Screenshot from Hollywood Does Abortion documentary shows protest outside clinic.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Hollywood Does Abortion is all about Tinseltown not wanting to do them. Or eventually caving and depicting the issue through a right-of-center lens.

The one-hour, 39-minute documentary traces a controversial topic that’s appeared more and more frequently over the decades on bigger home screens and smaller movie-house surfaces. From troubled pre-Roe vs. Wade days through today’s troubled post-Dobbs times. Political progress and retreat.

It features what feels like hundreds of quick cuts — clip after clip from flicks and telecasts and newscasts, plus tons of heads that won’t stop talking. Producers and writers and analysts and you-name-its.

Virtually every position on the subject is explored a bit, so a viewer can’t escape learning something unlearned before.

The dense panorama begins with Norman Lear’s TV heroine Maude shoving history forward by contemplating an abortion, and the public backlash that series generated; it ends with a monotone thought-balloon that we should all be tolerant and try to make the world a little better; and detours along the way for gossip and a peek at Marilyn Monroe’s abortion or miscarriage or whatever that momentary headline-grabbing, national trauma was.

The film — which was executive produced by Rachel Bloom, who will be honored July 18 at with the Freedom of Expression Award at the 46th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival — is interesting but not compelling. That may be due to its being somewhat choppy (fragmented, if you will) and mostly chronological.

Bloom, activist and co-creator and acting star of the CW musical/comedy/drama series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, probably couldn’t care less what critics say about Hollywood Does Abortion because, after having helped spearhead the pet project, it’s now out there, at festivals at least, and from her standpoint, the more publicity, the better.

But the doc isn’t unlike a high-school class in gender politics, emphasizing multiple historic pivots as if they were tiny subheads.

Showing dramatized pre-surgical exam is screenshot from Hollywood Does Abortion.

It flits, for example, from Dirty Dancing and its branding abortion as dangerous, whether illegal or not; to Evangelicals getting heavily involved politically; to Operation Rescue with its attacks on abortion clinics and doctors; to the era of folks again wanting the procedure to disappear under the rug and be safe, legal, and rare; to a tribute to Grey’s Anatomy and how consistent the TV series has been regarding a sensitive coverage of the subject; to the not unexpected reversal of Roe; to the evolution of abortion via a welcomed pill; to the rise of streaming and its shedding of pressures from corporate bigwigs and advertisers.

Hollywood Does Abortion, which has no explosions or car chases or, indeed, any action whatsoever, sidetracks momentarily into the evolution of gay relationships on screen, and to a dozen other headline topics. That’s its biggest flaw, trying too hard to do too much.

But there’s so much content — content that appears to change every second and a half — that pro-abortion activists can find plenty to love. And to hate.

Ditto, anti-abortionists.

Either way, it’s an immersive, mildly intriguing under-two-hour mental road-trip from that Maude show in the fall of 1972 to now.

Picturing happy post-birth, on screenshot from Hollywood Does Abortion, shows how Tinseltown and TV skirt controversial issue.

Nuns, shown here as convent chorus in Sister Act, provide cover for Deloris Van Cartier, who’s fleeing murderous gangsters. Photo by Eric Chazankin.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

After an astoundingly exciting, fast, feel-good first half of Sister Act, the 21 performers at the 6th St. Playhouse in Santa Rosa couldn’t quite transcend the slightly slower pace in Act II that the script prescribed.

But that was the only visible flaw in the 2½-hour production. In fact, almost every element of the musical-comedy was superlative:

• The smoothly movable set, designed by Laurynn Malilty, was of Broadway quality, better than any seen in the Bay Area in years. Depiction of the inside of a convent was pinpoint perfect, down to the tiniest detail, and all the other backdrops were equally well thought out and constructed.

• Deloris Van Cartier, the role made famous by Whoopi Goldberg in the 1992 Sister Act film as she became a fake nun while hiding from murderous gangsters, is exquisitely filled by Majesty Scott. She’s a quadruple threat who’s obviously mastered singing, acting, comedy, and dancing.

• Costumes co-designed by Barbara Page and Carolyn Bartlett, sensationally ranged from quietly spiritual to in-your-face glitzy. All of them add to a theatergoer’s amusement.

• Tracy Hinman skillfully depicted the Mother Superior, wearing her emotions — from disdain to a loving acceptance — on the sleeves of her habit.

• Choreography by Jorey Cantu guaranteed smiles on the faces of audience members. It featured tons of snappy hand movements and even a low-kicking nun’s chorus line.

• Chase Thompson was amazingly rubber-legged and rubber-armed while dancing as T.J., a thug. It was impossible to not laugh at — and appreciate — his exaggerated, comedic body movements.

• Most folks weren’t likely to leave the Santa Rosa theater singing any of the unfamiliar songs (music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Glenn Slater), despite some of the 19 musical numbers being incredibly bouncy or remarkably melancholy. The eclectic score nevertheless successfully moved the storyline by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner along, silly and predictable as it was.

Majesty Scott portrays hiding lounge singer Deloris Van Cartier. Photo by Eric Chazankin.

• Chorus members were mostly cheery, a contagion that spread throughout the packed audience, and soloists were so strong the crowd reacted with frequent wild applause and occasional screeching. Especially memorable were Andrew Cedeno singing “I Could Be That Guy” as Eddie Souther; Isiah Carter as Curtis Jackson, mobster chieftain (‘When I Find My Baby’); and Hannah Passanisi as Sister Mary Robert (‘The Life I Never Led’) — plus, of course, Majesty Scott as Deloris (the title tune) and Tracy Hinman as Mother Superior (‘Haven’t Got a Prayer”).

• The eight-member band in the pit, led by music director and keyboardist Ginger Beavers, played at just the right level so the sound didn’t overshadow any of the individual singers.

• Director Megan Bartlett, along with stage manager Celina Kegerreis, tracked everything at once during rehearsals, then shattered the chaos by helping each performer be precisely where he/she/they were supposed to be.

Put all those positive talking points together and what do you end up with? An exceptional show that fulfills its promise to entertain and let theatergoers have fun, all the while managing to ignore the constant Breaking News.

Sister Act will run through June 27 at the 6th St. Playhouse, 52 W. 6th St., Santa Rosa. Tickets: $31.95 to $55.95. Info: (707) 523-4185 or boxoffice@6thstreetplayhouse.com.

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

Bias, here in the form of graffiti, is a major theme of Kintsukurio, an independent docudrama. (Screenshot from Vimeo.)

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Two ordinary families quietly cringe and join a line to the unknown. They don’t know it yet, but they’ll be penned in and guarded without formal charges or a trial, their activities monitored and severely limited, their private items minimized. For years to come.

Kintsukurio, a sympathetic Ikeibi Films docudrama that personalizes the Japanese internment in the United States during World War II, traces those families and their struggles — struggles against a bias that doesn’t disappear after they’re released.

Roughly 120,000 Japanese were interned in America during World War II by the U.S. government.

In a sense, Donald Trump’s current administration is mirroring the horror of sub-humanizing and incarcerating large blocks of people that the government or his allies are afraid of or simply don’t like. Specifically, in this case, by confining hundreds of thousands of undocumented, brown-skinned people it seeks to illegally deport as soon as possible.

Admittedly, the Nazis did even worse. They imprisoned millions of Jews in various countries, cramming them into the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and other forced-labor camps — killing six million innocents, all told.

Confusion is prevalent in long lines that lead to incarceration. (Screenshot from Vimeo.)

Kintsukurio humanizes the Japanese prisoners by focusing on the two familiar family units (including love, hope, and disagreements), albeit with actors who are sometimes stiff. It features thespians most likely unseen before, so the sense of reality becomes easier. Verbal cliches, rather than stopping a viewer, help that sense as well. So does the knowledge that the fictional story virtually replicates real-life tales.

After defining the title as “the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold” to make it stronger, which becomes an overt metaphor, it tracks them from being typical family- and legacy-oriented homebodies through their unpleasant time in confinement (although they can play baseball and dance).

Following their “repatriation,” they discover that anti-Japanese discrimination follows them wherever they go.

The independent feature, which was written and directed by Kerwin Berk and runs two hours and 18 minutes, sharply contrasts a young Japanese male who serves in the U.S. military with those in internment — a soldier who suffers from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, without that diagnosis being available.

In the final analysis, the film is an exercise in determining identity, specifically what it means to be a Japanese American — or, in fact, an anything American.

Kintsukurio isn’t screening in any local theaters, but a Vimeo can be found via www.asianamericanmovies.com

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

As Carol Klyce performs at The Marsh Berkeley, a garment from her childhood, the only memento she still has, hangs behind her in this screenshot.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Shortly after her mother dies of ovarian cancer, her father, a drunk, vanishes into the ozone. Not that much later, she’s forcibly separated her from her four siblings.

“Sometimes,” Carole Klyce admits, “I would just run into the woods and scream and cry.”

The pain and fear are too much. So she runs away.

From a group foster home this time. And next, when the state erroneously labels her an incorrigible troublemaker and starts the paperwork to put her in a mental institution, she runs away.

She runs away from a juvenile correction facility, too.

Into the clutches of a child molester. Into the employ of the Mafia.

And she runs away from both of them as well.

Photograph of Carole Klyce as she is today (by Cynthia Smalley).

Her monologue at The Marsh Berkeley reveals an endless need as a teenage runaway to change her name, her appearance, her skills. She even needs to masquerade as a boy.

Sounds like the life-fodder for a fascinating, emotional, one-person show, doesn’t it? Well, despite Klyce doing her best, her opening night merges all those elements but somehow leaves out the inherent tension, the intensity, the melodrama.

Klyce and director Deb Fink neglect to give different weights to differing story elements. The memoir becomes as exciting as if the playwright/performer were reading an elongated list of streaming channels.

Flight Risk, which runs through June 20, holds promise. But the two-hour, intermission-less show could be pared at least 30 minutes, maybe more, including irrelevant, unnecessary references to JFK and other tangential items. That at least might ensure the monologue not feeling like one incredibly long run-on sentence.

Much more attention also needs to be given the pacing and pitch. And to potential sequences of poignancy, like when she takes charge of her nuclear family at age 12 (including care and feeding of her dying mother), and when she develops a close relationship with her grandfather (“my best friend”), who also dies.

The show might well amplify some of her life’s lowlights sandwiched between a hopeful static-laden recording of “Tomorrow” from Annie and the playwright-performer’s 18th birthday party. It’s certainly important to be able to figure out where she is when she’s bouncing from one place to another (“I can’t remember the last time I took a bath in a real bathtub.”).

Klyce, now a mother of three, grandmother of four, deserves credit for her bravery, for being honest and vulnerable in a show that details six of her teenage years that are vastly more horrific than that of your average kid.

One Saturday evening audience, clearly packed with her friends and supporters, distinctly veered from any negative assessment, however, mildly gasping and otherwise reacting to moments of imminent physical or mental danger or angst, chuckling at almost every gag line or comedic movement, and giving a wrinkled, weathered Klyce a rousing ovation as she bowed.

Flight Risk will run at the Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley, through June 20. Tickets: $25 to $35; reserved seats, $50 or $100; plus $3 convenience fee per ticket. Info: 425-282-3055 or boxoffice@themarsh.org.

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