By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Perhaps unexpectedly, since the play’s about growing up black and gay, whites in the audience of Bootycandy made up a plurality. But it made no difference. Boisterous laughter frequently erupted from every seat during the opening weekend matinee at the California Theatre of Santa Rosa.

The comedy, which details homosexual intimacy, employs f-bombs and nearly every other curse word you’ve ever heard. It’s belly-shakingly funny.

The top-notch, five-member cast, four of whom are dark-skinned, delivers about 1,738 laughs in less than two hours on the Left Edge Theatre stage (don’t count; you’d probably miss a bunch of gags that way). But, in addition to multiple over-the-top slapstick segments, the audience gets to see black culture through some serious lenses based on a dozen autobiographical sketches playwright Robert O’Hara theatrically threaded.

It takes some time, though, for the Big Reveal to tie the sketches together and transform what initially seems disjointed into something complex but a good deal more linear. In keeping with the offbeatness of the show, no backdrop exists for the actors to play off ­­(or is necessary for the bawdy coming-of-age story) but scene changes are brought to life by substituting chairs, costumes, and props.

Tajal Britten skillfully portrays Sutter, O’Hara’s alter ego, who grows from an awkward kid obsessed with Michael Jackson into a semi-mature playwright. Jonathen Blue, meanwhile, stops the show with an exaggerated, hysterical portrait of a minister who passionately preaches about supposedly wayward choirboys.

Dana Hunt, Lexus Fletcher and Shanay Howell, who each deserve an award for superlative clowning, fill out the ensemble cast in multiple roles that range from a pudgy male rape victim to a lesbian named Genitalia who goes through a “non-commitment ceremony” that spotlights such smart lines as “wherever you go, I will not follow.”

Director Serena Elize Flores makes sure the sometimes subversive and provocative two-act play zips along so fast that audience members leave with the sensation that it’s much shorter than it actually is.

Because the plotline is thin, the vignettes risk being labeled stereotypical and racist. That viewpoint, however, discounts the text also containing more than a few wonderfully crafted, expository lines like “All chocolate cakes ain’t the same.”

Although the playwright has adeptly fleshed out his male characters, he was somewhat stingy with the women’s personalities.

Bootycandy begins with a dude clad only in white briefs and white socks. It ends with a touching moment with an Alzheimer’s-afflicted octogenarian grandma craving baby back ribs, a poignancy that’s diluted because it’s followed too closely by a wonderfully comic dance performed by the actors after their bows.

Bluenoses and children should stay home. Most everybody else should see this show.

Bootycandy will play at the Left Edge Theatre stage in The California, 528 7th St., Santa Rosa, through Nov. 23. Tickets: $22 to $44. Info: (707) 664-7529 or info@leftedgetheatre.com.

 

 

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Steve Budd, in Oy, What They Said About Love, is committed — to not being committed.

Throughout the amusing and heartbreaking 70-minute solo performance at The Marsh Berkeley, he desperately wants to find The One, his beshert, his soulmate.

And he does. Momentarily.

The 50-year-old’s relationship is at best tumultuous — on and off, on and off again, on and off once more. From Kenya to Boston. From ultra-hot to icy.

The Oy in the title should be a dead giveaway: Budd’s clever one-man show is Jewish-oriented.

In it, he sings snippets of Hebrew songs and prayers, occasionally inspiring some audience members to do an impromptu unison sing-along. He also tosses in a handful of words that might not be familiar to every theatergoer. Like schmutz (dirt), traif (non-kosher), and shiksa (non-Jewish female).

The Oakland-based actor/writer/storyteller/standup comic embodies his own being and that of his wannabe wife, a strikingly beautiful Black émigré from Africa. She’s everything he desires in a woman — except she’s not Jewish. She’s willing to convert, however, and wants to have “Einstein kinky-haired kids” with him. Going from one tribe to another wouldn’t be a big deal, she submits.

Budd, a white-haired guy who knows exactly how to comedically utilize his rubbery body and face, explores commonalities and differences in relationships, and why his fail while others succeed. He also illustrates his bumpy journey by morphing himself into the personas of both genders of friends he’s interviewed.

He depicts, for example, Connor and Sarah (an interfaith couple who met at a Halloween party) on an escape trip to Canada, a visit to an Emergency Room because of an ear infection, and a heartfelt, long-withheld utterance of “I love you.”

He shows Gaby finally accepting Matt as her partner, after having met not cute but on Craigslist, by lowering her expectations.

He exquisitely describes folks through their own words. “He does not know how to blow his nose quietly,” for instance.

He also details his mother’s death. And switches the om chant to one emphasizing the word mom.

The monologist’s acting chops have evolved enough so there’s no need for props or costumes or a set. The stage, indeed, is barren except for a chair and two undecorated blocks on which to sit. Infrequent lighting changes and recorded music do add some atmosphere.

Budd’s journey — directed by Mark Kenward and Kenny Yun —is at once funny and agonizing. And he displays it all while wearing a simple shirt with hoodie, darkish trousers, and old-fashioned black-and-white sneakers.

But, oy, he weaves his own written words into a narrative so real that it’s easy for the audience to visualize each character in his theatrical stockpile.

Oy, What They Said about Love will run at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley, through Oct. 25. Tickets: $25 to $35; reserved seating $50 to $100 (plus a convenience fee of $3 a ticket). Info: 415-641-0235 or www.themarsh.org.

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

The Motion, a new sci-fi dramedy, provides laughable and challenging theater while occasionally making audience members believe their brains are about to explode.

In a good way.

Obie-winning playwright Christopher Chen crams about eight tons of material into 105 intermission-less minutes at the Ashby Theater in Berkeley. He explores, for example, morality, memory, identity, emotions, science, and animal welfare vs. animal rights.

Oh yeah, and love.

What’s dubbed a “metatheatrical sci-fi fable” is a five-character production with each of the Shotgun Players’ actors trying to out-superb the others as they try to figure out what it means to be human. The backdrop, the first of several universes that are explored, is a debate stage.

Dr. Alan James (played by David Siniako), “a humane doctor,” implies that critters have souls. To buoy his support of a ban on animal-testing, he describes in gory detail the vivisection of a bunny.

Dr. Sarah Matthis (Erin Mei-Ling Stuart) counters with facts, leading with the notion that 44% of testing does “no harm to animals of any kind” and attempts to show that most experimentation is on lower forms. “Fish are used to study cancer,” she reports, and “worms are used to test Alzheimer’s.” She declares that animals are sentient creatures that shouldn’t be mere tools in scientific research by humans. Along the way, she quotes 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant and cites an illustration of not knowing who to toss overboard when there are five people in a lifeboat that safely holds only four.

Matthis’ alternately cocky and insecure anti-ban partner, Prof. Neel Serrano (Soren Santos), believes the key to settling the debate is by determining how to eliminate suffering. A ban, he warns, might “halt most medical experimentation in its tracks”

Prof. Lily Chan (Gabrielle Maalihan), perhaps the most susceptible to emotions and thereby the most vulnerable debater, admits at one point that she has “this thing where I can’t allow myself to be happy.” In a crisis, she simply feels “so helpless.”

Moderator Jack Donovan (Erin Gould) futilely tries to keep the lid on the debate, circling back to the initial question when everything starts flying off the rails, with participants either talking over each other or flirting. He gets to deliver many — but by no means all — of the laugh-lines.

James, white-bearded, distinguished, and nattily attired, tries swapping one-upmanship lines and concepts with Sarrano, but ends up angrily blurting out, “Please stop interrupting me.”

After loud claps of thunder and blinding lightning flashes, the four debaters are transported to an alternate world in which they are momentarily trapped behind invisible walls. Reading each other’s thoughts, a concept that frightens all of them, is but a first step in a journey that leads to them evolving in other places where they learn to live in the present with AI as a sidekick.

To make the presentation immersive, audience members get to vote on how the debate affected them.

Playwright Chen is popular in the Bay Area. His works have been produced and developed by such companies as the American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Rep, Magic Theatre, and SFPlayhouse,

Artistic director Patrick Dooley founded the Shotgun Players in 1992 in, the website says, the basement of a pizza parlor with “20 eager actors and a bucket of black paint.” Their aim: “to make great, affordable theater.” In the following 12 years, the players performed in 44 different spaces before finding their permanent home on Ashby Avenue in Berkeley.

In a post-show conversation after an opening week matinee of the world premiere, audience members cheerfully dove deeper into the morality issues — politely debating one another and, now and then, ignoring TDooley, who was moderating the half-hour bonus.

During the conversation, he suggested that perhaps the audience might want to consider what the play’s characters and they, as well, have learned about themselves. In the program, he advises theatergoers to retain “a spirit of thoughtfulness and wonder. Stay open. Stay curious.”

Both he and Chen make it virtually impossible to do otherwise.

The Motion will run through Oct. 12 at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. Tickets: $23 to $80. Info: 510-841-6500, ext. 303, or boxoffice@shotgunplayers.org.

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.