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Sep 03 2012
Love0

Two for One: Petty Theft and Liars

By David Hirzel

Two only-in-Marin in one day—September 2, 2012.  First stop a free concert at Homestead Valley in Mill  Valley.  We arrived toward the end of the middle band’s set, found a place in the sun and settled in for the final act—a cover band for the Heartbreakers known as Petty Theft.  I was a fan of Hearbreakers radio play from the late 70’s, but listened less and cared less as the decades moved on.  Of course Petty has his enduring fans, but I was not particularly one of them.  I was in Mill Valley to lie in the sun (a perfect day for it), picnic and listen to some live music, so I was happy.

As the show went on, it became impossible for me to lie still.  After a while I was sitting up, then on my feet, then gotta-go-dance.  I was not alone in this.  Petty Theft does a near perfect cover of every Heatrbreakers song that ever got airplay, vocals and arrangement note-for-note, with plenty of room for the guitars to take flight on their own (and every other instrument as well) and singer Dan Durkin to stir the crowd up with when the time comes.  Audience participation?—You bet.  The set ended with a show-stopping “Need to Know” but when the band left the stage without playing “American Girl” we all knew there was an encore if we wanted it.  We got it, and a follow-on “Refugee” that brought down the house.  What a show!

Check out Petty Theft.  As they say themselves, “It’s about the music.”   They’re playing all around the Bay Area through September and beyond.   If you like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, you’ll be glad you did.  Website:  http://www.pettytheftrocks.com/

That was just the start of the evening.  We had just enough time between shows to get home and make another picnic—supper this time—and get to Marin Shakespeare’s evening performance of The Liar.  I hadn’t read the playbill and had no idea what to expect for this play, so I was surprised the actors appeared onstage foppishly costumed for 1643 Paris.  The first lines were another novelty when it became clear that the script was written entirely in metered verse approaching iambic pentameter and the quickly developed into farce.  The script was adapted in 2010 by David Ives from the 1643 French comedy by Pierre Corneille.  As Ives said, “to render this luminous world in English. . . .it had to be in verse, just as it is in Corneille.”

We have the standard ingredients of love affairs based mistaken identities, good and evil twins, intentional and unintentional conceits, all compounded by the lofty extravagances that gush from the lips of Darren Bridgett’s Liar.  His servant Clito (Jarion Monroe) is by similar token unable to say a single word that is not the absolute truth, despite detailed instruction:  “Don’t swerve. Be tripping. Poetry. Stay low. Irrelevant details. With verve!”

There is really no way to express in print how absolutely hilarious this play is from one end to the other.  The script is wonderfully absurd, and all in rhyme rhymes but it is these eight marvelous actors taking flight under the freewheeling direction of Robert Currier who make it all seem so, well, believable.  When the whole play is compounded on lies.  It’s something you’ll have to see to believe, and you will not be sorry.  You’ll be thinking and talking about this play for days.   At the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, Dominican University in San Rafael CA, through September 23, 2012.

Website:  http://www.marinshakespeare.org/index.php

Box Office:  (415) 499-4488

 

Sep 02 2012
Love0

Challenging Bay Area Theatre Stagings and Book

By Guest Review

Three challenging outstanding Bay Area productions currently offered are Marin Theatre Company’s Annie Baker’s “Circle MIrror Transformation”,  Porchlight’s “Our Country’s Good”, and Marin Shakespeare’s Company’s “The Liar”. For more information on these productions and  to read a detailed, objective description of Annette Lust’s new book “Bringing the Body to the Stage and Screen” by Phoebe Moyer see Forallevents.com, Critics World, Annette Lust.

Sep 02 2012
Love0

Second Time Director

By David Hirzel

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/

Sep 02 2012
Love0

“Chad Deity” wrestles unsuccessfully with satire

By Judy Richter

Professional wrestling isn’t a sport. It’s entertainment, a form of theater in which each player has an assigned role, and each move and the outcome are scripted.

 That’s one of the messages in “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” by Kristoffer Diaz. Being given its Bay Area premiere by Aurora Theatre Company, this two-act work has a five-male cast, but it’s essentially a monologue. The speaker is Macedonio “The Mace” Guerra (Tony Sancho), a Puerto Rican professional wrestler who has loved what he calls this art form ever since he and his two brothers watched it on TV in their New York City home.

Now he’s employed by THE Wrestling, a promotional company run by Everett K. “EKO” Olson (Rod Gnapp). Mace’s role calls for him to make his opponent look better than he and to allow his opponent to win. He takes on an entrepreneurial role when he encountersVigneshwar “VP” Paduar (Nasser Khan), an athletic Indian American man whom Mace’s brothers met through impromptu basketball games.

 EKO agrees to put VP in the ring, but promotes him as a potential Muslim terrorist and eventually puts him up against THE Wrestling’s champion, Chad Deity (Beethovan Oden), an egotistical black man. Before going up against Chad, though, VP is matched up with The Bad Guy, Billy Heartland and Old Glory, all played by Dave Maier, who also serves as fight director. Maier also warms up the audience before the show by telling observers how to react to various characters.

 Billed as a social satire, “Chad Deity” plays on racial and ethnic stereotypes, but it doesn’t work well. Except for The Mace, none of the characters is anyone the audience can care about, and the plot isn’t all that interesting either, unless – perhaps – one is a fan of professional wrestling. The script is loaded with obscenities and other street language.

 Jon Tracy directs the talented cast and orchestrates the action well. Nina Ball’s set features a wrestling ring and two giant video screens within Aurora’s intimate thrust stage. The videos are designed by Jim Gross with lighting by Kurt Landisman and costumes by Maggie Whitaker. The sound – often deafeningly loud – is by Cliff Caruthers.

Aurora usually presents interesting, provocative plays, but “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” falls short on both accounts.

 It continues through Sept. 30. For tickets and information, call (510) 843-4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org.

 

 

Sep 02 2012
Love0

‘Elaborate Entrance’ grasps pro wrestling — via satire

By Woody Weingarten

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

Sep 01 2012
Love0

“Compliance”

By Joe Cillo

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.

 

Sep 01 2012
Love0

Second Time Director

By Guest Review

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/

 

Aug 31 2012
Love0

‘Chinglish’ is a two-act, double-barreled comic winner

By Woody Weingarten

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.

Aug 31 2012
Love0

PRECIOUS LITTLE at Shotgun Players is flawed but intriguing.

By Kedar K. Adour

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 Han

With 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