Ross Valley Players production of “The Hello Girls” features, L-R, Monica Rose Slater, Jacqueline Lee, Abigail Wissink, Grace Margaret Craig and Malia Abayon. (Robin Jackson/Ross Valley Players via Bay City News)

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Women’s roles in wartime rarely have been so smartly and poignantly portrayed as in “The Hello Girls.”

Ross Valley Players are staging the 2018 musical drama co-written by Peter C. Mills and Cara Reichel, which starts in World War I as U.S. servicemen are fighting in France. Dispatches were being screwed up because male American telephone switchboard operators couldn’t speak French, and their French counterparts lacked English.

Enter the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit.

“The Hello Girls” tracks the misogyny French-speaking females suffered at the hands of their peers and superiors, all the way “up the chain” to stalwart Gen. John “Blackjack” Pershing, played by Joseph Walters with appropriate gruffness.

The feel-good story focuses on Grace Banker, the women’s leader, and four other bilingual operators. Monica Rose Slater adroitly portrays Banker, who is often stone-faced, a countenance befitting keeping her underlings in line—until she starts singing and smiling, often with wide-eyed mugging. She clearly has the most resonant voice of the 10-member cast. Grace Margaret Craig displays comic chops as sharp mouthed operator Suzanne Prevot.

Monica Rose Slater plays Grace Banker, leader of the telephone operator corps in Ross Valley Players’ “The Hello Girls.” (Robin Jackson/Ross Valley Players via Bay City News)

Mills composed the sometimes-similar jazz and ragtime songs in the two-act, two-and-half-hour show. The dense lyrics are geared to move the story along, but the tunes lack memorable riffs. However, some numbers are pleasant: the opener “Answer the Call”; the bouncy title tune “Hello Girls”; the first-act finale “Lives on the Line”; the second-act opener “The Front” and “Making History,” which details what happened after the time period of the show, as the “girls” fought to be recognized as soldiers for decades.

Only a few numbers near the schmaltzy ending—such as “The Lost Battalion,” a solo by promoted Capt. Riser (Nelson Brown) that’s a study in poignancy—deal with the horrors of war.

None of Mills’ melodies are as exciting as snippets of standards such as “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” that are included. And those morsels aren’t nearly as good as the upbeat choruses of signature tunes from each U.S. military branch, belted by the full cast in a patriotic medley.

The actors playfully display their abilities on myriad instruments — keyboard, drums, double-bass, cello, violin, flute and accordion. While they’re probably not either Juilliard or San Francisco Symphony material, they play well enough to create an illusion of mastery.

Director Maeve Smith ensures that the performers’ singing and dancing are in sync, and that their facial expressions and body language convey precisely the right mood.

Ron Krempetz’s set is marvelous and eye-catching; cross-hatched wires and bright lights reveal how critical phone messages were to the war effort.

Grace Margaret Craig displays comic chops and proficiency on accordion in “The Hello Girls.” (Robin Jackson/Ross Valley Players via Bay City News)

Costumes by Valera Coble providing an accurate sense of the era range from blue military outfits with high necklines, puffy sleeves and long skirts, and contrasting colorful civilian garb, for the women, and olive drab uniforms and army helmets and ammo belts for the men. All that, plus heavy boots!

Jonathan Blue’s choreography, predominantly cutesy, can’t help but evoke smiles.

Props are few, and the switchboard is invisible. However, the actors make it real by simulating plug-in motions and serving up perfect harmony, musically and in demeanor.

While it was difficult to watch how the women were rebuffed in their efforts to be in the middle of the action “at the front,” the show’s comedy goes down easier, such as the scene where the women are learning ever-changing secret phone system codes that force them to be trilingual, to know French, English and gibberish.

Ross Valley Players’ “The Hello Girls” runs through March 1 in the Barn Theatre, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Blvd., Ross. Tickets are $30-$45 at rossvalleyplayers.com.

Find Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books at voodee@sbcglobal.net, woodyweingarten.com or vitalitypress.com.

Mark Morris dancers perform in front of projection of the moon and a geometric design, ringed by miniature astronaut figurines. Photo by Xmbphotography.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

It was a rarity for sure — a sound tsunami, rear-screen projections, and pint-sized astronaut figurines, the totality of which often became more compelling than Mark Morris Dance Group movements.

But true to form, the group’s Moon still provided an overall offbeat, entertaining, jam-packed 60-minute program at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. And amusing, even though some segments were significantly befuddling or weird.

The music began with percussive single notes that quickly morphed into jazzy phrases that foreshadowed a lot of what was coming. Astoundingly, the loud, rich tones were provided live in the pit by only two instrumentalists — music director Colin Fowler on piano and organ, Michel Taddei on double bass — on melodies as diverse as Clair de lune, Debussy’s ubiquitous classic, and the obscure Blue Moon of Kentucky by Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys. Plus excerpts from Carl Sagan and NASA’s Golden Record, which was placed aboard two 1977 Voyager spaceships in hopes of communicating with extraterrestrials.

The first of countless projections impeccably designed by Wendall K. Harrington simultaneously highlighted György Ligeti’s Musica ricercata and attempted to supersede the growing jingoism that was spotting our nation in April, when Morris premiered his creation in D.C. in conjunction with Cal Performances and several other musical organizations that co-commissioned it.

Moon saluted old-style American patriotism, initially showing a moving circle of stars that transformed into the U.S. seal. Following images illustrated the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in D.C. and the assassinated president at a podium. Both the world premiere in the nation’s capital and the three-day Zellerbach booking that marked the Bay Area premiere ignored Donald J. Trump, the current, living president — obviously on purpose.

Other projections included full and crescent moons, closeups of craters, moons overlayed with geometric lines and circles, moons linked with pretty much anything you’ve ever associated with that sphere. They perfectly embellished the overriding theme of man’s consistent infatuation with the satellite.

Mark Morris dancers perform in front of projection of the moon and a geometric design, ringed by miniature astronaut figurines. Photo by Xmbphotography.

Costumes by famed designer Isaac Mizrahi, which vaguely resembled jumpsuits used by astronauts, were surprisingly dissatisfying. The contrast of light fronts and dark backs worked well enough, but at least several audience members commented that the outfits lacked excitement and were distracting because they flapped loosely, particularly in the stomach and crotch areas.

Even more bedeviling, however, were segments of the program that were as short as any dance material ever professionally staged, lasting but a few seconds, certainly insufficient time to figure out its purpose.

Perplexing, too, was what seemed an excessive use of the nine featured dancers as, in effect, stagehands who constantly moved around the one-and-a-half-foot high astronaut statuettes, to the point of even simulating robots as they carried them offstage.

It also became difficult to discern why the many foreign-language insertions of greetings to aliens were inserted at the places they were, and it was sometimes tough on the ears to absorb the scratchy static from recordings of 80 or 90 years ago.

Oh, yeah, as for the dancing itself, it generally lacked inspiration. Redundancy throughout — with couples repeatedly hugging and twirling, with dancers reaching out as if to touch a projected moonscape, with dancers swirling across the stage — silhouetted behind a scrim — as they spread out on stools with wheels. Chunks of that was memorable, but some was less than wonderful (especially a sequence that supposedly emulated the movements of monkeys).

The audience for the most part clapped tepidly after each segment but found the energy to applaud vigorously when the short intermission-less piece was done. It also had the grace to give choreographer Mark Morris a standing ovation in honor of the outstanding modern ballets he’s created since founding his troupe in 1980.

Morris’ most popular works are his masterpiece, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, which uses Handel and Milton’s sung poetry as a base; his witty The Hard Nut, which toys with The Nutcracker as if were turned sideways; and the sexy Dido and Aeneas, an adaptation of a Purcell opera.

Upcoming dance performances at Zellerbach Hall include the Martha Graham Dance Company Feb. 14 and 15, celebrating the company’s 100th anniversary; A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham Feb. 21 and 22; the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater April 7-12; and The Joffrey Ballet performing the West Coast premiere of Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com. His books include Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer, aimed at male caregivers; MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of his newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that he co-authored with his then 8-year-old granddaughter.

Costumes in Momix show are extraordinary. Photo by Sharen Bradford.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Momix, a troupe of dancer-illusionists, simply can’t be reviewed like one would an ordinary company of hoofers, or, for that matter, even some exceptionally first-rate ones.

This group was so much better — perhaps because it was so different, so fresh.

At times, the eight celestial, acrobatic performers became movable pawns in artistic director Moses Pendleton’s absurdist Alice, their newest traveling show at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. They could disappear and reappear into and out of lighting effects and projections. They could slyly, whimsically exaggerate dance moves as avant garde recorded jazz, rock, and choral music also captured the audience’s toe-tapping attention. And they could get embedded in mind-blowing, quirky choreography and costumes.

The performance was salted with somewhat subtle humor, via odd arm and leg movements and imaginative heads of critters and babies, via hidden wires that shot performers into the air, and via costumes that rapidly changed characters from this to that to the next thing.

The show also contained understated sexuality.

It’s unlikely most of the crowd had ever seen anything like the 105-minute, two-act Cal Performances Bay Area premiere, even from Momix, which has matured in its sophistication and its ability to create illusions over the years. The performance had a plethora of slick smoke-and-mirrors, minus the smoke.

Pick a descriptive word; these all fit — spectacular, amazing, magical, unique.Come to think of it, fantastic, with its multiple meanings, might be the most on the nose moniker.

The book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was the inspiration for the 23-number wonderment, with Act 1 carrying a “Down the Rabbit Hole” label and Act II being tagged “Through the Looking Glass.”

The spectacle was too superb to have only one show-stopper — it had three, the best of which spotlighted male performers toying athletically with extra-large mirrors that marvelously distorted reality.

Even if the last time you’d read Lewis Carroll’s stories was 20 or 30 years ago, you would immediately remember and recognize references to such classic figures as the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat (even though their identities here were somewhat fluid).

Exercise balls become dance props in Momix. Photo by Sharen Bradford.

One don’t-miss moment, another of the show-stoppers, was a synchronized bit that proved massive exercise balls could become extraordinary props.

Missing the red aerial silks of “The Mad Queen of Hearts” would have been a shame. The segment might have reminded you of a Cirque du Soleil act but with even more striking beauty and pizzazz.

Also, “Advice from a Blue Caterpiller” provided some charming, light-hearted moves that you most likely haven’t witnessed before.

So, with all those visual vignettes in mind, this sentence becomes incredibly easy to write: Next time Momix appears in the Bay Area, go!

Other dance performances coming up at Zellerbach that are certainly worth checking out are the Mark Morris Dance Group’s “Moon” from Jan. 23 to Jan. 25 and “Graham 100,” the Martha Graham Dance Company’s anniversary year celebration on Feb. 14 and 15.  

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com.