Jorge Puerta Armenta in Wiesenland. Photo © Laszlo Szito
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Wiesenland. Photo © Detlef Erler.
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Julie Shanahan and Michael Strecker in Wiesenland. Photo © Bettina Stob.
In “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety,” the champ (Beethovan Oden, center) confronts VP (Nasser Khan) as The Mace (Tony Sancho) looks on. Photo by David Allen.
I’m surprised that, considering their enormous popularity, Spiderman, Batman, Wolverine and other trademarked superheroes don’t show up in professional wrestling circles.
Those figures apparently are confined, principally, to comic books and screen adaptations.
So wrestling buffs have to settle for the more mundane likes of John Cena or past heavyweights like Gorgeous George, Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Steve Austin or Andre the Giant.
Such mental meanderings lead me to Kristoffer Diaz’s “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” one of the season’s worst titles but most amusing plays.
The serio-comic satire, proficiently directed by Jon Tracy, is unique.
The Aurora Theatre Company stage in Berkeley has been transformed into a wrestling ring by set designer Nina Ball and the actors mutated into what one correctly refers to as “caricatures in a world of cartoons.”
To ensure a frenzied atmosphere, the audience is urged during a pre-play warm-up to shout out the characters’ hyperbolic names, boo the villains, cheer the good guys, and perforate the air with outstretched fingers.
The crowd spiritedly follows instructions, lending an exciting interactive quality to the production.
The only thing missing, according to my archaic recall of a live match in New Jersey, would be a cloud of cigar smoke hovering over the ring.
Because the Aurora is small, the faux wrestlers often thrust themselves in your face.
More distant are twin screens in the rear. They playfully project a variety of images, including deliberately awkward and de-sexed go-go dancing by Elizabeth Cadd.
As well as two wonderful sequences that Photoshop real-life heroes Abe Lincoln and Martin Luther King into shots of the flamboyant champ, Chad Diety, and villains like Stalin and Darth Vader with the contender, VP, who changes into a Muslim-terrorist type, The Fundamentalist, who can annihilate foes with a mysterious kick dubbed “The Sleeper Cell.”
You need know nothing about wrestling or its Pay-Per-View paydays to enjoy the ridicule.
That’s because the protagonist, The Mace, a journeyman Puerto Rican wrestler from the Bronx who’s forever cast as a loser, provides all the necessary background.
He intertwines fact, fiction, labor-versus-management feelings, metaphor, social consciousness, seriousness and humor in his narration. At the same time, he deals with characters wrestling with their identities as men, as ethnics, as Americans, as wage slaves.
His is a fast-talking monologue that ties together action scenes as professionally as a doc might stitch a wrestler’s wounds.
Actual wrestling-mat moments, by the way, are chiefly limited to the second act of the two-hour play, which make it pass more swiftly than the first.
Nasser Khan is exceptional as VP (or Vigneshwar Paduar), an anti-stereotype character who speaks six languages, does one-arm push-ups and performs rap.
And Beethovan Oden stands out as Chad, a charismatic giant whose strut replicates actual “champions” of the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE instead of WWF).
Tony Sancho, who portrays Macedonio Guerra (or The Mace), also does well, considering he has about a zillion words to deliver. His speeches thankfully are leavened with bright asides to the audience and countless sardonic one-liners (“It is teamwork even if I’m the only one on the team doing the work”).
If I closed my eyes, I could visualize the WWF’s Vince McMahon via Rod Gnapp’s portrayal of THE league owner and chief conniver, Everett K. Olson, who at one juncture reclines effortlessly on one rope of the ring.
Finally, Dave Maier skillfully rounds out the cast — in multiple roles, including a lithe descent from the ceiling.
Sometimes “The Elaborate Entrance” message is a bit heavy-handed, such as the dollar sign displayed on Chad’s hindquarters. And sometimes it borders on the offensive, as when it derides pro wrestling’s racist and xenophobic attitudes via over-the-top costuming by Maggie Whitaker (an incredibly large Mexican sombrero and ammo belts, for example).
“The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety” won an Obie and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In my view, it deserved both accolades.
Playwright Diaz, an honest-to-goodness wrestling fan with a full grasp of the genre, has been quoted as saying that the mock sport is a “really wonderful art form but…does tend to play to the lowest common denominator.”
No matter. Diaz has created a let’s-pretend world that highbrow or middlebrow audiences can enjoy every bit as much.
“The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” runs at the Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley, through Sept. 30. Night performances, Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Tuesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $32-$50. Information: (510) 843-4822 or www.auroratheatre.org
Dreama Walker as Becky being questioned by Sandra and Marti.
COMPLIANCE, film based on true events, written and directed by Craig Sobel, starring Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, Philip Ettinger, and Pat Healy.
UNSPEAKABLE ACTS
By Gaetana Caldwell-Smith
The shocking, cringe-worthy film, “Compliance,” has the look of a cinema verité documentary. It takes place during winter in a small-town strip-mall fast-food restaurant with problems of spoiled food due to employee negligence and an illness related short-staff. Sandra (Ann Dowd), the manager, a stressed-out, heavy-set, middle-age woman, gets a phone call from a man saying that he’s Police Officer Daniels (Pat Healy) who unfortunately can’t take the time to go out there in person because he’s very busy. He tells her that one of her customer’s complained that an employee, Becky (Dreama Walker), stole money out of her purse an hour ago; she’s with Daniels now along with Sandra’s boss, the franchise owner. The mostly young staff is on edge as it is; Sandra has warned them that a company “secret shopper” is coming in to rate the place.
When Daniels asks Sandra to take Becky into the break room and search her purse, you know something is not kosher. From merely rummaging through her purse, the search escalates incrementally, orchestrated by Daniels as the rest of the oblivious staff out front continues serving the steady stream of hungry customers. He cows and intimidates Sandra, flatters her so that she’ll do anything he asks. A foreshadowing scene occurs early in the film between Sandra and Becky so that when she takes his side, even referring to Becky as a thief, it rings true. The cook, Kevin (Philip Ettinger) and a grizzled supplier (Matt Servitto) are the only ones who aren’t fooled. Sensing things are not right, they make phone calls.
The fact that the entire film is based on telephone dialogue neither constricts nor undermines the suspense and pace. Plus, the camera breaks it up with shots of customers chowing down in booths; rusted, greasy equipment, dirty dishwater, piles of discarded cartons and wrappers (Chef Ramsey would be appalled), and a parking lot rimmed with melting snow-drifts. Soon scene will segue to a bland-looking, early fortyish man in sweater and slacks, sitting in front of a littered desk, or making a sandwich, with a phone to his ear.
Daniels threatens Becky with jail-time and fabricates drug deals, implicating her. Confused, she denies everything, protests his demands, and insists that she’s innocent. He tells her frequently to calm down and insists that she address him as “sir” or “officer.” He ensures that there is only one person at a time in the room with her. Becky, who now sits naked, covered only by an apron, ends up allowing Sandra, her assistant, Marti (Ashley Atkinson), as well as Sandra’s balding, sheepish, beer-drinking fiancé, Van (Bill Camp), to carry out Daniels’ phone directed, step-by step searches tantamount to those perpetrated on prisoners suspected of concealing contraband in bodily orifices. Daniels rewards Van for conducting the most egregious search with a sex act by Becky.
You ask yourself why Sandra and the others allowed this to happen. People are conditioned through religion, education, and government to obey the law and not to question authority. The man spoke convincingly, repeatedly stating that he was an officer of the law, asking, “Don’t you want to do the right thing?” “Help me out here,” and “The sooner you do this, the sooner it’ll all be over,” interspersed with threats. Also, he had done his homework on these people, knew their weaknesses and used the information to his advantage.
Can we use the message of the film to explain how tyrannical, imperialistic governments gain control of its citizens? How 100s of thousands of people are coerced into leaving their homes and boarding freight cars that will take them to their deaths? How millions of innocent people are driven from their lands, herded into reservations, or concentration camps as were Japanese citizens in California? Can it explain the exploitation of women? Minorities? The undocumented, and so on?
Though this cringe-inducing film takes place in the restaurant, mostly in the back room, it is not claustrophobic. The acting feels natural, you sense that these are real, hardworking people asked to carry out unspeakable acts on an innocent person.
I would not by any stretch consider myself a “director” of theatre, no matter how small. My own experience is very small, but I must confess I have felt it grow this afternoon in ways I would not have anticipated. The call came from a friend, an amateur playwright who had penned a two-acter some years ago, based on true events in her own life. This was to be “readers’ theatre” by non-actors in a community centers, with three rehearsals (and I would have to miss the first) one week apart before curtain. As I was the only one among her circle of friends who had any directorial experience (see above), I was tapped and with a few misgivings and prequalifications, accepted.
As noted, I missed the first rehearsal. At the second, two of the eight actors arrived without their scripts. All but one had NO acting experience. Neither a good sign. But things improved by the third. As “director” I must make do with what I had in hand, and hope for the best. By the end of the dress rehearsal—lost scripts, missed cues, a general dearth of relevant emotion given the incipient deaths of three of the characters and the actual deaths of two, a different actor each time for the role of “the stranger,” all compounded by the complete ineptitude of the “director”—it seemed clear that only the most modest of aspirations were likely to be met.
The audience would be shanghaied from among those departing community center lunch in the early afternoon. Not likely to be terribly critical, if they were at least mildly entertained.
And here is what happened: All of the “readers” became by miraculous osmosis “actors,” and assumed that wonderful generosity arises when cues are missed, props fail, actors don’t show up, pages are missing from the script. We had a full house who caught all the humor in the playwright’s lines and the cast’s delivery and laughed all the way through it. By any measure except box office, the show was a huge success.
And here is what else happened: One of the cast came up to the director, and thanked me for all that she had learned from me. I found out it was the other way around.
[Special thanks to Anna Boothe, playwright (Six Months to Live) and stage manager, and to: Tom Sullivan, Lydia Benetiz, Gus Tjgaard, Joyce Sorce, Jeanne Angle, Karim Kiram, Manuel Sequeria, Dick Moody, and Camincha, and Janice at the Pacifica Community Center]by David Hirzel http://davidhirzel.net/
Michelle Krusiec and Alex Moggridge star in “Chinglish,” a comedy at the Berkeley Rep. Photo, courtesy kevinberne.com
It’s fast-paced.
It’s a clever dismemberment of East-West cultural differences and the mind-muddles created by shoddy translation.
And it’s consistently funny.
The laughter starts even before “Chinglish” — a two-act bilingual comedy at the Berkeley Rep — begins.
Humdrum theater messages about shutting off cell phones and finding exits in case of emergency become a gigglefest by being simulcast incomprehensibly in Mandarin and English.
Mostly, the show’s hilarity doesn’t translate well in a review — the best lines just don’t work on paper.
On stage and in context, though, hilarity is guaranteed.
I guess you have to be there.
As the play unfolds, playwright David Henry Hwang and director Leigh Silverman rarely wait for one chuckle to subside before beckoning the next. I sometimes felt as if I were witnessing a stand-up’s jackhammer delivery rather than a two-hour production.
Supertitle projections of mangled English translations — readable white letters against a gray backdrop — added a steady stream of chortles.
The story, which underscores cultural, political and relationship gaps between citizens of the United States and China, focuses on an ineffectual American salesman and ex-Enron lackey (Daniel Cavanaugh, portrayed exquisitely by Alex Moggridge) who has traveled to Asia to lock up a game-changing contract for his family’s sign-making business.
He quickly becomes entangled with a sexy bureaucrat (Michelle Krusiec as Xi Yan), a British teacher masquerading as a consultant (Brian Nishii playing Peter), and a Communist minister trapped in a futile attempt to save face and freedom (Larry Lei Zhang as Cai).
Krusiec foreshadows the verbal shenanigans that lie ahead when, following a torrent of English words, she declares in Mandarin, “I didn’t catch a word.”
He later offers a perfect parallel to define the farce: “I don’t have a clue what’s really going on around here.”
One set piece, in which the enigmatic phrase “through the back door” repeatedly jumps out, is particularly engaging. Even more sidesplitting is an intercultural jumbled-word exchange reminiscent of the classic Abbott & Costello “Who’s on First” routine.
I also enjoyed watching Moggridge and Krusiec banter at length with a zero-sum understanding until, exhausted, they seemingly agree on a lone point and gleefully high-five each other.
Massive miscommunications tend to retain a vise-like grip on the audience’s funnybone. Such as when Moggridge tries to mumble “I love you” in Mandarin but it comes out, the third time around, as “Frog loves to pee.”
The more serious shades of “Chinglish” brought to my mind the real-life scandal revolving around Gu Kailai, wife of deposed political leader Bo Xilai. She was just given a two-year reprieve from the death penalty imposed for murdering a British businessman, and that is likely to be reduced to a life sentence.
For the record, there’s no reference in this play — which was written before the scandal erupted — to murder.
But the 55-year-old, Los Angeles-born Hwang, who won a Tony for “M. Butterfly” and an Obie for “Yellow Face,” obviously can “kill” at the box office. He just received a $200,000 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award for his body of solo work covering a 32-year span.
For “Chinglish,” on the other hand, he worked closely with a translator — because Hwang speaks only English.
The show, a co-production with the South Coast Repertory, had a four-month Broadway run starting in October 2011. After playing in Costa Mesa next January, it will go to Hong Kong, where it will be a March festival entry.
In Berkeley, revolving, beautifully designed sets by David Korins prove how rapidly locales can be switched.
And basic-black, we-mean-business costumes by Anita Yavich are impeccably functional. Brilliantly contrasting is her outlandish garb for a male Chinese translator: white shoes and ostentatious argyle sweater.
Sound by Darron L. West (particularly effective between scenes) and lighting by Brian MacDevitt (stretching from subtle to blinding) are both executed seamlessly and augment theatergoers’ pleasure.
“Chinglish” has time to play with only a few of the 10,000 Chinese calligraphy characters that comprise the language. Despite that, the show’s clearly a double-barreled winner.
With that appraisal in mind, I’m convinced you should seriously consider seeing it — twice, perhaps.
“Chinglish” plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre‘s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through Oct. 21. Night performances, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14.50 to $99, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.
PRECIOUS LITTLE by Madeleine George and directed by Marissa Wolf. Shotgun Players, The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley, 510-841-6500 or www.shotgunpllayers.org.
August 18 – September 9
PRECIOUS LITTLE at Shotgun Players is flawed but intriguing.
Shotgun Players are noted for their undertakings that are often provocative but never dull. A plethora of synonyms include challenging, disturbing, exciting and often stimulating. Their present staging of Precious Little by 13P playwright Marissa Wolf is all of those with added description of being more than somewhat offensive to this reviewer. It did not have to be and if the author had utilized the benefit of a few more readings it could have been avoided.
The problem starts with the fact that she was one of 13 mid-career playwrights who founded the group Thirteen Playwrights ( www.13p.org) in 2003 who objected to “the trend of endless readings and new play development programs” that affected “the texture and ambition of new American plays” and decided to ignore that process. They put on full productions of each new play with the author as artistic director. If this play was scrutinized (subjected to?) the rigors of development the perceived flaw could have easily been avoided.
The fine cast of Zehra Berkman, Nancy Carlin and Rami Margron give superlative performances playing a total of eight parts with Carlin giving a Tony Award winning performance as the Ape.
Nancy Carlin (the Ape), Zehra Berkman (Brodie), Rami Margron (Zoo Goers); Photo by Pak HanWith an opening scene of the Ape elegantly eating a celery stick, sticking out her tongue and puckering her lips and telling us she can do so, while the Zoo Goer(s) (the multitalented Rami Margron) mouthing inane comments looks on grabs the audience’s attention.
It is the next scene where the protagonist Brodie (Zehra Berkman) a 42 year old linguist who has had artificial insemination and undergoes an amniocentesis to determine if the baby will have genetic defects is being advised of the possible problem by a neophyte interviewer (Margron) who is completely inept in the art of counseling. The scene generates laughs and is an insult to the medical profession. The fact that there is evidence of abnormal chromosomes will force a Brodie to make a life altering choice. To amplify the turmoil, sonograms of the uterus and fetus are projected on the back wall.
Thrown into the decision making is the unnecessary fact that Brodie is a lesbian and her lover (Margon again) encourages an abortion. Brodie’s turmoil is compounded when she learns the fetus is a girl. The remainder of the play emphasizes the use of language and Carlin becomes an elderly mid-European widow, Dorothy Cleva, who is one of the few able to speak an archaic language and Brodie is recording her speech patterns for posterity. Sadly, the process of recording unconnected words triggers horrendous past memories and throws the widow into panic depression.
Precious Little is a splendid production with the fine acting, adept staging and multiple levels of interest compressed into 80 minutes without intermission. Shotgun does not disappoint but the play needs work.
Kedar K. Adour, MD
Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com
ALL MY SONS: Drama by Arthur Miller, directed by Dennis Lickteig. Masquers Playhouse, Highway 580 (Richmond Parkway exit) at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond across from the Hotel Mac. www.masquers.org or (510) 232-4031 August 24 – September 29, 2012.
Arthur Miller’s ALL OF MY SONS holds up very well at the Masquers Theatre
Many of us sometime have surely wondered the consequences of ‘what if’ a series of events had or had not occurred. In the case of Arthur Miller one could wonder ‘what if’ his 1941 play All of My Sons” was not a hit on Broadway. It was of course, winning him his first Tony Award for best author and wiping out the stigma of his first commercial venture of “The Man Who Had All the Luck” that lasted only four performances. He went on to be a giant in the theatre garnering a Pulitzer Prize for his Death of a Salesman.
Miller is known for portraying characters who are reaching for the American Dream and so it is with the Keller family in general and the patriarch Joe in particular. It is based on a factual incident of a woman who informed on her father who had sold faulty parts to the U.S. military during World War II. Joe Keller who grew up in poverty and now owns a profitable parts manufacturing plant, shipped out defective P-40 cylinder heads to the U.S. Air Force that resulted in the crash of 21 planes and the death of their pilots.
The play is tightly constructed in the Aristotelian concept of the three Unities of Time, Place and Action. It takes place in the backyard of the Keller’s home in a Midwestern town from early Sunday morning in August to early morning the next day. The back story took place three and half years earlier when Joe and his partner/neighbor Steve Deever allowed the defective parts to be shipped. Both were convicted but Joe through a lie was exonerated and Steve remains in jail. At about the same time eldest son Larry Keller was listed as killed in action when his plane crashed in China. His mother Kate refuses to believe he is dead and is certain that Larry will return even though they have planted a ‘memorial tree’ in the back yard. Steve Deever’s children Ann and George who lived next door have moved away in disgrace from the house next door now owned by doctor Jim Bayliss and wife Sue.
Younger son Cris Keller has returned from the war and is the idol of his father and to those men who have known him. Two of these men are Dr. Bayliss and George Deever. Chris has been writing to Ann Deever. That relationship has blossomed and they are on the verge of marriage even though they have not seen each other in three years. Kate will have none of this and insists Ann is ‘Larry’s girl’ and she should be waiting for him to return. Kate and the town know of Joe’s duplicity but Joe is in denial, assured that he is well liked in the community.
At the opening of the play there has been a storm and Larry’s memorial tree has been blown down. Kate suggests that this is an omen that Larry will return. Ann at Chris’s behest returns and the conflict begins. When is it appropriate to tell Kate of their intentions? Kate’s unreasonableness escalates throwing the family into turmoil and after an expository first act there is an explosion of temperament and Ann reveals a devastating letter from Larry that decimates all and leads to a proof of the fact that Joe was guilty of allowing the defective parts to be sent out.
Director Lickteig has taken liberties with the script, deleting the role of Bert a little neighbor boy who frequently visits the Keller’s yard to play “jail” with Joe. He has also diluted the role of two other characters Frank Lubey and wife Lydia cutting some very cogent lines.
The cast gives very uneven performances with the exception of Marilyn Hughes as Kate as she gives a performance to match her stellar role as the mother in Broadway Bound. The remainder of the cast includes Reuben Alvear II, Jacqui Herrera, Joseph Hirsch, David Irving, Steph Peek, Carina Lastimosa Salazar and Louis Schilling.
Kedar K. Adour, MD
Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com
TIME STANDS STILL: Drama. By Donald Margulies. Directed by Leslie Martinson. TheatreWorks, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. 650-463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. August 25- September 16, 2012
Time Stands Still at TheatreWorks has great acting
War is hell and journalists and photo-journalists have been recording the devastation and atrocities for decades with the Vietnam War being the first to record those events in actual time through the media of television. In areas where TV crews do not have access to the ongoing destruction, written reports are documented by actual photos. In those photographs ‘time stands still’ hence the play’s title. Have you ever wondered about the personalities of those who devote a goodly portion of their lives doing the recording?
In Donald Margulies 2010 Tony nominated play Time Stands Still receiving its regional premiere at TheatreWorks his main characters are two such professionals. Although the actors perform admirably and often brilliantly, motivation is only partially addressed and the play sort of fizzles out rather than stimulate discussion. As always, the production values at TheatreWorks are superb with Eric Flatmo’s perfect artist loft scenic design, complemented by the costume design of Anna Oliver, lighting design by Mike Palumbo, and sound design by Greg Robinson. Rebecca Dines in the lead role gets better each year displaying the complexities of any character she undertakes. Local favorite Mark Phillip Anderson performs admirably and makes the overwritten part believable.
Sarah (Rebecca Dines) is a photojournalist and James (Mark Phillip Anderson) reporters who have lived together for 8 years and have had near death experiences covering a Middle-East war. James has departed from the war zone months earlier after witnessing a female suicide bomber at close range and having a psychological meltdown. Sarah has been seriously injured from a roadside bomb and spent weeks in a coma in a military hospital.
The damaged Sarah with full left leg cast, immobilized left arm and shrapnel pockmarked face is brought home to their Brooklyn loft to recuperate and reassess their lives. To round out the story line James’s best friend, middle-aged Richard (Rolf Saxon), who is also Sarah’s editor, and former lover, arrives with Mandy (Sarah Moser), a charming, loquacious young lady who brings “Get Well” balloons to Sarah. Mandy assures Sarah that even though “I’m not religious, I have been saying prayers for you” and demonstrates.
Margulies, a Pulitzer Prize winner for Dinner With Friends is a master at displaying the interaction of couples. Whereas Sarah and James are reevaluating their relationship, so too are Frank and Mandy. Frank insists is it is more than a May-September romance. Margulies has taken a page from Shakespeare and given the apparent bimbo (read jester) Mandy some very incisive human nature truisms that conflict with Sarah’s defensive posture. Wouldn’t it be better to feed the child, or help the injured woman rather than record the carnage? Sarah’s only equivocal answer is, “It is what I do.”
The time frame stretches over about one and half to two years, allowing time for Sarah to recuperate, Frank and Mandy to marry and have a child and for James and Sarah to decide that they should marry. And what a marriage it is catered by Mandy the events planner! Rather than being a happy occasion it brings up old emotional wounds involving Sarah’s love for her native interpreter who was killed in the blast that crippled her. The marriage is emotionally over the day of the wedding. After this penultimate scene there is a brief addendum that takes place six months later with James having a new live-in and Sarah steps to the stage apron and snaps a picture. . . thus indicating that ‘time stands still’ at this very moment? Maybe so but it is a far stretch.
Kedar K. Adour, MD
Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com.
Cat Thompson as Clarice and Darren Bridgett as Dorante in The Liar.
Marin Shakespeare Company is currently presenting The Liar by David Ives, adapted from the comedy of Pierre Corneille and directed by Robert Currier. Featuring rhyming couplets, high energy and comic timing, playwright David Ives’ clever adaptation of this 17th century French farce was heralded as “a true comic gem” when commissioned and presented by Washington D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre in 2010. “It is neither a translation nor an adaptation,” according to Ives, “It is what I call a translaptation. The play is partly a social satire about how lies work within a society, within love, how lies are woven into the fabric of things. It shows how lies can feed love and actually create love.”
When the first few lines of Marin Shakespeare’s production of The Liar were spoken, Stephen Muterspaugh, who delightfully plays the role of Cliton, Dorante’s servant, begins the play in iambic pentameter, reminding the audience to turn off their brains and announcing the next two hours of the play will be in rhyme.
The Liar starts out with Dorante (Darren Bridgett), a young man just arrived in Paris who meets two women in the Tuileries in Paris whose names are Clarice (Cat Thompson) and Lucrece (Elena Wright). He impresses them with his claim to have returned recently from the wars in Germany and boasts of the vital role he played. After they leave, he decides to court Clarice mistakenly thinking her name to be that of her friend, Lucrece. These two women have identical twin maids (both brilliantly played by Natasha Noel). One is a saucy promiscuous wench and the other, a straight laced puritan.
Geronte (Jarion Monroe), Dorante’s father, announces to his son that he has found a girl for him to marry (Clarice). Dorante, wrongly believing that the girl he likes is Lucrece, concocts an outrageous lie that he is already married in order to avoid having to marry Clarice.
After more fabrications and complications, Dorante reveals that his “wife” is pregnant, and Geronte is infuriated to discover he was lied to. Dorante eventually tells the truth and the play is resolved happily.
Robert Currier’s robust staging of The Liar whips past at high speed. The whole cast is outstanding. James Hiser as Alsippe, Clarice’s secret fiance, gets a well deserved applause for each of his scenes and Scott Coopwood, as Philiste, Alsippe’s friend, stalks about at various times carrying a book with various plays by Shakespeare, from Anthony and Cleopatra to Othello, Hamlet and As You Like It, during which times, the actors involved will be quoting lines from the plays.
The sets designed by Mark Robinson which take place in the Tuileries Place Royal and the Bois de Boulange are charming with square trees and have a pop-out book sensibility. Award-winning Costume Designer Abra Berman has produced beautiful costumes from the Restoration era. Billie Cox has composed original Parisian music to put us in the mood and Ellen Brooks’ lighting design is perfection.
To sum up The Liar boasts a sense of playfulness throughout and Currier has directed his expert ensemble cast with a great deal of style. Go see The Liar, you’ll laugh and have a great time!
The Liar plays August 25-September 3, 2012. Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday at Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, 890 Belle Avenue, Dominican University of California, San Rafael. For tickets, call 499-4488 or go to www.marinshakespeare.org.
Flora Lynn Isaacson
(l to r) Michelle Krusiec and Alex Moggridge star in Berkeley Rep’s production of Chinglish, a new comedy from David Henry Hwang which heads for Hong Kong after having its West Coast premiere here. Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com
CHINGLISH by David Henry Hwang. Directed by Leigh Silverman. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison Street @ Shattuck, Berkeley, CA 94704. (510) 647-2949 or berkeleyrep.org. August 24 – October 7, 2012
CHINGLISH at Berkeley Rep a marvelous multi-cultural farce.
To open their 2012-2013 season the innovative, multi-award winning Berkeley Rep has come up with another sparkling production from the pen of David Henry Hwang whose M Butterfly won the Tony Award in 1988 and gained further fame with Yellow Face earning a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 2008. This time around Chinglish took Chicago by storm in its world premiere in 2011 before heading off to Broadway. The Rep, in conjunction with the South Coast Repertory Theatre has brought the show to the Bay area keeping Leigh Silverman as director, David Korins scenic design and costumes by Anita Yavich.
Do not be deterred by the fact that great chunks of the dialog is in Mandarin since the easily read super-titles give a literal translation and that is more than half of the fun of the play. In fact it is those English definitions of Chinese phrases that have been garnering laughs as they have made the rounds on the Internet such as “Deformed Man’s Toilet” to indicate a handicapped restroom and the risqué “Don’t forget your thing” meaning do not leave your thing(s) behind.
Those skewed malapropisms is the reason why innocent abroad Daniel Cavanaugh (Alex Moggridge) is in Guiyang one of China’s lesser-known cities. The powers that be are attempting to attract more tourists and are building a cultural Arts Center with a dire need to have signs accurately translated from Chinese to English. Who better than the “Cleveland Signage Co.”, a family run business with Daniel as the C.E.O. . . . if there is such a title. More about that later.
The play is book ended by Daniel giving a speech to the local Cleveland Rotary on how to conduct business in China using his experiences of being there three years ago. Moggeridge displays his charming wit and comic timing using the super-titles hilariously showing how the meaning can be lost in translation. This humor is even more cogent with the personal misinterpretations prominently translated by the super-titles as the play progresses.
Every businessman should know that if you don’t speak the language you need a consultant. Enter Peter (Brian Nishii), a Britisher who has been teaching English in China for many years now passing himself off as an experienced consultant who he is not. Daniel is taught the subtleties of negotiations and ‘back-door’ favors since he Peter, unbeknownst to Daniel, is involved in such shenanigans that eventually are revealed and come back to bite him on the butt, not actually but significantly enough to depart his career of consulting and possible to share a cell with devious Minister Cai (Larry Lei Zhang).
The first meeting brings gales of laughter as the inept interpreter Miss Qian (Celeste Den) screws up the translation. Poor Daniel’s ‘small’ company becomes an insignificant one and these mistakes go on and on with Xi Yan (Michelle Krusiec) occasionally interceding. When all seems lost Xi Yan takes Daniel under her wing and into bed because he has a “good honest face.” Their attempts at meaningful conversation, with appropriate super titles, are both bittersweet and laugh inducing.
The laughs end when Xi Yan discovers that the Cleveland Signage Company exists only on the Internet and Daniel’s connection with the Enron scandal is revealed. Never fear the play is a farce and miscues are morphed into winners and so it is for all but Minister Cai and Peter.
The set that has been brought intact from the Chicago and Broadway productions is an absolute marvel with two revolving platforms, each with three sections that become cafes, hotel lobbies, hotel bedrooms, clinical appearing office spaces, revolving doors with the addition of remote controlled chairs that glide on and off stage. If you wish to read the cultural implications of the Chinese/American differences be my guest. My suggestion is just go and enjoy a great evening of theatre. Running time about 2 hours with and intermission.
Kedar K. Adour, MD
Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com