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Nov 06 2012
Love0

Moby-Dick San Francisco Opera Performance

By Joe Cillo

Moby Dick
San Francisco Opera Performance
October 26, 2012

Moby-Dick has been a source of joy and inspiration to me for many years. I often pick it up and peruse it and read sections from it. I came to this opera well disposed toward its subject hoping to like it. I knew that it would necessarily be an abbreviation; selections would have to be made, a concept and an approach would have to be developed. It is not an easy book to adapt for a staged presentation. Much of the book is reflective commentary, metaphorical descriptions, and symbolic representations. Any attempt to produce this for the stage will necessarily be an interpretation. One cannot expect the full grandeur of Melville’s sweeping prose to be reproduced in an opera that spans even several hours. I watched it suspending judgment, stifling a growing dissatisfaction until a point in the second act where Ahab and Starbuck sing a duet, and Starbuck tries to cloy Ahab into turning back from his quest to find the White Whale with sentimentalizing images of a boy waiting in a window in far off Nantucket. This nauseated me, and at that point I stopped trying to like it. The duet comes from section 132 of the book, entitled The Symphony. Starbuck and Ahab do indeed have such a conversation. Ahab recounts to Starbuck how he has been at sea for forty years, how he married a young girl when he was past fifty, and left her the day after the wedding to go back to the sea, “I see my wife and child in thine eye,” he tells him. Starbuck, seizing the chance, gives vent to his longing to flee this perilous life at sea and importunes the Captain to turn back and head for Nantucket. The operatic recreation engenders a feeling of a common bond between Starbuck and Ahab, that Ahab shares Starbuck’s homesickness and longing for the security and warmth of the hearth and home. It is not a faithful representation of that encounter and grossly misrepresents Ahab. They misunderstand Ahab’s comment to Starbuck, “I see my wife and child in thine eye.” What he meant was that he saw in Starbuck’s eye the longing to return to his home, his family in far off Nantucket. He did not mean that he felt the same longing. Ahab had long repudiated and walled himself off from any such feeling or desire for connection. Starbuck briefly reminded him of such long buried feelings, but he was not about to allow them to be rekindled. When Starbuck is making his plea, the text tells us, “Ahab’s glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and cast his last cindered apple to the soil. ‘What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozzening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? . . ” At the end of Ahab’s reverie Starbuck has gone. “But blanched to a corpse’s hue with despair, the mate had stolen away.” (132)
This conversation is not properly represented by a duet. It is a supplication by Starbuck that was futile from the beginning. Ahab is beyond reach. These sentimental images of a boy’s face in a window will never reach Ahab. Starbuck and Ahab are not singing from the same score, and they have very different melodies in their hearts.
When the Pequod meets the Rachel, another whaling vessel they encountered at sea (128), the captain of the Rachel pleaded with Ahab to assist in the search for his son, who was lost in a small boat pursuing the White Whale on the previous day.
Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab; and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without the least quivering of his own.
“I will not go,” said the stranger, “till you say aye to me. Do to me as you would have me do to you in the like case. For you too have a boy, Captain Ahab — though but a child and nestling safely at home now — a child of your old age too — Yes, yes, you relent; I see it — run, run, men, now, and stand by to square in the yards,”
“Avast,” cried Ahab — “touch not a rope-yarn;” then in a voice that prolongingly moulded every word — “Captain Gardiner, I will not do it. Even now I lose time. Good bye, good bye. God bless ye, man, and may I forgive myself, but I must go.” . . . Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin, leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter rejection of his so earnest suit. (128)
This gave me the clue to why I found this opera unsatisfying. It took me some time to figure it out and articulate it. I almost gave up and decided not to review it, but I persisted. I felt I owed it to all those many people who will come to this opera blissfully ignorant of Melville’s magnificent original. They will sit through this opera and emerge thinking they have seen Moby-Dick. That would be a travesty. On the night I went I saw a large group of adolescents that I surmised were some sort of class on a field trip, perhaps a high school literature class that was reading Moby-Dick. I hope the teacher makes the students redouble their application to the book after this performance. It is for them that I write this.
The problem with this opera is not a matter of facts or details, although there are many alterations of the original, but of spirit. This is a voyage of death and doom by men who are practically indifferent to life, the only exception being Starbuck. The opera treats them as a group of men who all harbor this middle class longing to get the job done and get back to their families and children, perhaps akin to soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq.
The book opens with the immortal line “Call me Ishmael.” The opera does not heed that admonition. It does not use the voice of Ishmael. Ishamel does not appear in this opera. The character closest to Ishmael is called “Greenhorn” in the opera. It was a significant departure from the tone and voice of the text that indicates that these authors intended to rewrite the story of Moby-Dick rather than faithfully recreate it. There is nothing wrong with taking inspiration from a classic work or the work of a predecessor and creating one’s own variant or take off from it. Many brilliant works of art have originated that way. Sometimes the derivative works are actually better and more successful than the original source. The risk that is run by taking a classic of the stature of Moby-Dick, reworking it and then putting the same title on it as the original, is that you invite comparisons between the classic work and your own revamped version which are unpromising. Let us consider the opening passage:
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp and drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off — then I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. (1)
Ishmael is a man on the verge of suicide, who has no strong investment in life, who chooses the peril and adventure and loneliness of life at sea in the company of likeminded men equally absorbed within their own private dungeons of torment and regret.
Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this . . . therefore, to the death-longing eyes of such men who still have left in them some interior compunctions against suicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of infinite Pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them — ‘Come hither, broken hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. Come hither! put up thy grave-stone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we marry thee!’ (112)
It is this spirit of despair of life and indifference to death, punctuated by moments of high excitement, that is missing from the operatic recreation. There is a gloom that pervades this story, and ineffable darkness of the soul worthy of Wagner, that this opera fails to capture.
There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. (96)
This recreation by Scheer and Heggie stays on the plain. It doesn’t reach the deep gorges and exuberant sunny spaces that would give the performance a powerful dramatic intensity. By concentrating on characters and relationships rather than the inward pathos expressed through a myriad of symbols and metaphors in Melville’s text the character of the whole enterprise is fatefully transformed. The authors of the opera assume a bias favoring human relations and human connection. That’s how they created the opera by building it upon five main characters: Greenhorn, Queequeg, Pip, Starbuck, and Ahab. Each character is also substantially reworked from the original presentation in Melville. However, the people and the world that Melville describes in Moby-Dick are men who have reduced their human connectedness to the barest minimum. It is a world and a mindset of profound alienation. Moby-Dick is not a story about relationships and their vicissitudes. It is a searching commentary on life and on the world at large from the standpoint of a man who has little stake in it and little use for conventional values and outlook. This opera is a sanitized, normalized version of Moby-Dick crafted to appeal to a contemporary white American middle class audience.
Completely absent from the opera are any sexual allusions which Melville’s book is full of. There is one scene in the opera where the sailors on the ship dance with one another, but it is done in a farcical style that trivializes itself to the point of self-mockery. It brought chuckles from some in the audience. This opera is afraid to touch the same sex attractions that were and are a major attraction of men going to sea. The erotic overtones of the relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael are completely ignored. The sailors on the Pequod tend to be men for whom the avoidance of women and family responsibilities is a salient characteristic. That doesn’t mean they don’t have sex. But this production treats the sailors as homesick to return to their wives and children in Nantucket. Clearly a fantasy of the writers, not a representation of nineteenth century sailors, and certainly not of Melville’s work.
The introduction of a religious point of view through the character of Starbuck, who acts as a kind of conscience to Ahab, is particularly foreign and distasteful. There are allusions to religion, religious figures, and religious ideas throughout Moby-Dick, but they do not take the form of a moralistic conscience that is pressing against the whole way of life of sailing as in the opera. Moby-Dick does not have a moral point of view. It presents a tale that clearly illustrates the ultimate universal destructiveness of monomaniacal vengeance, but it does not say that this is a bad thing. Ishmael is clearly steeped in the religious ideology of his day, but he has his own take on it. His point of view and his use of religious allusion is very idiosyncratic and unorthodox, but the opera takes a very conventional outlook that will be readily acceptable to mainstream American viewers.
Also missing from this opera is the whale. Except for a cameo appearance at the end, the whale is scarcely mentioned. But a high percentage of Melville’s Moby-Dick is taken up with descriptions of whales, their characteristics, behavior, and the vicissitudes of hunting them and processing their corpses. The whale has powerful symbolic significance for Ishmael who sees the whale as an almost divine spirit, whom he both respects and reveres while at the same time seeking to kill it.
Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas before the continents broke water; he once swam over the site of the Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah’s flood he despised Noah’s Ark; and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood, spout his frothed defiance to the skies. (105)
Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will. But if I know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen. But I cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will about his face, I say again, he has no face. (86)
This alludes to the biblical passage in Exodus 33 where Moses is on the mountain with God and God tells him “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me and thou shalt stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft by the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: by my face shall not be seen.” The whale to Ishmael is essentially isomorphic to God.
Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby-Dick not only ubiquitious, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time); that though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for again in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied jet would once more be seen. (41)
Ahab cherished a wild vindicitiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. (41)
He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it. (41)
Moby-Dick can be seen as a defiant protest against God himself for all the ills of mankind, the accumulated slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that befall people in life from the beginning of time. It is a powerful repudiation of the religious quest to seek union and reconciliation with God. This is a story of those who are at war with God and seek to destroy him. It is also, I think, a pessimistic commentary on that undertaking. It is a very modern book. However, you won’t get that out of this opera. In fact the opera bypasses these most profound issues and even alters them and makes them conventional and palatable. The more I think about it, the more offensive it becomes.
What was good in this opera was the staging. The sets and the lighting and special effects were outstanding and highly effective. An A+ to lighting designer Gavan Swift and Projection Designer Elaine McCarthy. The imaginative stage presentation creates an engaging spectacle that holds the attention of the audience and keeps it rapt in the story. If you don’t know you are being snookered, you will probably like it on the strength of quality of the presentation. I’ve been thinking about it for over a week now, and the more I think about it, the more firmly I am turning against it. But it is a dazzling spectacle, well presented and well performed. Just don’t kid yourself that it is Moby-Dick.

Nov 05 2012
Love0

A “Superior” Play at Custom Made Theatre

By Linda Ayres-Frederick

Shifting gears from their previous journey into absurdism in Albee’s Play About the Baby, Custom Made Theatre has entered the world of naturalistic, poignant and probing comedy with Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts.

Set in a donut shop that has been handed down from one generation to another on Chicago’s North Side, Tracy Lett’s (August: Osage County, Killer Joe, Bug) Superior Donuts is a gentler examination of the human dilemma than appears in his later works. In the role of Arthur, the beleaguered, first generation Polish-American born, hippie donut shop owner, is a perfectly cast Don Wood. The bold, and outspoken young African-American shop assistant Franco is played by Chris Marsol. Each of them fully embodies the challenges of their roles: Arthur, as older store owner, set in his ways, with a past he can’t share with anyone but the audience, and the youthful broom-pushing employee Franco, an undiscovered novelist with visions of a better future for himself and for America in spite of his own serious gambling debts.

The show opens the morning after the shop has been broken into. The word “Pussy” is scrawled on the wall, broken glass is on the floor from the shattered door, and chairs are turned over. Officer Randy (Ariane Owens) and Officer James (Emmanuel Lee) are assessing the damage and getting the report from the next door store owner Russian émigré Max Tarasov (Dave Sikula) who had called them. Max has always had an eye to purchase the property to expand his own business. Lady Boyle (Vicki Siegel), a local homeless woman, wanders in looking for a cup of coffee and donut, neither of which are available.

In spite of the neighboring Starbucks, Superior Donuts has survived. When owner Arthur Przbyszewski arrives he is unshaken by the damage, suspecting a former disgruntled employee of being the perpetrator but unwilling to go after him. As he cleans up the mess, it becomes obvious that Officer Randy is smitten with Arthur who appears oblivious to her affections for him.

After the officers leave, Franco enters in response to an ad for an assistant. In spite of Arthur’s reluctance to deal with the issue in the wake of the break in, Franco manages to get himself hired. The two soon discover their differences. Optimist Franco wants to improve the place, add music, even make it a coffee house for poets to perform in. Arthur, who identifies himself with hopelessness as the true root of the Polish character, likes the comforts of silence and the familiar.

What we soon learn in Arthur’s monologues are the facts of his past. How he left for Canada as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and that the last words his father ever spoke to him were to call Arthur a coward. We also learn how Arthur never spoke much to his wife, or to his daughter, who both left him years ago. Now his ex-wife is dead and he has no idea where his 19 year-old daughter might be. In spite of his expertise about all things “donut”, his inability to express himself has kept him alone and lonely.
There is much more to savor in this show: Franco’s attempts to get Arthur and Randy together; the back and forth of employee and employer repartee that eventually rises to more serious conflict as they each face their own personal truths; and finally the confrontation of Arthur with two underworld characters Luther Flynn (Shane Fahy) and Kevin Magee (Rob Dario) who threaten Franco’s very wellbeing.

This is a richly peopled world with well-drawn characters down to the nearly silent Kiril Ivankin (Shane Rhoades) who in uttering two or three words in Russian or English can create an entire sense of empathic loyalty to those in need of support.

While this reviewer saw the last preview of the show (where pacing could use a bit more oomph), it is obvious that Superior Donuts is a production well worth seeing. With Sound Design by Cole Ferraiuolo, Costues by Khizer Iqbal and Set by Erik LaDue, Fight Choeography by Jon Bailey, Director Marilyn Langbehn’s ensemble have created a heart-warming and intimate comedy filled with humor and humanity. Superior Donuts runs through December 2 at Gough Street Playhouse, 1622 Gough Street in San Francisco. www.custommade.org.

by Linda Ayres-Frederick November 5, 2012

Nov 04 2012
Love0

BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON

By Joe Cillo

BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON

 

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

 

The all new San Francisco Playhouse, at 450 Post, is presently performing BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON by Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman.

 

Victims of their own success, creative genii Bill English and Susi Damilano were crowded out of their former digs at the Jean Shelton complex; now they seat audiences commensurate with the qualitative edge they enjoy within the San Francisco environs; it is worth noting that their bar has quintupled in length.

 

Their current performance piece is a unique hybrid of that occupies the very intersection of rock musical, dark comedy, docudrama and political satire.

 

But don’t be fooled; the music and the comedy are a set up; a conspiracy to lure the audience into a place of vulnerability, susceptibility and receptivity to dark historical truths of American Expansion.

 

The aegis of our American exceptionalism is temporarily lowered and we are led to see ourselves in the boarder, grittier, historical context.

 

As the title suggests, Andrew Jackson was bloody; his carnage was equal parts vengeance, political ambition, military stratagem, hatred and racism.

 

Jackson cleared six states of all pockets of resistance to unbridled American expansion; without Congressional approval he eradicated the Spanish and British influence in the American Southeast.

 

His imperialistic successes inspired America’s patriotic myth of “manifest destiny;” a myth that was brought to completion by the whole sale annexations of James Polk.

 

Jackson eliminated his enemies both in the territories and Washington D.C. and like most unchallenged rulers he stepped on to that slippery slope of sic semper tyrannis.

 

His excesses lead to the infamous Trail of Tears; a forced march impossible to morally differentiate from the Bataan Death March which was of equal scale.

 

Ashkon Davaran is the star and focus of this show; he commands the stage with high energy, bravado and mesmerizing charisma as he portrays a rustic, accidental leader’s accent to the White House.

 

The music is reminiscent of Green Day, specifically AMERICAN IDIOT, only better under the capable Musical Direction of Jonathon Fadner.

 

Wait until you see the cello player’s finale: simply amazing.

 

A set design, by Award Winning Set Designer—indeed architect—Nina Ball, presages the future of the orphaned pioneer lad in Tennessee.

 

Angel Burgess is absolutely stunning as she plays Jackson’s wife Rachel: a woman with a heart too big and too filled with longing, loneliness and sorrow not to break.

 

Director Jon Tracy has bundled a compelling script, a talented cast and rocking musical score to create what is easily the best happening in San Francisco.

 

It is over-the-top and should not be missed.

 

For tickets call 415-677-9591 or surf on over to sfplayhouse.org.

 

Hurry, your historical perspective might never be the same.

 

 

Nov 04 2012
Love0

CARMELINA a charming and robust hit at 42nd Street Moon

By Kedar K. Adour

Carmelina (Caroline Altman) is wooed by café owner Vittorio (Bill Farhner)

CARMELINA: Musical. Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner.  Music by Burton Lane.
Book by Alan Jay Lerner & Joseph Stein. 42nd Street Moon, Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson Street, San Francisco, CA. (415) 255-8207 or www.42ndstmoon.org.

CARMELINA a charming and robust hit at 42nd Street Moon

When you first enter the Eureka Theatre you are greeted by an attractive colorful set stretching across the entire stage and there is no doubt that you are being transported to sunny Italy. That’s where we meet the townspeople of the village of San Forino, somewhere between Sorrento and Naples and the year is 1962. It just happens that on an April day18 years before the US Army liberated that village from the Fascists . . . a time fondly remembered by our heroine Carmelina.

Starting with a rousing opening number by Manzoni (Bill Olson) the village mayor, guitar plucking Father Tomasso  ( Michael Doppe)and young fisherman Roberto (Stewart Kramar) the evening is filled with song, dance, humor and a touch of pathos creating a winning show that this reviewer highly recommends.

The original story began with the hit movie, Buena Sera, Mrs. Campbell that starred Gina Lollobrigida as an Italian woman who told three different men that each was the father of her daughter.  The original musical by Alan Jay Lerner, Burton Lane and Joseph Stein had an ignoble run of 17 performances even though the score won a Tony nomination. You will recognize the story line as the smash hit by the ABBA singing group that became the world stage favorite Mamma Mia and in 2008 the movie with Meryl Streep.

The show has never been seen outside New York since its initial run, marking this 42nd Street production as both its first post-Broadway full production and its West Coast premiere. Artistic Director Greg MacKellan has rounded up a top-notch cast of  past favorites with a sprinkling of ‘newbies’ who work together as an ensemble and yet have individual traits giving  the show a fresh energetic look.

Caroline Altman, as Carmelina has the right touch of libidinousness to match her apparent pious nature as the widow (“A Widow’s Prayer”) of 2ndLieutenant Campbell the father (??) of her daughter Gia (Emily Kristen Morris). It just happens that there were three (count them, three) young U.S. soldiers whom she couldn’t resist in 1944. The telling of the tale in song (“Someone in April”) to her trusted servant Rosa (Darlene Popovic) has tricky lyrics and Popovic’s double take responses will tickle your funny-bone. The ingenious scheme she devised to maintain her dignity among the natives of San Forino is about to unravel when all three of the April misadventure are to arrive . Rosa reluctantly joins in to the

Carmelina’s (Caroline Altman) scheming past amazes
her maid Rosa (Darlene Popovic)

deception making.

Enter the self-proclaimed lothario Vittorio (Bill Fahrner) who has women from A to Z at his beck and call but one look at Carmelina and he is willing to forsake all others. Or does he really? Fahrner’s entrance with “It’s Time for Love”, exuding his magnetic charm, fantastic stage presence added to his pitch perfect tenor voice is a show stopper only minutes into the show. The charisma between Fahrner and Altman is palpable beyond the footlights and their marvelous voices entwine in their duets of “Why Him” and “Love Before Breakfast.”

Carmelina Campbell (Caroline Altman, middle) has been
collecting child support from three American GIs – but
which is the real father of her daughter:
Carleton (Rudy Guerrero), Walt (Will Springhorn Jr.), or
Steve (Trevor Faust Marcom)

The Yankee Doodles who come to town (Will Springhorn, Jr., Trevor Faust Marcome and Rudy Guerrero) do yeoman duty in song and dance adding to the evening’s humor and touch of pathos. They have been assigned the charming “One More Walk Around the Garden” and “The Image of Me” as they admire Gia. Beautiful ingénue Emily Kristen Morris is a stunner and stirs the audience with her solo “All That He’d Want of Me.”

The running time is two hours and twenty minutes with intermission but it will seem much shorter while you are having fun. MacKellan paces the evening beautifully and is aided by Dave Dobrusky’s musical direction.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

Nov 03 2012
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Fringe of Marin Fall 2012: Program One off to a good start

By David Hirzel

The Fringe of Marin opened its 30th season November 2, 2012 with a near full house set to enjoy the seven new plays presented in Program One. So much happens on such a small stage!

The night got off to a fast start with Shirley King’s Hollywood Confidential a spy-caper spoof, a witty SNL-flavored take on “007” in Hollywood.  Gigi Benson perfectly cast as the lady in red.  George Dykstra wrote and delivered the evening’s most powerful performance in Mysterious Ways, a well-paced and very moving soliloquy from a grieving widower.

Minerva and Melrose gave us a change of pace from the somber to the silly, as the clueless Minerva spins off malapropisms gives us plenty to laugh at as she tries on one arts career after another with dizzying speed.  Written and directed by Martin A. David, this play also featured the most inventive set of the evening with a glass door on a pivot between a bathroom/prison and a living room.

The highlight of the lineup came just before the intermission. Carol Eggers directs veteran Fringe actor Rick Roitinger as a passive-aggressive husband scheming to get his wife (Emily Soliel)  involved in a wife-swapping party. Don Samson’s script has the flavor of a real marital argument, coming around time after time to the same arguments in the same words with no apparent resolution in sight. “Marion” being the wiser of the two doesn’t want to play, but fed up with “Tom’s” badgering finally she consents to play The Game, but only on her terms.

After the intermission, we are treated to another (the best so far) of Annette Lust’s kitchen fairy-tales.  In this delightful show, Cynthia Sims (Salt), Terri Barker (Pepper), and French chef Charles Grant ham it up in equal measure to tell us exactly How Salt and Pepper Got Put into Shakers.  The evening turns serious again with Michael Ferguson’s look at the Sharp Edgesthat doom the budding romance between a man and a woman who has been scarred by assault. In another change of pace, the final play Sunday Sundays (written and directed by Peter Hsieh) brought the most laughs in a four-way take on a simple absurdist sketch, repeatedly played word-for-word, each time funnier than the last.

As promised, the Fringe gives you something you won’t see anywhere else, you will be glad you came.  Don’t miss Program Two (eight different new plays) starting November 3.

Fringe Programs One and Two through November 18.  For times and dates see schedule:  http://www.fringeofmarin.com/performanceschedule.html

At Meadowlands Hall, Domincan University, 50 Acacia Ave. @ Grand Ave., San Rafael CA

Reservations and Information 415-673-3131  http://www.fringeofmarin.com

Review by David Hirzel www.davidhirzel.net

Nov 02 2012
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Russell Maliphant Company: AfterLight

By Jo Tomalin
Image of Russell Maliphant Company

Russell Maliphant Company
Thomasin Gülgeç and Gemma Nixon in AfterLight
Photo: Dana Fouras

 

Dynamic New Dance Work from London

Opening Night of the London based Russell Maliphant Company’s new dance work titled AfterLight on October 13, 2012, presented by San Francisco Performances at the Lam Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, glowed very warmly.

AfterLight is co-produced by the Russell Maliphant Company and London’s prestigious dance venue Sadler’s Wells, where it had it’s world premiere on September 28, 2010. Maliphant directed and choreographed this work that comprises several parts set to Erik Satie’s beautiful Piano Music: Gnossiennes 1 – 4 and Original Music by Andy Cowton.

Originally trained in ballet Maliphant danced with the Sadler’s Wells Royal ballet for several years. He has since danced with DV8 Physical Theatre, Michael Clark & Company, then created his own company and set works on renowned artists and companies including Sylvie Guillem, Robert Lepage, Ballet Boyz and Lyon Opera Ballet.

AfterLight is not a story ballet. Malipant describes it as a Nijinsky inspired piece he developed while working closely with Lighting Designer Michael Hulls, that is more about “painting in space” with the dance flowing through space and light, expressing elements from photos of the legendary dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. Maliphant and Hull worked at first by improvising light and dark elements to produce a “shower of light” with projections and animations (by Jan Urbanowski & James Chorley) to explore the movement and light together, before refining the choreography for an audience.

As an interesting aside, not all of the music choices were made before the dances – some music was selected after the dance and light choreography, according to Maliphant. This is extraordinary, because the choreography as a whole seems to respond to the music – and the one complements the other incredibly well.

Malipant’s choreography melds traditional dance to his interests in physical movement and bio-mechanics. AfterLight, with Costume Design by Stevie Stewart, is an exquisite one hour performance of ephemeral, sculptural, meditative, muscular movement, which resonates from the three outstanding dancers, Silvina Cortés, Thomasin Gülgeç and Gemma Nixon to produce a dynamic and stirring audience experience.

The Russel Maliphant Company is currently touring internationally and will perform The Rodin Project in New York City December 3, 5-9, 2012.

San Francisco Performances upcoming November events include:

More Information & Tickets:

Russel Maliphant Company
http://www.rmcompany.co.uk

San Francisco Performances
http://www.performances.org

Jo Tomalin
Critics World
www.forallevents.com

Nov 01 2012
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ACT’s “Elektra” features Augesen, Dukakis

By Judy Richter

By Judy Richter

Echoes of the Trojan War and the generation-to-generation woes of Greece’s House of Atreus reverberate in Sophocles’ “Elektra,” presented by American Conservatory Theater in a translation and adaptation by playwright-scholar Timberlake Wertenbaker.

In brief, the title character, played by René Augesen, is still lamenting the murder of her father by her mother and her mother’s lover several years earlier. Elektra is hoping that her brother will return to Mycenae to avenge their father’s death. Because of her loud, unending mourning, Elektra has become something of an outcast in her own home and may be teetering on the brink of insanity.

In a tense confrontation between mother and daughter, the steely Clytemnestra (Caroline Lagerfelt) tells Elektra that she had killed Agamemnon to avenge his sacrificial murder of Elektra’s sister Iphigenia. Therefore, Clytemnestra felt her actions had been justified. ACT program notes go into further detail about all of the background leading up to this play, but Wertenbaker’s accessible translation provides basic background information clearly and simply.

Running 90 minutes without intermission, ACT’s production is directed by artistic director Carey Perloff, now in her 20th season with the company. Unlike many other classical Greek dramas, which use a Chorus of several people to comment on the action and serve as a kind of jury, this adaptation uses only one person, Olympia Dukakis, 81, to fill that role. With her silvery hair and dignified stage presence, Dukakis’s Chorus Leader serves as a voice of reason and a welcome counterpoint to Elektra’s rage. The Chorus Leader also helps the audience to explore the play’s key questions about the nature of justice.

Augesen, an ACT associate artist, has the daunting challenge of sustaining Elektra’s rage, grief and the frustration of being a powerless woman. She meets that challenge successfully even though her character’s extremes can be a bit much to take at times.

Lagerfelt’s Clytemnestra evokes little sympathy in her treatment of Elektra, yet she makes a persuasive argument for why she was so aggrieved by her husband. Nick Steen as Orestes, Elektra’s brother, brings an aura of strength, resolve and heroism as he returns and fulfills what he and Elektra see as his duty to avenge their father’s death.

Their sister, Chrysothemis, well played by Allegra Rose Edwards, has curried favor with their mother as a way of going along to get along, but Elektra wins her over. Among the other supporting characters, Anthony Fusco as Orestes’ Tutor has a standout scene when he gives a vivid (but fictional) description of Orestes’ death in a chariot race. Steven Anthony Jones as Aegisthus, Clytemnestra’s lover, and Titus Tompkins as Pylades, Orestes’ cousin and companion, complete the cast.

Ralph Funicello’s set foreshadows the play’s mood as the audience enters and sees a chain link fence topped by barbed wire stretching across the stage. Lighting by Nancy Schertler reveals the grimly black palace behind the fence and later uses red to symbolize the bloodshed within.

Costumes by Candice Donnelly run the gamut from, as Perloff says, ancient Greece to haute couture. The latter is seen in Chrysothemis, whose prissy white outfit evokes the mod mode of the late ’60s or early ’70s. Sound by Cliff Caruthers completes the play’s design components..

Another key element in this production is provided by composer David Lang’s haunting score, played and sometimes sung by cellist Theresa Wong, who sits on one side of the stage.

Because of its near-unrelenting keening, “Elektra” may be hard for some observers to take, but the acting and design elements are all outstanding.

“Elektra” will continue at American Conservatory Theater, 415 Mason St., San Francisco, through Nov. 18. For tickets and information call (415) 749-2228 or visit www.act-sf.org.

Nov 01 2012
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Mourning does not become ELEKTRA at ACT.

By Kedar K. Adour

 

L to R: René Augesen as Elektra, Olympia Dukakis as the Chorus Leader, and Allegra Rose Edwards as Chrysothemis in Sophocles’ Elektra. Photo by Kevin Berne.

ELEKTRA: Sophocles’ Greek Tragedy. A new translation by Olivier Award–winning playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker. Directed by Carey Perloff, American Conservatory Theatre (ACT), A.C.T.’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary Street, San Francisco. 415-749-2228 or www.act-sf.org. October 25 – November 18, 2012

Mourning does not become ELEKTRA at ACT.

The Greeks have invaded both sides of Bay Bridge with Berkeley Rep extending their run of the brilliant An Iliad and American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) mounting an adaptation of Sophocles’s Elektra that had its world premiere in 2010 at the Getty Villa outdoor theater in Los Angeles. ACT artistic director Carey Perloff directed the world premiere and has redirected the present staging bringing along local favorite Olympia Dukakis from the LA production.

The connection between Homer’s Iliad and Sophocles’ and Elektra is temporal. The Greek king Agamemnon has sacrificed his youngest daughter Iphigenia to the gods in exchange for a favorable wind to bring back his ships from the siege of Troy. His wife Clytemnestra (Caroline Lagerfelt) and her lover Aegisthus (Steven Anthony Jones) have murdered Agamemnon. The young son Orestes (Nick Steen), who would be a threat to the throne that Aegisthus has usurped, has been sent away to safety with his Tutor (Anthony Fusco). Elektra (Renee Augesen) and her sister Chrysothemis (Allegra Rose Edwards) have remained with their increasingly paranoid mother Clytemnestra. Whereas Chrysothemis is resigned to her fate, Elektra openly and often mourns the death of her father and seeks revenge.

Years have intervened but revenge remains paramount in the minds of Orestes, his best friend Pylades (Titus Tompkins) and the Tutor. The trio plan to arrive in disguise to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. The deed gets done. End of play.

Although a few of the audience spontaneously arose to applaud the actors, the majority remained seated politely applauding and on exit did not exhibit the usual enthusiasm after seeing an Olympia Dukakis performance. The chorus in a Greek drama is extremely important since they unite the past, present and predict an ominous future. Dukakis makes her entrance from the aisle, to spend the major portion of the evening standing around while the action proceeds. She does not demonstrate her usual command of the stage and much of the time used excessive arm flaying.

Then too, the superb multitalented Augesen seemed to be emoting rather than acting as she groveled much of the time on the floor. Her quality acting did not project and this probably was the fault of the directing, translation and adaptation. For this concept production the set (Ralph Funicello) was a city slum area with a metal chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire extending across the full length of the stage with debris scattered about.

Caroline Lagerfelt & Rene Augesen

The finest performance is given by Caroline Lagerfelt. Her depiction of the arrogant paranoid Clytemnestra was regal and chilling conveying the treachery that is her undoing. Anthony Fusco gives a quality performance as the Tutor and Steven Anthony Jones’ brief entrance is powerful. Running time 90 minutes without intermission.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

 

 

Oct 29 2012
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SO NICE TO COME HOME TO at Cinnabar is an asperous but appealing musical.

By Kedar K. Adour

SO NICE TO COME HOME TO: A World War II Musical. Music by Richard B. Evens, Lyrics by Kate Hancock, Book by Evans and Hancock. Suggested by two plays by J. M. Barrie. Cinnabar Theater, Petaluma, CA 707-763-8920 or www.cinnabartheater.org. October 26 – November 11.

SO NICE TO COME HOME TO at Cinnabar is an asperous but appealing musical.

Jan Klebe, founder of the often acclaimed Cinnabar Theatre commissioned a musical to have its world premiere in their Petaluma Theater. The result of that commission opened last night under an almost full moon on an exceptional balmy evening with the mostly mature audience anticipating an evening of nostalgia. They were not disappointed as nostalgia sang/rang from the rafters as the music and story crossed the stage apron.

For those of us who lived through the mid-forties when the world was at war and U.S. Bond drives were part of our existence, the nostalgia should have been more compelling. As noted, the subtitle of the play proclaims the “A World War II Musical” and the creators have not led us astray. The play takes place in New York City from Friday September 1 through Sunday through September 3, and a final scene on December 24th 1944. A lot can happen in New York in 3 days and it certainly does in this contemplative musical.

Based on James M. Barrie’s plays The Old Lady Shows Her Medals and The Twelve Pound Look the authors have cleverly interwoven the stories, given it a 1940s look, created songs in the style of that era and selected a very competent local cast. They were also fortunate to have Equity singer and actor Michael McGurk, a seasoned Broadway and roadshow veteran to bolster the cast.

After a rousing opening chorus, via radio, of “We’ll Never Give Up” the story begins. During those turbulent war years every parent, although having serious misgivings, were proud to have a son in the service of our country. Like the Lady in Barrie’s play, childless Kate Downey (Elly Lichenstein), has invented a son serving in Europe and shares her fantasy with her friend Jean (Valentine Osinski) with “He’s Such a Wonderful Boy” and “”My War Too.”

Another friend Al O’Donahu (Stephen Walsh) who entertains at the famous New York Stage Door Canteen has accidently ‘discovered’ 2nd Lt. Kenneth Dowling (Michael McGurk)erroneously assuming he is Kate’s son. When Al brings Kenneth, a Silver Star war hero, to Kate’s apartment the self-deception is compounded (“What Have We Got to Lose?”) for reasons that are made clear later in the play.

The secondary ‘twelve pound look’ plot is introduced when Kate completely by chance meets her former rich husband Harry Sims (powerful baritone Bill Neely) and his new trophy wife Eleanore ( you won’t recognize Valentine Osinski in this dual role). They have an aged butler named Tombs (Michael Van Why) that has been added for humor but to this reviewer is a misstep by the authors. However, when Michael Van Why struts his stuff as “Carmen Miranda” and “Rosie the Riveter” at the Stage Door Canteen he brings the house down. He has to share accolades with scene stealing, full bodied baritone Stephen Walsh as an emcee at the canteen. Another show stopper is an authentic Andrew Sisters style “Uncle Sam Wants You” belted out by the trio of Walsh, Osinski and Van Why.

The story follows a pedestrian course into the second act and Kenneth is given a plaintive solo of what “Heroes” are made of. Kate and Kenneth go on a tour of New York City beginning with “What’s So Great About New York City” before reality kicks in with “Happy Endings”, “I will Come Home to You” and “Empty Spaces.”

The two hour evening, including an intermission, is laudable but has the feeling of a work in progress.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

Oct 26 2012
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Fringe of Marin: Advance Review Fall 2012

By David Hirzel

The season hasn’t started yet, so don’t look here for reviews of what you will or will not see.  But of course, you will have to go to Meadowlands Hall at Dominican University in San Rafael, to see the plays for yourself.  Then, should you be inspired, you can write your own reviews.

I can say this.  In all the Fringes I have attended (and we are going on eight or nine now), there is at least one play, and often more, that will astound you with a deft script, sensitive direction, and superb acting.  You will be, as I have often been, amazed at the dynamic confluence of all these appearing on stage before you.

These are all one-act plays, by unknown or little-known playwrights, having their world premiere right in front of you. You could (and in fact probably are) watching the incubation of the next Harold Pinter or David Mamet (or Eugene O’Neill—everybody starts somewhere).  That stage is literally no more than twenty feet in front of you, so close that you are no longer an audience separated from the action by the supposed fourth wall.  You are, and sometimes quite literally, a part of the action.

This is not to promise that every play at the Fringe will deliver a memorable theatrical experience.  With thirteen plays produced twice a year for lo! these thirty seasons, that is a standard impossible to keep up.

I can promise that you will see something you have never seen before.   And if you attend both Programs, something that will leave you thinking and talking to your friends for days afterward.  This is the best bargain in small theatre you can find.  There are only five performances of each Program, starting November 2.  Don’t miss it.

Fringe of Marin website for Program and Performance Schedule: http://fringeofmarin.com

by David Hirzel www.davidhirzel.net