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David Hirzel

David Hirzel

Aug 27 2014
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“An Ideal Husband” comes home to Marin Shakespeare

By David Hirzel

The best theater hands us situations in which, though we may not want to, we see ourselves, and even then only after some reflection. Sometimes that reflection is infused with laughs, until an actor standing at the edge of the stage shows in her face the grief that can arise when trust is destroyed by the exposure of a lie. A lie from which she has, no doubt, unwittingly received great financial benefit.

Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband does this, bringing across the span of a century the same sorts of moral dilemmas some of us grapple with even today. Some things never change, and one of those is the temptation toward wealth and power at the expense of honor. This is with us as much today as it was when the play was first shown in London (the very seat of British wealth and power) in 1895. That is what had us talking over breakfast the next morning, after seeing Marin Shakespeare’s premier of the play last night.

The setting is London high society 1895, but could just as easily be Washington DC 2014, except for an underlying sense of morality beneath the gloss and hypocrisy of that long ago day, that one suspects no longer influences today’s extremes of wealth and power. But I digress. . . .

Our glimpse into that society lingers on Sir Robert Chiltern (Nick Sholley), an influential undersecretary of the cabinet, who had bought his place in society with an act that remains to this day a secret. Until it surfaces in a threat of blackmail by Lady Cheveley (Cat Thomson). He knuckles under, of course, until the secret is discovered by his adoring wife Gertrude (Marcia Pizzo). His best friend Lord Goring (Darrin Bridgett), “a bachelor” offers to help, and the plot entangles itself in a convoluted plot of Shakespearean dimension.

Each of the principal characters is flawed, even the most virtuous Gertrude. Each has some twist of the plot reveal these flaws in their multiple dimensions. And Wilde’s genius is this: each of those flaws we can recognize in ourselves. Some of them make us laugh, others make us think. And if we’re paying attention, we come away with a better mirror to our own selves than we had going in.

Now this might be a personal preference, but I’ve found that any production with Darren Bridgett and/or Cat Thompson in it will make you (a) laugh, (b) think, (c) feel more than you expected, in spite of yourself. Reason enough to check out Marin Shakespeare every season, every year.

But in this season’s An Ideal Husband, Marcia Pizzo’s Lady Gerturde Chiltern (Marcia Pizzo) steals the show. The Lady adores her husband for his idealism, is devastated when he proves a bad fit for the pedestal on which she has mounted him, is conflicted as the target of his anger and (as she supposes) the jilted wife, and then relieved when a lie of her own seems to resolve all the conflicts. All of it shows in Pizzo’s manner and her face, and the catbird seat to catch the best of her acting is up close, center-right. There, she’s speaking to you.

Also don’t miss: Julian Lopez-Morillas as the Earl of Caversham, Lord Goring’s lordly father, harrumphing his disdain for all the weaknesses of his offspring and Goring’s friends, then happily endorsing their faults when at last they all meet his approval.

As An Ideal Husband is sure to meet yours.

Review by David Hirzel

 

Aug 23 2014
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Andy and Renee in House Concert: Catch Them When You Can!

By David Hirzel, Uncategorized

House concerts—what a concept! Invite a few musicians over to your house to make music all afternoon, invite all your friends and their friends over to your impromptu venue bringing something to drink and something to share, and some cash for the band, and there you have it.

All the logistics are the same as for any party, with live music. It helps if you have a good-sized living room, a nice yard in sunny weather, or a clubhouse at your condominium. It helps even more if the musicians have the outsized talent of Andy and Renee. This L.A. based duo have been performing together for twenty years, and make a west-coast tour every August up to Canada and back, stopping to do house concerts along the way. If you hear of one of their stops near you, by all means go.

I’ve seen them performing six times now, in bars, on stage, and best of all in the Living Rooms of mutual friends. Last night in the clubhouse at Pacific Point Condominiums was in its own unique way the best of them all (but I think I say that every time. . .) Not the best room, hard walls and floors with too much echo, but Andy and Renee made the best of it. The music—almost all original, always thoughtful and intriguing, and always performed at the highest level of profession and art—comes through wherever they play. They both sing, play keyboards and guitar, and write songs you aren’t likely to hear anywhere else.

Andy and Renee at Telluride

Andy and Renee started out following a printed setlist (a handy reference for those who really like a song, and want to buy the CD), but about the fourth song in abandoned the sequence, and went for the flow. Some of my favorites—”Murder on the Pier,” “14thof February,” “New Orleans I’m Coming Home”-— some new to me—“Insignificant Other, “ “Kids These Days” –performed in this intimate setting to just the few of us gathered, was on transitory moment of absolute purity, one to return to in memory, every time wondering how anything could be so beautiful.

Well, until they turned off the amps, gathered the chairs into a circle, and sang to us as friends not audience, and the evening turned from amazing to magical. Two guitars, two voices, eight or ten songs. Among the songs Lucinda Williams’ “Jackson,” my own favorite Andy and Renee song “Everything Disappears,” Renee’s unique take on “Sweet Home Chicago,” Andy’s powerful “The Night that I Left Town” with its extended guitar coda, an acoustic miracle that amazed even Andy this night out. All this, and the dozen or so of us on hand to share this moment.

Here’s a comment from one of our friends last night: “ Wowowowow! They rock! It was the absolute sweetest concert I’ve ever attended. So much talent and so much heart! I love them!! Just fabulous!!! Bravo!! What a way to start the weekend, and going forward I’ll be driving up and down 280 rocking out to their cds. . .”

So, take my advice. If you ever have the chance to catch these two on their west-coast house-concert tour, do it.  Until then, hover your icon over some of the song titles above for a preview.

Website:  http://www.andyandrenee.com/

Review by David Hirzel

Aug 20 2014
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San Francisco’s Golden Age of Poetry Open Mics Lives On

By David Hirzel

San Francisco’s golden age of poetry open mics lives 0n behind the wide-open doors of Glen Park’s venerable Bird and Beckett Bookstore. It’s hard to believe so many literary and artistic opportunities can coexist in one small space. That space is packed with books—packed in a good way, tall shelves lined with the new and used common and uncommon selections of owner Eric Whittington. It’s very hard for any book retailer to anticipate my geeked out interests, yet on my two visits, here they were: a (used) first-hand account of sailor’s life in the U.S. Navy in 1901, and a (new) translation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s 1966 classic The White Guard. Reason enough right there to take BART down to Glen Park and trust to serendipity from time to time.

Here’s another reason: Every other Monday evening the bookshop hosts a poetry reading with featured readers followed by a well-attended open mic. Tonight’s was my first to attend, but I trust it is representative of the high level of spoken-word artistry to be expected. The featured reader was a young gentleman’s insightful commentaries on romance, city life, family life, and possums. Ayo Khensu-Ra led us through recent works of his own and a favorite poet, with a seasoned musical counterpoint on saxophone, flute, and digeridoo by his father Ra-Ta Khensu-Ra. Some of the poems were good enough to deserve a second reading.

This featured performance was followed by ten poets at the open mic. Some rhymed and some not, some witty to make you laugh—another small mammal, this time a marmot—and some poignant with painful looks into the harsher aspects of family life or the complex rewards of a nurse’s work. All of them poetry in all its many forms, the voice’s music to the ear and the word’s music to the mind.

Bird and Beckett’s nonprofit provides a minimal stipend to the featured artists, supplemented by the passed hat, but the rewards for this enterprise come not from money, but from a common love of the word shared in a space that celebrates and enlivens that word. On other days and nights the same stage is held by jazz musicians, or books, depending. In any case, you can’t go wrong.

Support your local independent bookstore, support live music! Don’t forget to bring some cash for the tip jar and the CDs, and by all means look for that unique book to bring home with you.

Bird and Beckett Books:  653 Chenery St., San Francisco CA 94131    Phone:  (415) 586-3733

Bird and Beckett calendar: http://www.birdbeckett.com/# 

Review by David Hirzel: www.davidhirzel.net

May 24 2014
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Fringe of Marin Spring 2014: Season Opener

By David Hirzel

The Fringe of Marin has gotten off to a good start for Spring 2014, opening their 33rd season’s Program One at Dominican University’s Angelico Hall.  This relatively new venue (2nd season there) is in most ways a decided improvement over the stage at Meadowlands.  There is, for example, a real theatrical sound and lighting system, a real stage and several hundred banked seats.  These, taken together, add a theatrical polish to the overall production, and this in turn brings out the best in the performances.

One of the best of these is the opener, “Fourteen” (written by Inbal Kashtan), a glimpse into the frustration and desperation of an adolescent girl (very well played by Stefanee Martin) seeking connection in a disintegrating household.  Very well staged and directed by Jon Tracey.  Gaetana Caldwell-Smith’s “Andrew Primo” looks into a woman’s discovery that her man is, literally, a machine.  Wth Edith Reiner’s performance as Elaine, it all makes sense.  Lesbian honeymooners on a camping trip are “Fighting for Survival” against all intruders—men, bears, nude dancers, a thunderstorm.  Lucas Hatton’s over-the-top stint as a hapless campground-census taker brought the evening’s richest laughter.  Dylan Brody’s “PreOccupy Hollywood” takes us to the staging room of a group of movie extras hoping for a shot at the bigger time.

For all that this new venue adds, something has been taken away—the close-in intimacy of Meadowlands’ black-box narrow hall.   This is particularly noticeable in “Little Moscow” where Rick Roitinger’s estimable portrayal of a Russian Jewish tailor’s reflective monologue to an unseen customer loses much of the potency of Alecks Merilo’s powerful script to the cavernous auditorium.  It is a credit to his performance and physical embodiment of that tailor, that Roitinger transcends the difficulties of giving an outward projection to the thoughts and words of an inwardly-directed character.

Altogether, a great evening’s entertainment right here in San Rafael.  Program Two promises at least as much, if not more.  Premiere Program Two Saturday May 24, 2:00.

For all dates this season, click Fringe Spring 2014

Box office:  Fringe 2014

Review by David Hirzel  www.davidhirzel.net

May 04 2014
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Moon for the Misbegotten: Marin Onstage shines a light

By David Hirzel

This review is only partly for Marin Onstage’s just ended production of Moon For the Misbegotten. Eugene O’Neill’s play may seem in a way dated in its treatment of alcoholism (it was first produced in 1947) but the problems addressed are universal and timeless. We see greed raising its ugly head on a number of fronts, a father and his grown daughter who know each other too well constantly sparring, the tension between two would-be but never-quite-become lovers. There is conniving and scheming, bickering and just-missed assault, all of it fueled by a constant flow of liquor. And just as in real life, these quandaries are addressed and never quite resolved.

That is the essence of this play, made whole in this theater-in-the-round production. St. Vincent’s is a folding-chair sort of a theatrical space with a cabaret touch, with enough room for a half-dozen round tables for the audience to sit at. For this Moon the raised stage was used only as a backdrop, with the skeleton of a dirt-poor farmer’s shanty backed by blackness. The action takes place on the floor, a spare set with the suggestion of bare dirt, a few tree-stumps and a hand-pump well. Every seat is front-row.

The first act introduces the characters and the tensions that bind them to and repel them from each other. Father and daughter Michael and Caitlin Walraven play the farmer Phil Hogan and his daughter Josie. Their real-life relationship informs their portrayals of these characters eking out a living on a patch of rocks owned by landlord James Tyrone. The second act establishes the brewing crisis: the farm is about to be taken over by a greedy neighbor (Will Lamers). But it the third act, where that the play really catches fire, that the power and drama of O’Neill’s script takes flight. Here the long-simmering push-pull tension of disdain and longing between James and Josie ignites and cools again and again, giving them and the audience a sometimes painful at the conflict between what we desire and what we know we will never attain. Stellar performances by Caitlin Walraven and John Nahigian in this highly charged conclusion brought more than a mist of a tear to the eyes of some of us.

Splendidly directed by Ron Nash, who also directed the other two plays in Marin Onstage’s Spring 2014 season at St. Vincent’s. It was an ambitious series with a focus on the power of women in the life of the early years of the last century, a glimpse of how far we have come, a view of the path that brought us to where we are today. Special thanks also to Jeanine Gray and Lisa Immel for such well-tuned costumes.

The season ends today, but you can expect nothing but the best from Marin Onstage in the fall of 2014, at the Little Theater at St. Vincent’s (1 St. Vincent’s Drive, San Rafael CA)

 Theater Marin website:  www.marintheatre.org

 David Hirzel website: www.davidhirzel.net

Apr 27 2014
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Next to Normal: Please come back, we need you

By David Hirzel

It’s a little late in the game to be posting a review of this show:  today’s (4/27/14) 2:00 matinee was the last performance of Navato Theater Company’s Next to Normal.  It played to a full house—we were lucky enough to get the last two folding chairs before the box office closed for good and had to turn away the last of the eager late-comers.  News of this show had spread like wildfire, and with good reason.

It’s a musical, but not like any other you may have seen.  It deals with mental illness.  Very directly.  It presents the life of a modern American family, dysfunctional as any those we in the audience know from our own lives already.  But above all the tense interactions and confusions and denials lies a shadow.  The doctors have their ideas, their proposals, their drugs and procedures.  But they don’t know the causes of the turmoil and despair, and they can’t cure them.  The healing, partial and imperfect but a start towards something better, comes from within.  Director Kim Bromley sums it up in the liner notes.  “You are on your own path to discovery, as are these characters.”  I know I was.

Next to Normal  as drama, with its unflinching look deep into this family’s problems, is hard to watch.  For many, it looks to closely into their own.  But the intensity is leavened, lightened, by its presentation as a musical.  The music is driving and passionate, winsome and lyrical when it needs to be.   The singing and acting talent of each of the six on stage was uniformly superb.  I’ll briefly mention Julianne Thompson, whose nuanced performance as the teenaged daughter made this seem like a real family.  Like one you have known.  Alison Peltz’s portrayal of the bipolar Diana is beautifully, painfully accurate.

The show ends on a joyous note, a powerful anthem that brought the crowd to its feet.  So, why post a review now, when the show’s over?  Because this show, by this cast and direction, has put together a show that really ought to be seen by a much wider audience here in Marin.  I’d like to see a groundswell of support for another showing or two on a larger stage.  I know it would be difficult-to-impossible to arrange something like that.  The run is over, the set already dismantled.  But it’s a show that touched and moved me deeply, and will be impossible to forget.

Novato Theater Company:  5420 Nave Dr, Novato, CA 94949  (415) 883-4498

Website:  www.novatotheatercompany.org

David Hirzel website:  www.davidhirzel.net

Mar 01 2014
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“An Evening of Short Plays”–Trifles, The Jewish Wife, Miss Julie at Theater Marin

By David Hirzel

Theater Marin‘s current season is nothing if not ambitious, bringing to the stage plays that were new a hundred years ago, by playwrights in their prime. The works of Strindberg, Brecht, Ibsen, and O’Neill play more often in the black boxes than the big houses. They laid the foundations for modern theater that is still evolving today, and I’m grateful to Theater Marin for taking up the challenge of putting some of them on. Good theater, no matter when it was originally produced, continues to enlighten us to this fact: no matter what era we live in, we humans are always milling about, trying to find our own ways through the turmoil and constraints of our contemporary societies.

The current production “An Evening of Short Plays” opens with two short plays before the intermission. Susan Glaspell’s Trifles (first produced in 1916) takes us into the farmhouse investigation of a rural murder scene, where the two detectives come into and out of the set, looking for “evidence.” In a witty take on women’s innate superiority in a time of repression, their wives remain in the kitchen chatting and rummaging through the effects of the accused, uncovering (and then covering up) a host of clues to which their husbands remain oblivious.

Next Berthold Brecht’s The Jewish Wife plans her escape from 1938 Nazi Germany before it is to late to leave. In a remarkable performance Judith Stein, along on the stage for most of the play with only a telephone and an empty chair to which to direct her words, builds the story of her world in a stage of collapse. How can she tell him that she is leaving him in order to save his career? It will only be fore two or three weeks. . . . .

The real powerhouse of the evening’s lineup is director Ron Nash’s production of Strindberg’s 1888 play Miss Julie. Set in Sweden in an era when social class and class awareness ruled all of society. There were boundaries which could not be crossed, and the Countess Miss Julie (Stephanie Ann Foster) is determined to ignore them all. She seduces her father the Count’s valet Jean (Michael Walraven). These two actors so intertwine their performances that it seems almost a perfect dance, a powerful waltz to the music of passion and despair, as the dutiful cook Kristin (Jocelyn Roddie) looks on. This is one of those memorable productions that keep you thinking and wondering long after you have left the theater. I think we may expect the same when Ron Nash takes on Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten for Theater Marin opening April 18. Don’t miss that one, either.

“An Evening of Short Plays” ends soon. Two performances left: Saturday March 1 at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday March 2 At 3:00 p.m.

Stage: The Little Theatre at St. Vincent’s, 1 St. Vincent Drive, San Rafael CA

Box Office: 414-448-6152 or www.MarinOnStage.org

Nov 15 2013
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Step inside Ibsen’s “A Doll House” at Marin Onstage

By David Hirzel

 

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House may hold the record for the most-produced play ever written, but last night was the first time this reviewer had ever seen it.  I had no point of reference for either the play itself (I see plays first, then read the script after) or for how any of the roles had been performed.  I can tell you that after seeing this production, it’s hard for me to imagine that any actress can have played the role of Nora to better perfection.  From the opening moments of the play, when she emerges as a child-woman in a touching but unbalanced relationship with her paternalistic husband-banker Thorvald, through her clueless thoughtlessness in chatting with her widowed friend Kristine, on into her two-faced dealing with all her intimates as she attempts to reconcile the details of her deteriorating private life, Stephanie Ann Foster deftly shows the complexity of the role of Nora, as a reflection of the complexity and messiness of our own lives.

At the outset Gabriel A. Ross as Thorvald seems patient and kind and more than a little condescending to his “little squirrel,” but the two of them seem to have a happy, if not entirely mature, relationship.  He maintains emotionally remote throughout the first act, opens up some in the second, but not until the third act do we see some real depth, some passion in this character.  But when the storm breaks in him, it really breaks. 

In the final moments of the play Nora gives voice to what would echo in 1970 as a prototypical feminist manifesto.  If it seems a little dated now, imagine how radical Nora’s resolve to become her own woman and make her own way in the world must have seemed in 1879.  The costuming very nicely demonstrates the era and the social class of the supporting characters, each of whom (Bill McClave as Dr. Rank, Jim McFadden as Krogstad, Kelsey Sloan as Kristine, and Lynn Sotos as Anne-Marie)  is well played to reflect their inner turmoil, and their conflicted relationships with the principals.

Casual seating in this small venue; folding (upholstered) chairs, some of them around circular tables near the stage for good view of the action, and conversation during the intermissions.

Through November 17 at Little Theatre at St. Vincent’s, 1 St. Vincent’s Dr., San Rafael

Website: Marin Onstage

Box Office:  415-448-6152

David Hirzel Website:  www.davidhirzel.net

 

 

 

Nov 02 2013
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“Social Security” in Pacifica Spindrift’s new black box

By David Hirzel

The Spindrift Theater (the building, not the troupe) in Pacifica suffered a structural near-catastrophe in August—a major ceiling beam was about to give way, and the stage was closed.  Nothing daunted, the troupe put on their production of Noises Off on a borrowed stage, but tonight’s opening of Social Security proved they are HOME AGAIN!.

I knew this new production would be staged in the Muriel Watkins Gallery, an auxiliary room of the theater building.  I know this room, I thought.  How are they going to pull this off?

The answer is, with an unmitigated, unqualified, HUGE SUCCESS!  To start with, the unsung backstage hands transformed this smallish room into an intimate and beautifully designed black box.  It seats about 30—reserve early, Andrew Bergman’s wildly funny Social Security is sure to be a hit. Spindrift has  added two shows to their normal season, but this probably won’t be enough the sellout crowds expected for this wonderfully hilarious performance.

The intimate black-box setting brings each of us right into the apartment living room of NY art dealers David and Barbara (real-life husband-and-wife Gary and Joanie Pugh Newman), just as Barbara’s uptight sister Trudy (Joy Eaton) and her nerdy husband Martin (Harry Sellenthin) come to call with some bad news.  This first act taken on its own is hilarious.  Keep an eye on Trudy—to me this character is the heart of the show, and Ms. Eaton’s subtle performance makes everything else in the play work.

And work it does. There are many, many laughs in this show, and they only gather strength as it moves along.  One of the unintended consequences of this newly created black box is the contagion of laughter.  We are all in the living room with these souls and their problems and reactions become our own as only such an intimate setting can permit.

If you thought the first act was funny, wait until you see the second. Now Jackie Blue as mother and mother-in-law Sophie starts to steal the show, even moreso when new love interest Maurice (Jim Sousa) shows up to light her fire.  You’ll just have to see it.

Act three brings home some of the sublter lessons we’re all going to have to learn about how to deal with aging, with aging parents, with the loss of our illusions and the changes that time can bring to our lives.  With a whole lot of laughs.  As it should be.

Special kudos to director John Tranchitella, for putting the whole package together, and to the crew for creating this marvelously intimate stage in the  Muriel Watkins Gallery.

Don’t miss it!  Limited engagement and seating.

Through November 24, 2013 at Spindrift Players Theater at 1050 Crespi Dr., Pacifica CA

Box Office:  650-359-8002

Website: pacificaspindriftplayers.org

Review by David Hirzel  www.davidhirzel.net

Sep 08 2013
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SF Shakespeare in the Park: MacBeth’s Nightmare in Broad Daylight

By David Hirzel

Picture this: The dark and bloody secrets of Shakespeare’s MacBeth, played out on SF Shakes’ black and bloody mobile stage (as mobile as the trees of Birnam Wood), on a brilliant sunny day on the green lawn of the Presidio’s Parade Ground. It takes some impassioned acting to make this nightmarish tragedy come to life. Emily Jordan’s (Lady MacBeth) and Michael Ray Wisely (MacBeth) pull it off.

The play is built upon the descent these two main characters into the deep well of guilt from which there is no escape. The other characters, well played , provide the scaffolding on which the plot is built: the wars of the Scottish thanes, the eerie prophecies of the three witches MacBeth’s murder of the old king Duncan, his betrayal and murder of Banquo. One horror builds on another, at Lady MacBeth’s instigation as she browbeats her weaker husband into fulfilling her own lust for power.

Jordan’s performance is really quite remarkable. She paces the stage, enticing the audience (seated on the sunny lawn) into her own peculiar world-view, how the murder of the old king is just and necessary. Once we are convinced, she wheedles and cajoles her spineless husband until he breaks and does the dreadful deed. From the moment he emerges with bloodstained hands, the three witches watching silently from above, the stage is ever more awash. Ghosts walk among them, and among us.

She is very well matched by Michael Ray Wisely’s powerful performance as the warlord MacBeth, who gradually comes to realize that it is his wife who has betrayed him into this meaningless act of violence, and the ever-deepening pit into which it has led him. Most of the blood is shed offstage, but the (simulated) murder of an infant on the stage in front of us made me shudder and jump.

These two powerful characters rely on the yeoman performances of the rest of the cast, to flesh out the rest of the story, and to give meaning to it all. The stage is simple and spare, black and red, with sliding doors that open and close like the gates to a prison. A fleet of plain black chairs make banquet halls and bedrooms. To the right, a forest of blood-red columns hint at forests and dungeons.

The tragedy, and the nightmare, bloom in the tortured minds of the Lord and Lady, but they will stay with you a long time.   Free outdoor performances, through September 22, now at Presidio Main Post and last performances at McLaren Park (see SF Shakespeare website for details)

Website:  SF Shakes MacBeth

Telephone:  (415) 558-0888

David Hirzel’s Website:  www.davidhirzel.net