(L-R) Hannah Martínez-Crow as Dusty, Karla Acosta Ormond as Jean and Nicole Naffaa as Bernadette appear in The Royal Underground Theatre Company’s “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive” onstage in Berkeley through Sept. 27, 2026. (Jerianne Banson via Bay City News)

by Woody Weingarten, Bay City News

“POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive,” onstage in Berkeley’s Live Oak Theater, may be just satirical enough, with its thinly veiled references to the current White House.

But the chaotic all-woman, two-act farce may be a tad too over-the-top. While it’s happily missing the rapid-fire slamming of doors, the foundation of farce, the characters bellowing and yelling at the same time is excessive.

Still, all seven performers are excellent.

The best part of the 1¾-hour show, presented by the Royal Underground Theatre Company, a “nomadic” Bay Area troupe established in 2002, is the slapstick of Stephanie, the beleaguered presidential secretary (played hysterically by Jules Weiss) and Dusty (played lustily as a “woke powderpuff” by Hannah Martinez-Crow).

(L-R) Jules Weiss as Stephanie, Michele Rabkin as Harriet and Asoula “Jasmine” Avegalio as Margaret, appear in The Royal Underground Theatre Company’s “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive.” (Jerianne Banson via Bay City News)

Stephanie, often stoned, wears minimal clothing and an oversized, patriotic life preserver around her waist, and abruptly spouts one of the five languages she speaks. Dusty, a jovial cheerleader-type, doesn’t let having been impregnated by POTUS (the president of the United States) stop her from doing the splits or trying to sexually service civilians as a way of helping the White House staff.

Some theatergoers might believe that playwright Selina Fillinger (a writer on Apple TV’s “The Morning Show”) conceived the story in a crowded sports bar or a makeshift homeless tent city. It’s based on the vulgar “c” word, which, in fact, is the play’s startling first word.

Each character is adept in her tasks. Some of the women even act as proxies for the offstage president —until West Wing pressures make them more than a little crazy.

Theatergoers who like tons of curse words will be happy, even though the barrage becomes unfunny and redundant by the second act. Those who love clever subtitles, exemplified by the one in this show, also will be happy, as will those seeking quarrels between co-workers that signify open rivalries and screwed up relationships.

Director Anna Oglesby-Smith keeps things tight throughout; audiences don’t know what the next twist, the next enabling action, the next invective, will be.

(L-R) Raven Douglas plays Chris, a reporter, and Asoula “Jasmine” Avegalio plays Margaret, the First Lady, in “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive.” (Jerianne Banson via Bay City News)

Jean, the overwrought, overwhelmed press secretary (played by Karla Acosta Ormond) has to deal with numerous makings of public relations nightmares: post-feminist fervor, the destruction of historically valuable statuary, frequent presidential sexual misbehavior, a conference on nuclear banning, an anal abscess, and all-too familiar political endorsements and photo ops.

There are outstanding performances by Michele Rabkin as Harriet, the mannish chief of staff who’s appropriately standoffish, until she completely loses it; and Asoula “Jasmine” Avegalio as Margaret, the over-educated First Lady who’s perfected a snarl and a sneer.

Nicole Naffaa as Bernadette, the president’s butch, drug-dealing sister, and Raven Douglas as Chris, a frenetic magazine reporter seeking a scoop, fill out the cast.

Among the costumes by Maggie Brennan, some silently scream “laugh at me, laugh at me,” a message received and followed. It doesn’t matter that the show’s sets are minimal. Its verbal and physical gags are maximal, even though more than a few fall flat.

Overall, “POTUS” is easy to enjoy, particularly for those who don’t let themselves get bogged down in gutter language or worry too much about it being a real though distorted reflection of what’s happening today in the part of the White House that hasn’t been bulldozed yet.

The Royal Underground Theatre Company’s “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive” runs through Sept. 27 at Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. Tickets are $37.89 at https://www.theroyalunderground.org.

This article was first published on LocalNewsMatters.org, a nonprofit site supported by Bay City News Foundation http://www.baycitynews.org/contact/.

Woody Weingarten can be contacted at www.woodyweingarten.com or www.vitalitypress.com or www.voodee@sbcglobal.net.

(L-R) Danny Scheie, Benjamin Clark and Lyndsy Kail play members of Alcoholics Anonymous in Marin Theatre’s “The White Chip” onstage in Mill Valley through Sept. 20, 2026. (David Allen via Bay City News)

by Woody Weingarten, Bay City News

“The White Chip,” a one-act play at Marin Theatre, might easily have slipped into being an “alcohol-is-evil” sermon if not for the skills of playwright Sean Daniels and director Lance Gardner. They don’t allow more than a few seconds to pass without a funny one-liner or a funny physical gag. Elements of addiction and recovery, the fast-paced show’s main motifs, are quasi-autobiographical for both.

The show is buttressed by stellar acting by Benjamin Clark as Steven, an on-again, off-again, self-destructive drunk; and Lyndsy Kail and Danny Scheie, a two-person battalion of swift-change, often humorous characters.

Steven, who works relentlessly to grab theatrical success on Broadway, relies on booze binges trying to escape inescapable pressures. Making a good choice is a difficult task for him, except perhaps when he must pick either “the fat Elvis or the skinny Elvis” to be in his Las Vegas wedding party.

The nerdy protagonist chronologically revisits his life on the treacherous road to recovery, defensively citing famed alcoholic playwrights, then rhetorically asking the audience if it would really “want to read a sober Jack Kerouac or a sober Hunter S. Thompson.”

Benjamin Clark plays Steven in Marin Theatre’s “The White Chip” onstage in Mill Valley, Calif., through Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (David Allen via Bay City News)
One of the funniest bits is a slapstick sequence in which white chips — from Alcoholics Anonymous, signifying 24 hours of sobriety or, indeed, simply a desire to stop imbibing — are flung around the stage as if they’d been shot from a cannon.

Steven refers to his “lifetime love affair” with the bottle, especially vodka, because it’s not detectable on the drinker’s breath. He darts from New York to Florida to Kentucky, blacking out more than once. And he details a string of accidents, arrests and relapses. But he also pinpoints moments of sheer joy and interrupts his trek to the bottom when he finds both his higher power and help from Jewish alcoholics, whose sense of humor is healing.

Those moments are opposite to his “imprisonment” in a reboot camp.

Meanwhile, Scheie, with excellent accents and facial mugging, adroitly races between being Steven’s frail father, a spunky airport bartender, a curt German interloper and a kid with squeaky voice and baseball cap turned sideways.

And Kail is so good at what she does, there’s never a question of whether she’s portraying Steven’s mom, who constantly greets him with f-bombs, or one of his multiple girlfriends, or other characters who become real with a flip of her hair or a wide-eyed expression.

Also, both Scheie and Kail imitate the voices in Steven’s head, two cats, and, hilariously, walls and doors of a moving elevator.

The show boasts excellent stagecraft. The set by Christopher Fitzer has a shiny bar with a wall full of bottles that light up for emphasis. Spense Matubang’s lighting, from sensually dim to brilliantly bright, adds drama, and Lisa Townsend’s choreography is sublime, whether in a Keystone Cops-like chase scene or a change-personality moment resulting from a flip of a cap.

“The White Chip,” which runs 1¾ hours with no intermission, might leap from a B-plus to an A-minus if 20-30 minutes were chopped from the second half. Nonetheless, this hard-on-the-tush version is worth a theatergoer’s time. It’s always a tough job to balance comedy and poignancy, and this production does it well.

Marin Theatre’s “The White Chip” continues through tomorrow at 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley; tickets are 39 to $110 at www.marintheatre.org.

This article was first published on LocalNewsMatters.org, a nonprofit site supported by Bay City News Foundation http://www.baycitynews.org/contact/.

Woody Weingarten can be contacted at www.woodyweingarten.com or www.vitalitypress.com or www.voodee@sbcglobal.net.

Jereme Anglin, left, and Kevin Bordi, right, appear in “Equivocation,” a comedic and philosophical play set in Shakespearean times onstage at Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park, Calif. (Jeff Thomas via Bay City News)

By WOODY WEINGARTEN, Bay City News

“Equivocation,” a Spreckels Performing Arts production onstage in Rohnert Park, is a seriocomedy with endless levels and disparate themes, all of which are delightfully exceptional. 

In its 2¾-hour running time, there are repeated examples of equivocation by circa 1605 Shakespearean-style characters, both whimsically and seriously drawn by playwright Bill Cain.  

It’s a fictional history detailing King James I’s Machiavellian right-hand man, Robert Cecil (played sneeringly evil by Zane Walters), who’s pitted against poor, mostly ethical actors.

“Equivocation,” a comedic and philosophical play set in Shakespearean times, played onstage at Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park, Calif. (Jeff Thomas via Bay City News)

Cecil commissions Shag-speare, or Shag (skillfully portrayed by Jereme Anglin) in the name of the Scottish king to write a play about the recently foiled Gunpowder Plot by 13 Catholic terrorists-liberators aiming to blow up parliament and kill the king. 

Shag is reluctant to complete the assignment at first, musing about whether the basis for the play is a coverup, or pure propaganda. And maybe there wasn’t a plot, or gunpowder at all. Besides, he says, “We don’t do current events. We do histories, true histories of the past.” 

Given a choice between emphasizing Cain’s side-splitting, droll comedy or a touching, morally explorative melodrama-thriller, “Equivocation” director Sheri Lee Miller often opts for slapstick. There’s abundant histrionics in the play-within-a-play conceit. 

The Globe Theater actors frequently break time barriers and worm their way into “real-life” philosophical discourse as the play introduces heavy concepts: 

• Whether to risk actors’ lives by telling the truth or to massage a lie that will result in a big payday — or to deceptively offer truth and lie at the same time 

• Whether Catholicism or Protestantism is the “right” religion 

• Whether torture and execution are better solutions than diplomacy 

• Whether a writer should answer yes or no questions with a single word or convoluted paragraphs that obfuscate meaning

While “Equivocation” provides intellectual fodder for those desiring it (with references to “the Scottish play,” “King Lear” and “Richard III”), there’s more than sufficient silliness for those hoping to laugh, particularly in scenes with three witches and mirrors.

Cain tosses in the kitchen sink via philosophical questions galore (at times repetitious, other times so complex, they’re nearly impossible to follow) and avoids answering most. However, the play becomes more easily digestible with actors in street dress and using street lingo, and profanity, when not “in character.”  

The six-member ensemble cast is superb. Jeff Coté plays multiple roles, and Natalie Tichenor, the sole woman, is appropriately low-key as Judith, the Bard’s daughter who can never quite meet standards set by her dead twin brother. She’s rather quiet until she delivers a poignant soliloquy toward the play’s end. 

Kevin Bordi, who appears as Father Henry Garnet and Richard, also is choreographer of an amazingly authentic fight scene. Intricate colorful costumes by Adriana Gutierrez instantly yank theatergoers back multiple centuries. English accents are absent, but Drew Bolander’s high-pitched Scottish inflections are spectacularly amusing. 

Torture, hangings and beheadings in “Equivocation,” which debuted in Ashland, Oregon in 2009, might be disturbing and perhaps draw a gasp. Frequent time changes may also be distressing.  

However, theatergoers at a recent weekend matinee were smiling through most of the performance and jumped to their feet when it ended. 

While audiences may not instantly “get” all aspects of “Equivocation,” or perhaps get a trace of fanny fatigue toward the end, they’re almost sure to enjoy being transported back to Elizabethan times. And to laugh. A lot. 

This article was first published on LocalNewsMatters.org, a nonprofit site supported by Bay City News Foundation http://www.baycitynews.org/contact/. 

Woody Weingarten can be contacted atvoodee@sbcglobal.net,  https://woodyweingarten.com or https://vitalitypress.com.

by Woody Weingarten, Bay City News

(L-R) Cove Elementary fifth grader Nora Zalewski speaks with an Áegis Living Corte Madera resident in Corte Madera, Calif., on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Kristy Dell via Bay City News)

“BINGO! OH, YEAH!” 

That could have been anyone yelling at a bingo palace, but this time it was a resident senior at Áegis Living Center in Corte Madera.

In the Marin County assisted living memory care facility, the game’s not all about winning; it’s the basis of a learning exercise.

Kids from Kristy Dell’s fifth grade class at Cove Elementary School, on field trips, have been teaching the gray-hairs how to play, how to follow the rules and still enjoy the game, while they, in turn, learn how to really talk with old-timers and how to learn from them.

Dell’s brainchild, the project also led her charges to read poetry and share artwork with their elders, make greeting cards for them, present a Constitutional play and follow up with a song, and teach and fold origami.

(L-R) Elementary student Ben Dell explains how origami works to an Áegis Living Corte Madera resident in Corte Madera, Calif., on Monday, June 1, 2026. (Kristy Dell via Bay City News)

All this took place during six different visits last year, and Dell can’t wait for the next semester, which starts in August at the East Corte Madera school. Although she believes that a good mix already was provided her 41-student, double-sized class (in which she supervises two other teachers), she’s convinced that the variety of activities can be increased.

“And I’d like the class to get more of the residents’ stories,” she says. “This year, my first of doing it, it was very kid-heavy, and I’d like to make it more resident-heavy.”

Dell’s son, Ben, was in the pilot program. “There was no greater joy than seeing the seniors light up upon seeing us,” he says.

Classmate Marlowe Uchrin echoes the positivity: “I loved going to Áegis because it was a great way to talk with people in our community and learn about the people around me. Looking back on elementary school will be a memory that will stay with me for a long time.”

On the senior side, Nancy Morrow reports that “what I liked best was how honest the kids were, and how willing they were to share their ideas with older people. I thought they were terrific.”

And Susan Perdiue says “the best thing about the fifth graders coming here was that they were very open, friendly, and polite. They were well prepared, and it was clear that were having fun, too.”

Dell had accurately warned the students upfront that “singing a song or playing bingo may not be as easy as you think it is — some seniors may be grumpy, not hear well, or not move around well, and you may have to make space for wheelchairs, walkers and canes, and learn to remain in what might be an uncomfortable situation.”

She had the kids role-play to see how it would work, how their behavior could have a big impact on other people, and how they could develop leadership skills. She also hoped to weave in what she believed was being lost these days — a sense of morals and ethics.

She wasn’t sure, of course, that her intergenerational idea would work. “You can talk to the kids about something like kindness, conflict resolution, empathy, or good communication skills, but until you put their feet to the fire, you don’t know if they really learn those things.”

Áegis, which sits on East Paradise Drive, also offers residents the following, according to its website, www.aegisliving.com — chef-prepared meals, a full-service salon, a private theater, a library, daily on-site licensed nurses, pet-friendly apartments, and transportation to shops and restaurants, medical appointments, and the Moraga Country Club.”

Still, Dell admits she wasn’t 100% comfortable during the kids’ first visit. That’s because “although half were all smiles, some were curmudgeonly about having kids in their space. By the end, though, everyone wanted to know when we were coming back.”

Kristy Dell teaches class at Cove Elementary School in Corte Madera on Thursday, May 7, 2026. (Angela Roche via Bay City News)

One senior who’d been hesitant at first, she remembers, “cried when one of the kids gave him a drawing of a car from the 1930s and, not assuming his age, said, ‘Maybe your parents drove this car.’”

The kids, who also led a holiday toy drive in conjunction with the Central Marin Fire Department, sidestepped potential minor problems.

Dell and they had decided together that they should do Q&A sessions so residents could throw un-censored questions at them. But one asked, “What was the last time you got into trouble and how?” The kids were cautious enough not to reveal any dark secrets and instead “answered about having an extra scoop of ice cream, not brushing their teeth, or not practicing their instrument for 15 minutes.”

Dell “didn’t think to warn them not to bring up politics. The facility has a social chair who asked a political question that was a little tricky, and all bandwagoned against Trump.

(R-L) Elementary student Marlowe Uchrin sits with an Áegis Living Corte Madera resident during a round of BINGO in Corte Madera, Calif., on Monday, June 1, 2026. (Kristy Dell via Bay City News)

That, she added, “also led to a discussion when we got back to class and did a debriefing about never making assumptions about other people’s beliefs about politics, religion, or anything else — and watching out for regurgitating what your parents or older siblings say, or what you overhear from anyone else.”

Dell’s excitement about how her program worked is easily summed up. “Everything went smoothly, and my overall take was that the kids were thrilled because a lot of them overcame fears, a lot pushed themselves out of their comfort zones, and a lot got to see the instant gratification of what can come from their kindness, their words, or their action.”

She, too, learned from the intergenerational sessions — “that there’s still good in the world, post-Covid, despite the news being the way it is. The kids found a way they could help, be vulnerable and kind, and see that those actions will pay back ten-fold when it might initially feel cheesy or be something they don’t want to do.

“And I learned that I can foster that.”