Kedar K. Adour

Jeff Cote as The Narrator (others) and Sami Granberg as Kari on the set of The Pavilion playing at the Cinnabar Theatre in Petaluma. All photos by Eric Chazankin

THE PAVILION:Romantic Comedy. Written by Craig Wright and directed by Tara Blau. Cinnabar Theatre, 3333 Petaluma Blvd North, Petaluma, CA 94952. 707-763-8920 or www.cinnabartheater.org.     September 6-22, 2013

THE PAVILION at Cinnabar is an audience pleaser.

For the opening of their 41^st Season Cinnabar Theatre has resurrected a play written in 2000 and produced in community theatres around the country before making it to Off-Off Broadway at the Rattlestick Theatre in 2005. It now graces the stage at Cinnabar in Petaluma where an appreciative audience gave it a partial standing ovation.

Opening nights at Cinnabar often receive standing ovations since they have a very loyal following who appreciate the professional productions. So it is with The Pavilion where a cast of three keeps the audience amused for the better part of two hours including an intermission. It is well worth a visit to see this particular show and plan to see the remainder of the 2013-2014 season. Upcoming are La Cage aux Folles, Jacques Berl is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, Of Mice and Men and The Marriage of Figaro.

Because Author Wright uses a narrator (Jeff Cote) and the action takes place in a small town where everyone knows everyone else the play has been described as a modern day Our Town.  That is insufficient to justify it as such since the narrator is also a metaphysical conjuror who creates the universe ‘drop by drop’ and morphs into multiple inhabitants whereas Thornton Wilder’s Stage Manager only comments on the lives of the characters.  Time and its inevitability is a major theme of the play. There is more than a touch of pretention as we are inundated with ancient Greek philosophy of Diogenes (There is nothing permanent except change) and Heraclitus (Change is central to the universe. You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.).

With that observation out of the way one can appreciate the story line and the acting.  The local is the mythical Pine City, Minnesota where the 20^th High School reunion is taking place in the venerable rundown Pavilion that will be razed by fire allowing the local fire department to hone their abilities. 

Twenty years ago Peter (Nathan Cummings) and Kari (Sami Granberg) were High School lovers. When Kari became pregnant Peter abandoned her going off to college. We learn that Kari has had an abortion and later married unhappily a financially secure local man. Peter who is a successful psychologists with a checkered past of failed relationships arrives for the reunion hoping for forgiveness and rekindling of their romance.  He has written a song specifically for Kari that he hope will due the trick. He most likely he is unaware of the truism of Thomas Wolff’ s first and last novels, “Look Homeward Angel” and “You  Can’t Go Home Again.”

Kari’s initial reactions are predictable and volatile. Beautiful Sami Granberg’s adroit shift of personalities from the angry personae to possible forgiveness smacks of reality. This after she receives advice from her former classmates such as “In two words: Never Forgive!” Peter’s gentle persistence and Kari’s weakening under the influence of champagne (in vino veritas?) seems contrived but maybe it was the prophetic shooting stars influencing the universe.

The narrator Jeff Cote dominates the entire first act with his ingenious, facial movements, body language and voice patterns becoming a myriad of local denizens both male and female as they interact with Kari, Peter and the audience. The second act belongs to Kari and Peter with rather saccharine dialog becoming a bit maudlin but seemingly appropriate since it is an unresolved love story.

Nathan Cummings adroitly underplays his role as Peter and has his turn upon the stage when he frantically and unsuccessfully attempts to set back time using the identical words used by the narrator in the opening scenes. He has an excellent singing voice for the charming original song “Down in the Ruined World.”

Recommendations: Well worth seeing. Make an evening of it with dinner in historic Down Town Petaluma at Cucina Paradiso a short distance from the theatre.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

Now through October 6 (added performances: Tuesday, October 1, 7pm; Wednesday, October 2, 8pm; Thursday, October 3, 8pm; Friday, October 4, 8pm; Saturday, October 5, 8pm; Sunday, October 6, 2pm).

AFTER THE REVOLUTION: Drama by Amy Herzog and directed by Joy Carlin. Aurora Theater, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org.

Through September 29, 2013

AFTER THE REVOLUTION a thought provoking political family drama.

Amy Herzog is one of the bright young women playwrights who have rightfully gained fame in the theatrical world and are seeing a surge in the production of their plays. Not only are their plays being produced but they are being inundated with honors. In Herzog’s particular case some of those honors were rightfully heaped on After the Revolution that is the opening salvo of Aurora Theatre’s 22^nd season.

The salvo resurrects the explosive time becoming  known as the “McCarthy Era” and was the inspiration for the word McCarthyism referring to the practice of making unsubstantiated accusations of treason for political purposes. However there were men who committed act(s) of treason who went undetected. In Herzog’s remarkable play Joe Joseph was one of those men.

The long dead Joe Joseph was the patriarch of a Marxists clan that included his second wife Vera (Ellen Ratner), two sons, Ben (Rolf Saxon) and Leo (Victor Talmadge).  Emma, (Jessica Bates) Ben’s youngest daughter, a brilliant lawyer, has set up a non-profit fund to free a former Black Panther journalist convicted of murdering a Philadelphia policeman. The fund has been named the “Joe Joseph Fund” in honor of her blacklisted grandfather.  She has hired her bright young Mexican lawyer/ boyfriend Miguel (Adrian Anchondo) to work with her.

Rounding out the family relationships are Emma’s step-mother Mel (Pamela Gaye Walker) and older sister Jess (Sarah Mitchell) who is in rehabilitation for drug dependency. The final character is Morty (Peter Kybart) a wealthy donor to the fund. These three characters become integral to the denouement.

Altruistic Emma becomes emotionally and physically depressed when she learns that her revered Grandfather was not only a spy for the Soviet Union but a liar as well. This sets into motion tangled conflicts within herself , her extended family and Miguel. As written into the script  her response to the devastating fall of her idol is overly dramatic. However Jessica Bates’ portrayal of Emma’s altruistic enthusiasm is electric as is her descent into depression. It is an absolutely superb totally believable  performance.

Herzog has constructed a convoluted, yet brilliant, play that builds scene by scene (11scenes in act one), layer by layer creating well rounded characters and mostly plausible plot shifts.  Herzog’s dialog is an actor’s dream and Rolf Saxon’s shift from a bombastic Marxist teacher to a parent in conflict with his family is stirring. Victor Talmadge does not have the emotional dialog of the others as he portrays the pillar of family stability and disappointed father with professional equanimity.

Adrian Anchondo makes you feel Miguel’s conflict as his relationship with Emma unravels. It is Ellen Ratner, Peter Kybart and Sarah Mitchell who add the much needed interludes of humor with each making the most of their limited time upon the stage.

This must be a difficult play for a director to mount but Joy Carlin’s staging of the multiple scenes set in multiple locations could not be better. The two hour and 10 minute running time (includes an intermission) is filled with memorable directorial conceits that augment the dialog and acting.

An added note: Set design by J.B. Wilson with the back wall of actual telephone poles and electrical wires is reminiscent of the ‘ash can’ school of painting prominent in the 30s and 40s and of a James Penny work in particular. (The title escapes me. It is in the Munson-Proctor Institute in Utica, New York)

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

 

BONNIE AND CLYDE by Adam Peck. Directed by Mark Jackson. Shotgun Players at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. www.shotgunplayers.org. Through September 29, 2013

BONNIE AND CLYDE a fanciful take on the last night of an infamous duo

It is 89 years since infamous Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were gunned down in a fusillade of 130 bullets on a rural road in a Louisiana Parish. It is not a historic milestone that deserves remembrance yet auteur Mark Jackson and the Shotgun Players have produced a realistic and mythical montage of the last night of their lives all compressed into a taut 80 minutes.

Knowing the work of Mark Jackson you are assured to see a theatrical event when he is at the helm. So it is with the play Bonnie and Clyde that was written by Adam Peck a respected English playwright and produced in 2010. By including obscure stage directions the author expected every future director to be original in their staging.  

Jackson certainly has taken note of Peck’s desires and has created a mixture of dramatic action, thoughtful inner monologs, fanciful interludes with stunning visual projections and sound. The locale is a barn where the robbers/murders/lovers Bonnie and Clyde (Joe Estlack and Megan Trout) have taken refuge. The evening begins with Clyde reading excerpts from Bonnie’s poem “The Trail’s End” with prophetic lines “That Death is the wages of sin” and “Some day they’ll go down together . . . to few it’ll be grief . . . but it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.” The ominous sound effects include barking dogs and gun shots with a recurring video of a spinning car wheel and a black bird/vulture(?) circling overhead.

It is the time of the Great Depression and the era of the Dust Bowl and our duo fancies themselves as the Robin Hoods of their time. The play strongly suggests that they are simply normal people fashioned by the time in which they lived. Many who followed their exploits in newspapers are envious and admiring. The published articles are ego building, especially to Bonnie who wants “show time for Bonnie Parker.”

Bonnie’s caring side becomes evident when Clyde may or may not have killed a pet mouse and she confronts Clyde with a shotgun insisting “That is the worst thing you have ever done!” Really?

Jackson dovetails their loving relationship with dance numbers (think of the play Chicago,) games of Hopscotch and a “let’s pretend wedding.” If the action and visuals were not so intense they would certainly qualify as tongue-in-cheek vignettes.

It is a taut, superbly acted two-hander with a top-notch production crew that predictable ends with a gut-wrenching visual of their ambush. As a white-wash of Bonnie and Clyde’s personalities it misses the mark but it is a tour-de-force of a Mark Jackson abilities.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazone.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BONNIE AND CLYDE by Adam Peck. Directed by Mark Jackson. Shotgun Players at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. www.shotgunplayers.org.

BONNIE AND CLYDE a fanciful take on the last night of an infamous duo

It is 89 years since infamous Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were gunned down in a fusillade of 130 bullets on a rural road in a Louisiana Parish. It is not a historic milestone that deserves remembrance yet auteur Mark Jackson and the Shotgun Players have produced a realistic and mythical montage of the last night of their lives all compressed into a taut 80 minutes.

Knowing the work of Mark Jackson you are assured to see a theatrical event when he is at the helm. So it is with the play Bonnie and Clyde that was written by Adam Peck a respected English playwright and produced in 2010. By including obscure stage directions the author expected every future director to be original in their staging.  

Jackson certainly has taken note of Peck’s desires and has created a mixture of dramatic action, thoughtful inner monologs, fanciful interludes with stunning visual projections and sound. The locale is a barn where the robbers/murders/lovers Bonnie and Clyde (Joe Estlack and Megan Tout) have taken refuge. The evening begins with Clyde reading excerpts from Bonnie’s poem “The Trail’s End” with prophetic lines “That Death is the wages of sin” and “Some day they’ll go down together . . . to few it’ll be grief . . . but it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.” The ominous sound effects include barking dogs and gun shots with a recurring video of a spinning car wheel and a black bird/vulture(?) circling overhead.

It is the time of the Great Depression and the era of the Dust Bowl and our duo fancies themselves as the Robin Hoods of their time. The play strongly suggests that they are simply normal people fashioned by the time in which they lived. Many who followed their exploits in newspapers are envious and admiring. The published articles are ego building, especially to Bonnie who wants “show time for Bonnie Parker.”

Bonnie’s caring side becomes evident when Clyde may or may not have killed a pet mouse and she confronts Clyde with a shotgun insisting “That is the worst thing you have ever done!” Really?

Jackson dovetails their loving relationship with dance numbers (think of the play Chicago,) games of Hopscotch and a “let’s pretend wedding.” If the action and visuals were not so intense they would certainly qualify as tongue-in-cheek vignettes.

It is a taut, superbly acted two-hander with a top-notch production crew that predictable ends with a gut-wrenching visual of their ambush. As a white-wash of Bonnie and Clyde’s personalities it misses the mark but it is a tour-de-force of a Mark Jackson abilities.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazone.com 

American Dream: Sueño del Otro Lado: By Brad Erickson. Directed by Dennis Lickteig. New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness Ave., S.F. (415) 861-8972 or www.nctcsf.org.

Through September 15, 2013.

AMERICAN DREAM a worthy world premiere at New Conservatory Theatre Center.

World premiere plays by emerging playwrights can be problematic for many reasons including the tedious process of multiple staged readings and allowing subsequent outside input to change text, construction and purpose. Brad Erickson’s American Dream: El Sueno del Otro Lado was developed by several groups, with staged readings at the Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC), and Winding Road Theatre Ensemble in Tucson. In its world premiere at NCTC there is a suggestion that it has been put together by committee.

As a political drama it covers the hot-button issues of gay marriage (the Defense of Marriage Act), immigration and personal policy-making agendas.  As a love story with complications it is very touching if not believable due to plot twists that are questionable. These presumed flaw by this reviewer does not detract from the professional production and competent acting by the cast of seven.

Architect Tom (William Giammona) now divorced from Cara (Dana Zook) after 20 years of marriage due to his acknowledging that he is gay. They have a 16 year old daughter Julie (Katherine Roberts). Even though they are separated an enduring family bond exists and Dan’s minimal homosexual behavior is accepted. Complications arise when 42 year old Dan takes a trip to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and falls in love with Salvador (Ulises A. Toledo) his 28 year old Spanish teacher.      In a 17 scene first act the Erickson builds layer on layer of dialog without action defining relationships between the major characters and introducing Minutemen border guards (Dale Albright and Justin Gillman) that express their general and specific reasons to keep out illegal immigrants from the U.S. In the characterization process he also explores the social attitudes of Mexicans toward homosexuality in general and the intense personal bonding of Dan and Salvador. In touching final first act scene, director Dennis Lickteig cleverly stages Cara down-stage right, Dan upstage center and Salvador mid-stage left expressing their individual love and angst.

In the year since the divorce Cara has become sexually but not emotionally involved with Richard (Jeffery Hoffman) an influential, politically astute Republican lawyer who for his own personal reasons concocts a scenario for Dan and Salvador to marry then sneak Salvador through the border fence out of Mexico.  This leads to the only bit of action in the play and as staged is extremely dramatic.

The almost denouement that Erickson creates in the final scene is very touching with all the major characters on stage and each having their say. Accolades go to Giammona, Robbins, Toledo and Zook for their understated and understanding portrayals, to Justin Gillman for the ferocity of his diatribes and quiet republicanism of Jeffery Hoffman.

Lickeig’s deliberate pacing does not do justice to the script but his movement of the characters on the Kuo-Hao Lo’s ingenious surrealistic utilitarian set lighted by Christian Mejia is meritorious.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

Will Giammona, Ulises Toledo

ZZ Moor (Kate), Amy Resnick (Margie) and Mark Anderson Phillips (Mike) in the Bay Area premiere of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Good People at Marin Theatre Company, now through September 15. Limited engagement! Photo by Ed Smith

GOOD PEOPLE by David Lindsay-Abaire. Directed by Tracy Young. Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941.(415) 388-5208 or www.marintheatre.org.

August 22 – September 15, 2013

GOOD PEOPLE another winner at Marin Theatre Company.

It has been an auspicious four days for theatre goers in the Bay Area with two stunning productions of plays with strong women lighting up the stages, first at TheatreWorks and last night at the Marin Theatre Company (MTC).  The social milieus depicted in each play are as far apart as the 50 miles that separates the two venues. In Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz we share a slice of life of the intellectual and affluent while in David Lindsay-Abaire’S Good People we are transported to the struggling less educated blue-collar class in South Boston. The play opened in New York to rave reviews in 2011 and has gone on to become the most produced play of 2012-13 seasons in the United States. MTC’s staging is the West Coast premiere and should not be missed.

Although not semi-autobiographical, David Lindsay-Albaire the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Rabbit Hole was born in South Boston, struggled to become successful and the verisimilitudes of his characters is genuine.  Margie (brilliant Amy Resnick) is a single mother with an adult mentally and physically disabled daughter who requires full time care causing her to be consistently late for work as a cashier in a Dollar Store.  This leads to her being fired by the manager Stevie (Ben Euphart) whose mother was a friend to Margie as well as a local loveable though eccentric character whose exploits provided many laughs for the denizens of the neighborhood.

We discover the depth of Margie’s plight in a tightly constructed second scene when she is sharing a cup of coffee with her two best friends Dottie (Anne Darragh) and Jean (Jami Jones). The interaction between these three top-notch actors is a study in how ensemble acting should be staged. It helps that Lindsay-Albaire is a master at writing colloquial dialog that defines character and carries the plot forward. Margie’s main concern is finding another job to afford paying for the rent and her daughters care.

A local newspaper has published an article about a former schoolmate and boyfriend Mike (Mark Anderson Phillips) who has become a successful doctor living in upscale Chestnut Hill. Dottie and Jean encourage Margie to approach Mike to seek a job. She does and after an uncomfortable exchange of pleasantries and coercion, Mike reluctantly offers Maggie an invitation to his birthday party.

Back at the church Bingo parlor, the trio of Maggie, Dottie and Jean, with a bingo addict Stevie an uninvited player, the discussion about Margie’s up coming trip to the party is interrupted by  a telephone call.  It is Mike calling to say his daughter is ill and the party has been canceled. The women are not winners at Bingo but Stevie is. This leads to an explosively humorous curtain line for the end of Act one.

 At the home of Mike and his black wife Kate (a stunning ZZ Moor) they are discussing appointments for professional marriage counseling when Margie arrives into their “lace curtain Irish” home. Slowly with intricate sub-rosa dialog and climactic confrontation between the three Margie’s revelations, that may be true or false, threatens Kate and Mike’s family life. Kate becomes a tiger at that threat and ZZ Moor lights up the stage with her ferocity. You will not learn more in this review other than to say the definition of “good people” takes a beating. It is in a final scene, a true epilog, that “good people” is given a spoken definition.

Although Amy Resnick and Mark Anderson Phillips are the featured actors and deliver outstanding performances, the supporting cast adds depth to the evening with solid acting. One wonders why ZZ Moor not been seen more often in the Bay Area. Her performance, although limited to the second act, is absolutely memorable.

Director Tracy Young keeps a tight rein on the cast and Running time is about 2 hours and a 15 minute intermission

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

 

Polly (Kandis Chappell, left) reads her daughter Brooke’s new manuscript while (from l to r) Polly’s sister  Silda (Julia Brothers), Trip (Rod Brogan), Lyman (James Sutorius), and Brooke (Kate Turnbull) look on in TheatreWorks’ Regional Premiere of  OTHER DESERT CITIES by Jon Robin Baitz,  playing August 21 – September 15  at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. Photo credit: Mark Kitaoka

OTHER DESERT CITIES: Comedy/drama by Jon Robin Baitz. Directed by Richard Seer. TheatreWorks at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts 500 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA. (650) 463-1960 or www.theatreworks.org.

August 20 – September 15, 2013 

OTHER DESERT CITIES a beautifully staged and acted pot-boiler at TheatreWorks.

Having spent the past 10 winters in Palm Springs there was a personal interest in seeing this play that takes place in the desert. It is understandable that it is a pot-boiler and the stuff of TV sit-coms since the author honed his skills as the creator of TV’s Brother’s and Sisters and is working on another sit-com for an upcoming season. He is also a produced playwright and screenwriter. His play A Fair Country was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1996. 

We learn early in the play the meaning of the title. As you approach the desert area from the West there is a huge sign “Palm Springs and Other Desert Cities.”  Palm Springs used to be the Mecca for Hollywood and Los Angeles glitterati and relies on its past reputation to attract tourism. Now you must go to the ‘other desert cities’ such as Indian Wells to meet the type of characters with the financial means to live in the beautiful ostentatious style home created for this play (Alexander Dodge). Overheard at intermission, “The set is the play!” That comment is only partially true since the play is skillfully constructed in the Aristotelian concept with all the action taking place within 24 hours with an epilog attached to add finality to the plot. 

The basic plot has been used before by, notably by A. R. Gurney in The Cocktail Hour (not to be confused with The Cocktail Party by T. S. Eliot) where a family member turns up with a soon to be produced play script that bares the foibles of his family. Gurney’s play is a true comedy with a touch of discomfiture.  In Other Desert Cities comedy is at a minimum allowing the engrossing dramatic details to unfold scene by scene.

The Wyeths have gathered in the family home on Christmas Eve 2004. The patriarchs are Polly (Kandis Chappell) and Lyman (James Sutorius) with their mature children Brooke (Kate Turnbull) and Trip (Rod Brogan). Living with the Wyeths is Polly’s sister Silda Grauman (Julie Brothers) a recovering alcoholic. The elder Wyeths are affluent right wing Republicans active in the desert political life and members of an elite country club.  Brooke is a liberal left-leaning successful novelist who has written a book that may be a roman a clef. It could have devastating effects on the family unearthing deeply hidden secrets that would devastate the lives of the entire family.

 Author Baitz is a master at revealing layer on layer of the tangled web leading to a terrific climax. The play is produced in association with The Old Globe, San Diego where is received rave reviews. A big reason for those raves must have been the brilliant acting of Kandis Chappell who reprieves her role in the TheatreWorks production. She is ably matched by Kate Turnbull in the demanding role of Brooke and the marvelously under played performance of James Sutorius. He is completely believable when he breaks the staunch demeanor and explodes to take control . . . if only for a brief moment since it is Polly who dominates the family.

Rod Brogan has the right touch to add the few snatches of humor while being cast as brother Trip who moderates the tension boiling between Polly and Brooke. Local favorite Julia Brothers makes the most of her secondary but at one point pivotal role as Silda who refuses to be a sounding board for domineering Polly but is fully aware of her dependence on sister’s beneficence.

Director Seer, who is a mainstay at San Jose Rep, has directed both the San Diego and Mountain View productions and does a superb job keeping the characters in balance, moving them around like chess pieces leaving the outcome in question until the final brief epilog scene that takes place 10 years after the initial confrontation. Running time about 2 hours with intermission.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of  www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

Padraic (Damien Seperi, center) searches for answers in the death of his beloved cat in the Masquers Playhouse production of “The Lieutenant pf Inishmore.” Padraic questions Joey (Alan Coyne, bottom left) and Donny (Avi Jacobson, bottom right) while under pressure from Brendan, Christy, and Joey (Jesse MacKinnon, David Stein, and Dan Kurtz). Martin McDonagh’s look inside the mind of a cat lover plays weekends August 23 – September 28 at the theater in Point Richmond. “Inishmore” is a comedy that contains graphic violence—it is not appropriate for children.

The Lieutenant of Inishmore: Satirical Comedy by Martin McDonagh. The Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, CA 94801-3922. 510-232-4031 or www.masquers.org.

August 23 – September 22, 2013

The Lieutenant of Inishmore is bloody good at The Masquers Playhouse

The ambitious Masquers Players in Point Richmond have undertaken to produce the very difficult Irish play The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh who has a perverted sense of humor along with an ear for colloquial dialog and excellent control of playwriting mechanics. More often than not he goes over-the-top with plot construction leaving the audience aghast if they do not realize he is creating outlandish fiction with a smidgen of truth that rolls inexorably to a climax.

So it is with this play that takes place on a claustrophobic one room set (Mike Maio) in a remote part of Ireland. Before the short production ends four bodies are strewn literally about the stage along with two dead cats. There are eight cast members and this reviewer will not reveal which four depart this mortal world nor in what condition they are in when they leave. Just say it is a bloody mess and I certainly would not want to be the stage manager (Vicki Zabarte) nor one of her crew members who have to clean up.

It’s those damn cats that cause one half of the problems. Cat lovers are known for their fierce attachment to their feline companions. It starts when Davey (a fine Alan Coyne), an effeminate youth with long shoulder length hair has found a dead cat when out riding his bike. He brings the cat’s body to Donny’s (Avi Jacobson a real pro actor) cottage and discovers that it is Wee Thomas, the 15 year, and only “friend” of his son Padriac (Damien Seperi) who has started an unapproved splinter group of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Wee Thomas had been entrusted to Donny for safekeeping while his son is on the mainland bombing fish-and-chip shops. Davey and Donny hatch a plot that is an improbable scenario to replace the black Wee Thomas with purloined orange tabby using shoe polish for coloring. Their inane dialog sets the tone for gruesome comedy to follow.

We see Padriac’s mean streak in the second scene where we find local drug dealer James (Dan Kurtz) physically ‘hanging out’ with him. That mean streak explodes when he returns home to discover the death of Wee Thomas.

Before that happens we get to meet 16 year old Tomboy Mairead (Cherie Girard-Brodigan), sister to Davey, who likes to shoot out the eyes of cows (from a distance of 50 feet no less) and is about to do harm to Davey for killing the cat (which he did not do). Enter Christy (David Stein) an IRA leader with his two henchmen Joey (Dan Kurtz in a double role) and Brendan (Jess MacKinnon).  It was they who did the dastardly deed to Wee Thomas as a sure way to get Padriac to return so they could kill him for being a renegade.

Things get more complicated when Padriac in a rage shoots the poor cat disguised as Wee Thomas. He shouldn’t have done that because that cat has an owner who loves it.

The intrepid IRA trio save Davey and Donny from Padriac and take Padriac out the door as their prisoner and are going to remove ‘the splinter’ from their group. Not so fast. Mairead and her trusty gun are out there and the tables are turned. Do not ask because this reviewer will not tell. You will have to take the trip to Point Richmond to be hysterically, humorously appalled at the outcome.

The entire cast does a creditable job even though their Irish accents fluctuate throughout the evening. This play won the Olivier Award for best comedy in 2001 and was nominated for other awards on and off Broadway. The running time is a scant two hours with intermission that is more than enough for an evening of bloody farce/comedy/satire. However, it is worth seeing.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

(L to R) Wade McCollum as Mitzi, Scott Willis as Bernadette and Bryan West as Felicia in the number “I Love the Nightlife”

PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT the musical: Book by Stephan Elliot & Allan Scott based on the Latent Image/Specific Films Motion Picture The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Directed by Simon Phillips.(Based upon the Original New York Direction by David Hyslop).SHN Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market Street (at 8th) San Francisco, CA 94102.Call  (888) 746-1799or www.shnsf.com.

August 21 – 31, 2013

PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT the musical a smash hit at SHN Orpheum Theatre.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert the musical based on the 1994 movie The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert arrived in San Francisco last night, rocking the rafters at the SHN Orpheum Theatre and earning a standing ovation. The entire show is an extravagant theatrical event that should not be missed. There is no need to have seen the original movie since this production takes the basic story and surrounds it with fantastic costumes, technical effects, non-stop choreography and a stellar cast creating a memorable evening.

The ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ of the title is an aging bus that takes two drag queens Tick/Mitzi (Wade McCollum),  Adam/Felicia (Bryan West) and Bernadette (Scott Willis) an aging transsexual on an unforgettable journey from Sydney across the inland Australia desert to Alice Springs.  The red curtain has a cartoonish outline of Australia with a dotted line starting at Sydney circuitously crossing the inland and ending at Alice Springs.

Before the story begins three gorgeously dressed divas (Emily Afton, Bre Jackson, Brit West) are suspended above the stage to do their singing (“It’s Raining Men”) while Mitzi is performing on stage and when he leaves to take a call from Marion, opportunist Miss Understanding (spindly legged, Nik Alexzander) steals the stage (“What’s Love Got to do with It?”) going through an impossible series of dance contortions to start out the hilarious comedy.

Tick, because of his homosexuality is separated from has a wife Marion (Christy Faber) and their eight year old son Benji (Shane Davis or Will B) who live in Alice Springs. Marion runs a gambling Casino. She needs an act to fill an empty slot in the entertainment schedule and calls in a favor from Tick to bring his show to Alice Springs and re-unite with his son. Tick entices flippantly gay, over-the-top Adam and former lip-sync drag queen Bernadette to accompany him and the journey begins (“Go West”) Itis a hoot and a howl with more than a bit of pathos thrown in.

The pathos involves the question of what will be Benji’s reaction when he discovers Tick’s true nature and his life as a homosexual entertainer.  Then too, Australians may be a tolerant lot but homophobia is rampant in the Outback and in the Middle of Nowhere the bus is desecrated with graffiti. This doesn’t faze the intrepid Felicia who undertakes to paint Priscilla pink and add a huge slipper to the top of the bus. Would you believe that Tim Chappel & Lizzy Gardner have created costumes for the ensemble resembling huge paint brushes as they cavort about. From this point on the lighting effects become unbelievable as the entire bus becomes an ever-changing plethora of neon light. To inaugurate the new slipper addition to Priscilla there is a lip-sync opera aria “Sempre Libera” that Felicia performs with the Divas again descending from on high with the ensemble kicking up their heels surrounding the bus.

Along the way to Alice Springs, the bus breaks down and local Aussie Bob (Joe Hart) comes to the rescue. Sadly for him he has a young wife Shirley (Babs Rubenstein) who likes her drink and has ambitions to be a performer (“I Love the Night Life”). She has an act involving ping-pong balls that has the audience in hysterics.  Love blossoms between Bernadette and Bob and you can figure out the rest of the story.

The entire show is non-stop entertainment with lip-sync songs interspersed with the fine natural voices of the cast and exhausting dancing (choreography by Ross Coleman recreated by Joshua Buscher).  The costume designers won an Olivier Award in London and a Tony Awards on Broadway for their imaginative costumes.

Not being satisfied that the audience is sated with their most entertaining show, the ‘curtain-call’ is practically a summary of the action and songs that had graced the stage for nigh onto two hours (excluding intermission). Get you tickets now even though this reviewer suspects it will be back.

[PR Notes: The Broadway show used 175 tubes of lipstick, 75 pots of eye shadow, 2 pounds of glitter each month and there are 500 costumes, 150 pairs of shoes, 200 hats and headdresses. They needed 12 rolls of packing tape per week to remove glitter from lips!!)

Kedar Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

Stacy Ross (Mrs. Erlynne) and Emily Kitchens (Lady Windermere) in Cal Shakes’ production of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, directed by Christopher Liam Moore; photo by Kevin Berne.

Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Play About a Good Woman: Comedy/Melodrama by Oscar Wilde. Directed by Christopher Liam Moore. California Shakespeare Theater (CalShakes), Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way (formerly 100 Gateway Blvd.), Orinda, CA 94563.510.548.9666 or www.calshakes.org. August 14 – September 8, 2013

LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN opens unevenly at CalShakes

This seems to be the year for actor/director Christopher Liam Moore to add luster to his reputation as a director.  This year at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where he is an associate artistic director he helmed a brilliant, touching production of Midsummer Night’s Dream and received accolades for his compelling staging of A Street Car Named Desire. Therefore expectations were high on entering the Bruns’ Amphitheatre where a gorgeous set (Annie Smart) awaited the entrance of the actors to give life to Oscar Wilde’s delicious/cutting/devilish/ socially incorrect lines.

The play is described as a comedy/melodrama and previously reviewed productions were a well balanced mixture of comedy and drama. In director Moore’s staging there is greater emphasis on the comedy with a touch of farce introduced by having the inimitable Danny Scheie appear in drag in a pivotal role of the Duchess and two other Grand Dames. His is a dominating performance that preempts the stage.

He is not the only performer with that innate ability to wrest accolades from the audience. Emily Kitchens as the Lady with the fateful fan turns in a splendid acting job as the 21 year old wife of Lord Windermere (Aldo Billingslea) whom she suspects of having an extramarital affair with the mysterious seductive Mrs. Erlynne (Stacy Ross). The sub-title of “A Play About a Good Woman” refers with different connotations of “good” to Lady Windermere and Mrs. Erlynne. But that is getting ahead of the story.

Written in 1862 early in Oscar Wilde’s career, rewrites were shared his producer Sir George Alexander. In this Victorian Era, social class distinction defined the different mores for woman and men and Wilde had the stunning ability to skewer both sexes with many of his infamous lines that are rampant in this play.  (http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1897835-lady-windermere-s-fan.)

When Lady Windermere suspects her husband of infidelity she hastily decides to accept Lord Darlington’s (Nick Gabriel) proposal to take her away from it all. Doing so would be catastrophic and when Mrs. Erlynne discovers the potential disaster she takes matters into her own hands. This leads to a confrontation between the two women. Kitchens and Ross play their roles with palpable and memorable sincerity. The reasons behind Erlynne’s intervention gradually become known and the Windermeres reunite.

The initial foppish entrance by Nick Gabriel as Darlington was unimpressive and confusing but in his later scenes he rises to the level of a true lover with a touch of the rue. James Carpenter’s Lord Augustus smitten by the charms of Mrs. Erlynne is a gem of a performance. L. Peter Callender makes the most of his underwritten part of Mr. Dumby using perfect diction to enunciate Wilde’s wild lines. It is Dan Clegg, who recently gave an award winning performance as Romeo, who takes Wilde’s lines to the heights they deserve when he appropriately dominates the men in the penultimate scene. Aldo Billingslea who has given SF Bay Area Critic Award performances as Othello, the Elephant Man and others seems uncomfortable as Lord Windermere.

With the exceptions of Lord Darlington’s doubtful costume in the early scene, Meg Neville’s costume designs are stunning. A nice touch is the black and white costume she designed for Mrs. Erlynne underscoring the dichotomy of the character.

Running time 2 hours and 10 minutes including the intermission.

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

(l to r) Legendary actors Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart star as two writers in a special presentation of the pre-Broadway engagement of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land at Berkeley Rep. Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com

NO MAN’S LAND: Drama by Harold Pinter. Directed by Sean Mathias. Berkeley Rep’s, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, CA. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org.

August 11 – 31, 2013

Pinter’s NO MAN’S LAND a brilliant production at Berkeley Rep.

What you read in this first paragraph should not be construed as a negative review of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land that received a well deserved spontaneous standing ovation on opening night.  Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart give superb performances handling the nuances of “Pinteresque” infamous pauses written into the text with perfection. Sean Mathias’ meticulous direction demonstrates complete understanding of the author’s idiosyncrasies. However, becoming an aficionado of Pinter’s plays requires learned behavior since his brilliance and intention are often elliptical.

The elliptical nature of his dialog (and often the entire play) is understandable since Pinter was a student/admirer of Samuel Beckett’s obtuse style of writing. There is difficulty separating truth from untruth, myth from reality and past from the present.  So it is with No Man’s Land that is in the Bay Area for only 34 performances before mounting the boards on Broadway to play in repertory with Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

With soft ominous original music (Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen) wafting through the theatre, a gray aged tree branch is projected on the transparent proscenium arch curtain (Zachary Borovay) that lifts revealing an elegant curved study without books (Stephen Brimson Lewis) furnished only with a well stocked wet bar, one wing-back chair and two antique sitting chairs.

Sitting stoically in the wing chair is an inebriated Hirst (Patrick Stewart) while an equally drunk Spooner (Ian McKellen) stumbling about flooding the stage with dialog interspersed with the expected Pinter pauses.  Apparently, you can never be sure, the rich famous man of letters Hirst has been carousing at the Jack Straw Castle and brought back the semi-disheveled failed poet Spooner to his home. Hirst often asks Spooner, “Who are you” or “Do I know you.”

In act one the question of knowing who knows whom is never resolved nor do we get to know the relationship of two men who live with Hirst. One is the smaller talkative Foster (Billy Crudup) and the other the burly taciturn Briggs (Shuler Hensley). They resent the “lower class” Spooner for invading Hirst’s posh territory. The liquor flows for Hirst and Spooner. Spooner adroitly avoids being thrown out and Hirst falls to the floor and as he crawls out the only door, lights fade to black. It is the best non-verbal exit line yet devised. End of Act one.

In the intermission the audience conversations were muted with questions about what was going on in the play. Things clear up, sort of, in act two as Pinter adds back story for the characters. It is morning and a sober Spooner has been inexplicably locked into the room during the night. Why is never answered. When Briggs brings Spooner a fancy breakfast including a bottle of champagne, Briggs become talkative describing how

he and Foster became partners (a suggestion as lovers) with Foster moving in as Hirst’s secretary/jack-of-all trades while Briggs remains as Hirst’s bodyguard. Hensley brings gales of laughter with his one major dialog that Pinter gives to him.

When a sober, immaculately dressed Hirst enters truth will out—or is it truth- when Pinter’s protagonist share reminiscences about their days at Oxford and their family life. When Hirst unabashedly tells Spooner that he has seduced his wife the banter about sexual encounters becomes a give and take with, again, the dichotomy of truth and fiction.

Pinter assigns Spooner the major share of dialog and Ian McKellen could not be better with interpretation of ambiguity and body language. Never fear about Patrick Stewart being upstaged. His non-verbal nuanced hand and face motions in act one is perfect foil for McKellen’s verbosity. In Act two Stewart’s Hirst becomes the dominant personae as McKellen as Spooner is assigned the act of pleading to remain in the house. McKellen nails the lines given the play’s title. They are at an age where memory, fact, fiction, truth, untruth and fantasy create a “no man’s land.”

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com