Test Review

“Art” at SF Playhouse

Carol Benet

The SF Playhouse is presenting Yasmina Reza’s ”Art” translated from the French by Christopher Hampton.  It is streamed on-demand through November 7.  This is an unusual project, a filmed version of a fully staged play that is then streamed to an audience.  This could be a game-changer in the world of theater arts, a method devised for the current COVID-19 pandemic when all the performing arts are shut down for safety’s sake.

The production of “Art” was created as any play with actors performing on a stage with a set, costumes,  lights and sound.  This is one of the first stage filming in the country and  the it is completely successful. and enjoyable.  This is one of the best uses of the internet for theatrical performances but then the play with its small cast is perfect and little action where the dialogues are the most important parts. 

“Art” was an immediate hit when it opened in Paris in 1994.  When translated it played in London and on Broadway.  Reza also wrote the hit play “The God of Carnage” and she is a  French novelist and  actress. 

“Art” has three actors, male friends who discuss Serge’s (Johnny Moreno) recent purchase of   a modern painting that is completely white with no figuration what so ever. Mark (Jomar Tagatac), an engineer with no artistic imagination or appreciation, is aghast because his friend paid $200, 000 for it.  Yes Serge is a dermatologist who can afford it but still.  A third friend Yvon (Bobak Bakhtiari) also weighs in on the conversation but he swings back and forth between accepting or denying the worthiness of the purchase.

The three men squabble about the object, the white painting that appears to Serge to have more than just the blank whiteness but in which he sees gradations of subtle colors (like the minimalist works of the time).  The others disagree. They see only a white rectangle. But the conversation goes deeper than the merits or not of the painting.  Mark asks Serge if the purchase made him happy and Mark retorts “Read Seneca”, an ancient author who wrote about happiness. Then their friendships come under inspection.

Yvon has had  many jobs and was once source of amusement for them, a joker.  But now all is changed now that he is soon to be married.  They loved him because he was their eccentric and absurd friend.  The other two could depend on this and this made him enduring to them. His change is hard to take. Yvon  comes late for meeting them to go out to dinner.  He is very agitated because all the step-mothers involved in his marriage (his, hers) want to be included on the invitation to the wedding. He also reveals that he has been talking about his friends with his psychiatrist whom he has been seeing for six years.  They are furious. 

They jab at each other over the merits of the painting and bring up the piece of “motel art” belonging to Yvon but this a sore spot because it was painted by Yvon’s father.  Serge also disparages the mundane landscape of Carcassonne in Mark’s living room.  In moments of verbal crisis Serge not only talks about Seneca but he brings up deconstruction, a literary criticism term bandied around the arts in the time. Mark takes this as an offense saying that Serge is off-standish and condescending with comments like this.  Serge accuses Mark for his smug and snickering insinuations.

They spar on hurts of the past, on personality quirks and they get to a point  of questioning why they are friends in the first place asking each other “what binds them”. They even have .a heated discussion about where they should have dinner, at what restaurant (“not the one with the greasy food”). Even Serge’s inability to stay married comes into the discussion. It becomes a free-for-all and one based on the purchase of a $200,000 minimalist painting that may or may not make Serge happy (read Seneca on this).  

“Art” is a wonderful play, suited to this on stage filming, with a very simple set and only three well-defined  and excellent actors.  Bill English does a brilliant job of direction.   It runs on demand through November 7 and tickets may be purchased at sfplayhouse.org 

The Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Art in Daytona Beach, Florida, features oil and watercolor paintings that tell of the cultural, geographic and natural history of Florida.

A BUILDING FOR HURRICANE COUNTRY. RLF Architects of Orlando and Bomar Construction, Inc. of Ormond Beach kept the look of the museum natural to Florida, while building it to withstand the extreme weather conditions possible in Central Florida. Architect Tom DeSimone, who served as RLF’s Project Architect for the museum, said, “The Browns’ art collection was absolutely the inspiration for the design of the building; utilizing covered porches with ceiling fans and gabled metal roofs to recall the simple, yet elegant architecture of early Florida, while balancing this with a modern sensibility, safety and sustainability for the art collection itself. The building also has state of the art lighting controls to maintain optimal lighting levels (footcandles) for viewing while preserving the art from damage, so this unique collection will continue to serve to educate our community about Florida’s history for future generations.” In the event of a hurricane or other sustained loss of power, the museum has been designed to remain operational for several days, powered by its own dedicated generator, and in case of a complete power outage artwork can be transferred for storage inside the museum to prevent damage from changes in humidity or temperature.

A VISUAL VISIT TO FLORIDA’S PAST: THE COLLECTORS SHARE THEIR THOUGHTS. Commenting on their collection, the Browns said, “It is a thrill for us to be able to share what we have developed with others who will make their own bonds to these works. We know that the paintings are a visual treat, but for many who have visited or lived in the state, the subjects will renew wonderful associations with the places depicted. Additionally, since many of the images presented in the collection are 19th-century paintings of places and things that no longer exist – viewing and contemplating them is a visual visit to Florida’s historical and colorful past.”

MUSEUM PARTICULARS: The Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Art is located at 352 S. Nova Road, Daytona Beach, FL 32114. The museum is set within native grasses, magnolias, oaks and cypress trees which complement heritage trees that were preserved throughout the construction process and incorporated into the site’s design. More information about the museum may be found at www.moas.org/ciciandhyattbrownmuseum.html.

Museum gotta see ‘um
June 27, 2015, 05:00 AM By Susan Cohn Daily Journal

Susan Cohn is a member of the North American Travel Journalists Association, Bay Area Travel Writers, and the International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association. She may be reached at susan@smdailyjournal.com. More of her features may be found at ifwtwa.org/author/susan-cohn.

A dirty joke, a poignant insight, an absurdist yawp, an unexpected reversal, a shocking confession and a stream of ironic badinage erupt one after another—and sometimes all at once. Full of loaded banter, veering from nail-biting confrontation to wildly cathartic caricature, Pinter’s controversial play, The Birthday Party, remains a text of unique and overwhelming power. Its unique and overwhelming power lies in this rapid oscillation; this sudden shift of mood; the abrupt embrace of tranquility and nonsense, the pleasant familiarity of cliche and the horror of senseless brutality. “Dark comedy” does not even begin to describe it.

Stanley (Adam Simpson) and Meg (Celia Maurice)

Off Broadway West Theatre Company’s performance of The Birthday Party summons this grimly ridiculous and genuinely terrifying world, a world cleverly disguised as a routine morning at a rundown boarding house in the least fashionable quarter of an English seaside town in the 1950’s, where we find British-born Graham Cowley, as Petey, munching his cornflakes in a fog, aloof.

Petey’s wife, Meg, dotes on him with unwelcome playfulness. As Meg, Celia Maurice embodies dotty sentimentality and loneliness. Ms. Maurice trained at Stanford University, with the A.C.T. Young Conservatory. In New York, she worked at the Lincoln Center with the New York City Opera, and The Birthday Party marks her debut performance with OBWTC. In this, she is magnetic: One moment, Meg is soaring away on a fantasy of escape, and, in the next, she is a dowdy husk of a human being. Humdrum chit-chat suddenly becomes brisk and riveting. This ordinary breakfast conversation, like one of our own, is now electrified—an everyday relationship catastrophically, irrationally infused with epic power struggles, violent upheavals, and dizzying bouts of confusion and regret.

At the breakfast table, still wearing his dressing gown and pajamas, the insanely demanding lodger, Stanley (Adam Simpson), heaps contempt on Meg. Later, the next-door neighbor, Lulu (played with smoldering sultriness by Jessica Lea Risco), asks Stanley, “You want to go for a walk?”
“I can’t.”
“You’re a bit of a wash-out,” she says.

Words are weapons, and, in time, they rip Stanley apart. The main drama here is his complete disintegration, from the youthful piano-playing phenom to the older and bitterly obscure lodger to… Something else entirely, something that must be seen to be believed.

Into this world drop the dapper Goldberg, and his Irish henchman, McCann. With their double-breasted suits, their black broad-brimmed hats, and smooth urban cynicism, McCann and Goldberg might as well be Martians. Keith Burkland, an OBWTC veteran, plays Goldberg. His sidekick, McCann, is played by James Centofanti, who appeared alongside Mr. Burkland last year in OBWTC’s Betrayal—another Pinter play. In this performance, their powerful chemistry crackles mercilessly, and spits sparks.
With oily, machine-like relentlessness, they advance on Stanley—and drive him to madness. McCann rips up a newspaper meticulously. For no apparent purpose. With a dead-eyed gaze, McCann regards Stanley coolly. He takes in this bizarre, overgrown boy, and says, “You’re in a bad state man.” Lulu is nothing but a “big, bouncy girl” to Goldberg. Goldberg is, himself, a London Jew, and a preachy raconteur (“You’ve always been a true Christian to me,” says McCann). Their neatly choreographed interrogations make a picture of menace.

Meg has no idea she is being ridiculed by Goldberg. Stanley’s face contorts in vexation and fury. He paces erratically, and beats his birthday drum like a maniac. The audience wonders: Is it OK to laugh at this? At the climax, in a scene like the cartoon version of the nightmare of a paranoiac, a game of “blind man’s bluff” unleashes a sinister, grasping golem; a stupid bacchanal spirals into oblivion with all the desolation of a drunken black-out; and Goldberg and McCann, once dapper sharks, are reduced to mere lecherous buffoons. Stanley is reduced to twitchy catatonia. Meg and Lulu are each reduced to a “walk of shame”. And Petey suffers more than he ever knew that he could suffer.

Goldberg (Keith Burkland) at center, with his henchman, McCann (James Centofanti)

A richly evocative sea-worn set—scarves and jackets and curtains pegged up like damp rags—renders an off-beat and dilapidated “boutique hotel” from the Fawlty Towers era. Anglophile fans of television shows like Doc Martin and QI will love the wittily suggestive back-and-forth repartee.

OBWTC’s The Birthday Party plays at San Francisco’s “The Phoenix Theatre” at 414 Mason St. (6th floor) until June 27th, 2015, with performances Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8pm, as well as a pair of Sunday matinees (at 3pm) on May 31st and June 14. The Birthday Party is an all-out assault — a true tour de force — and it is not to be missed!

The Annual San Francisco International Arts Festival (till June 7) Dazzles

by Jenny Lenore Rosenbaum

Until June 7, 2015, the San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF) is a nearly three-week cornucopia of theater, dance, music, performance art and art exhibitions that few American cities can match in aesthetic diversity and sheer exhilarating power.  San Francisco, with its world famous multi-cultural pizzazz, is the ideal setting to showcase and celebrate the power of Bay Area and global art to inspire, thrill and engender cross-cultural understanding.

Indeed, among the goals of visionary SFIAF Founder, Andrew Wood, is to nurture cross-cultural collaborations among the featured artists. Another is to showcase both emerging and established artists who often do not have U.S. or overseas representation (agents, producing organizations) and whose creations are rarely (and, in some cases never) seen in the States. Because the featured artists are not part of the American touring circuit, the 2015 lineup of performances cannot be seen elsewhere in the U.S., or the world.

Among the Festival’s other curatorial priorities and values is to serve as a catalyst for the emergence of enlarged audiences for the arts, to expand opportunities for artists to showcase their work globally, to heighten the public’s awareness of the transformative power of the arts (on mind, body and spirit), and to spark new perspectives — provocative and illuminating– on psychological, spiritual, social, cultural, political and environmental issues.

Now in its 10^th year, the Festival and its partners have presented over 150 arts ensembles from the Bay Area and over 50 countries.  This year the Festival is being co-presented with Fort Mason Center, the conglomerate of performing arts venues, museums and other cultural institutions stunningly situated along San Francisco’s waterfront, in the Marina district.

The featured work, including 150 ticketed performances, spans the gamut from traditional to innovative and avant-garde.  Participating artists and companies are from  Australia, the U.K., Belgium, Brazil, Ireland, Poland, El Salvador, Japan, South Korea, Austria, the Congo, France, Peru, Germany, Russia, Taiwan — as well as many American and local Bay Area performing and visual artists.  Among the exhibitions is “Bearing Witness: Surveillance in the Drone Age” (curated by Matt McKinley and Hanna Regev).

Unquestionably, the world class SFIAF can serve as a model for cities, around the world, to nurture the performing and visual arts in ways that transcend the giving of pleasure to audiences.  Even beyond this — the pleasure that of course is an irresistible and compelling goal of any performing or visual artist — a festival such as SFIAF offers other cascading, ever reverberating benefits.

It creates the kinds of cultural bridges and proffers powerful transformative perspectives sorely needed in an era blighted by war, international tensions and sectarian violence.  In this arena, the SFIAF and the concurrent Venice Biennale can be seen as “co-conspirators” in the quest for nothing less than global harmony through the potency of the arts, for the kinds of cross-cultural admiration that perhaps, just perhaps, can work miracles.  We can only hope the Festival will be an ever-reverberating annual force to work such magic, in San Francisco and throughout the world.

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SFIAF events will take place in a number of Fort Mason venues including Cowell and Southside Theaters, the Firehouse, the Fleet Room, and the Conference Center.  For detailed information on daily performances, opening receptions, pre- and post-performance soirees, workshops and free shuttle buses to Fort Mason (departing from Valencia and 24^th Streets, and Market and The Embacadero), go to:   www.sfiaf.org // info@sfiaf.org// or call (415) 399-9554.  Tickets:  from $12 to $50 with some free events.

Shining City, by Conor McPherson, recently received an excellent staging by Main Stage West in Sebastopol. Directed by MSW Executive Director Beth Craven, the xxx play by one of Ireland’s best-known playwrights may disappoint those who were so enthralled by MSW’s earlier production of McPherson’s The Weir. Both plays display the playwright’s extraordinary gift for dialogue, but whereas The Weir is a true play, i.e., things happen, conflicts abound, situations evolve, etc., Shining City just sits there. One actor hogs the set with a spectacularly long tale of hallucinatory grief, while three others stand by to do their annotations to the central theme. Which is? Strangely, one-night stands.