a fancy sequined dress and the band in tuxedos to add a bit of class to the evening that has down moments when her patter involves dramatic and depressing periods in Ella’s life. Everything ends on a up note with six smash songs including: My Buddy (Gus Kahn and Walter Donaldson), A-Tisket, A-Tasket, (Ella Fitzgerald and Van Alexander), The Man I Love, (George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin), Something To Live For (Edward Kennedy Ellington and Billy Strayhorn), Blue Skies (Irving Berlin) and How High The Moon (Nancy Hamilton and Morgan Lewis). 

At the curtain number of “Lady Be Good” (George and Ira Gershwin) the joint was rocking as Yvette Carson and the on-stage quartet received a partial standing ovation. Running time 2 hours and 20 minutes including the intermission.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

Yvette Cason* with Kelly Park, Mark Wright, Joe McKinley and Mark Lee

Sep 09 2013
Love0

THE PAVILION at Cinnabar is an audience pleaser.

By Kedar K. Adour

Jeff Cote as The Narrator (others) and Sami Granberg as Kari on the set of The Pavilion playing at the Cinnabar Theatre in Petaluma. All photos by Eric Chazankin

THE PAVILION:Romantic Comedy. Written by Craig Wright and directed by Tara Blau. Cinnabar Theatre, 3333 Petaluma Blvd North, Petaluma, CA 94952. 707-763-8920 or www.cinnabartheater.org.     September 6-22, 2013

THE PAVILION at Cinnabar is an audience pleaser.

For the opening of their 41st Season Cinnabar Theatre has resurrected a play written in 2000 and produced in community theatres around the country before making it to Off-Off Broadway at the Rattlestick Theatre in 2005. It now graces the stage at Cinnabar in Petaluma where an appreciative audience gave it a partial standing ovation.

Opening nights at Cinnabar often receive standing ovations since they have a very loyal following who appreciate the professional productions. So it is with The Pavilion where a cast of three keeps the audience amused for the better part of two hours including an intermission. It is well worth a visit to see this particular show and plan to see the remainder of the 2013-2014 season. Upcoming are La Cage aux Folles, Jacques Berl is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, Of Mice and Men and The Marriage of Figaro.

Because Author Wright uses a narrator (Jeff Cote) and the action takes place in a small town where everyone knows everyone else the play has been described as a modern day Our Town.  That is insufficient to justify it as such since the narrator is also a metaphysical conjuror who creates the universe ‘drop by drop’ and morphs into multiple inhabitants whereas Thornton Wilder’s Stage Manager only comments on the lives of the characters.  Time and its inevitability is a major theme of the play. There is more than a touch of pretention as we are inundated with ancient Greek philosophy of Diogenes (There is nothing permanent except change) and Heraclitus (Change is central to the universe. You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.).

With that observation out of the way one can appreciate the story line and the acting.  The local is the mythical Pine City, Minnesota where the 20th High School reunion is taking place in the venerable rundown Pavilion that will be razed by fire allowing the local fire department to hone their abilities. 

Twenty years ago Peter (Nathan Cummings) and Kari (Sami Granberg) were High School lovers. When Kari became pregnant Peter abandoned her going off to college. We learn that Kari has had an abortion and later married unhappily a financially secure local man. Peter who is a successful psychologists with a checkered past of failed relationships arrives for the reunion hoping for forgiveness and rekindling of their romance.  He has written a song specifically for Kari that he hope will due the trick. He most likely he is unaware of the truism of Thomas Wolff’ s first and last novels, “Look Homeward Angel” and “You  Can’t Go Home Again.”

Kari (Sami Granberger) rejects Peter’s (Nathan Cummings) request for forgiveness.

Kari’s initial reactions are predictable and volatile. Beautiful Sami Granberg’s adroit shift of personalities from the angry personae to possible forgiveness smacks of reality. This after she receives advice from her former classmates such as “In two words: Never Forgive!” Peter’s gentle persistence and Kari’s weakening under the influence of champagne (in vino veritas?) seems contrived but maybe it was the prophetic shooting stars influencing the universe.

The narrator Jeff Cote dominates the entire first act with his ingenious, facial movements, body language and voice patterns becoming a myriad of local denizens both male and female as they interact with Kari, Peter and the audience. The second act belongs to Kari and Peter with rather saccharine dialog becoming a bit maudlin but seemingly appropriate since it is an unresolved love story.

Nathan Cummings adroitly underplays his role as Peter and has his turn upon the stage when he frantically and unsuccessfully attempts to set back time using the identical words used by the narrator in the opening scenes. He has an excellent singing voice for the charming original song “Down in the Ruined World.”

Recommendations: Well worth seeing. Make an evening of it with dinner in historic Down Town Petaluma at Cucina Paradiso a short distance from the theatre.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

Sep 08 2013
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SF Shakespeare in the Park: MacBeth’s Nightmare in Broad Daylight

By David Hirzel

Picture this: The dark and bloody secrets of Shakespeare’s MacBeth, played out on SF Shakes’ black and bloody mobile stage (as mobile as the trees of Birnam Wood), on a brilliant sunny day on the green lawn of the Presidio’s Parade Ground. It takes some impassioned acting to make this nightmarish tragedy come to life. Emily Jordan’s (Lady MacBeth) and Michael Ray Wisely (MacBeth) pull it off.

The play is built upon the descent these two main characters into the deep well of guilt from which there is no escape. The other characters, well played , provide the scaffolding on which the plot is built: the wars of the Scottish thanes, the eerie prophecies of the three witches MacBeth’s murder of the old king Duncan, his betrayal and murder of Banquo. One horror builds on another, at Lady MacBeth’s instigation as she browbeats her weaker husband into fulfilling her own lust for power.

Jordan’s performance is really quite remarkable. She paces the stage, enticing the audience (seated on the sunny lawn) into her own peculiar world-view, how the murder of the old king is just and necessary. Once we are convinced, she wheedles and cajoles her spineless husband until he breaks and does the dreadful deed. From the moment he emerges with bloodstained hands, the three witches watching silently from above, the stage is ever more awash. Ghosts walk among them, and among us.

She is very well matched by Michael Ray Wisely’s powerful performance as the warlord MacBeth, who gradually comes to realize that it is his wife who has betrayed him into this meaningless act of violence, and the ever-deepening pit into which it has led him. Most of the blood is shed offstage, but the (simulated) murder of an infant on the stage in front of us made me shudder and jump.

These two powerful characters rely on the yeoman performances of the rest of the cast, to flesh out the rest of the story, and to give meaning to it all. The stage is simple and spare, black and red, with sliding doors that open and close like the gates to a prison. A fleet of plain black chairs make banquet halls and bedrooms. To the right, a forest of blood-red columns hint at forests and dungeons.

The tragedy, and the nightmare, bloom in the tortured minds of the Lord and Lady, but they will stay with you a long time.   Free outdoor performances, through September 22, now at Presidio Main Post and last performances at McLaren Park (see SF Shakespeare website for details)

Website:  SF Shakes MacBeth

Telephone:  (415) 558-0888

David Hirzel’s Website:  www.davidhirzel.net