Energy is the operative word at Peace, a concert at Zellerbach Hall on Sunday. Photo by Stefan Meekers.
By WOODY WEINGARTEN
It was hard to believe that 16 singers from South Africa could sustain the amount of energy they expended Sunday.
Their arms kept flailing, their legs kept pumping, and their butts kept shaking in the first half of a concert titled Peace at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. Solo voices reverberated with gusto as the rest of the all-black, three-time Grammy-winning Soweto Gospel Choir harmonized behind them, their bright, colorful costumes undulating and rolling to rhythms so complex and fast they sometimes impeded audience toe-tapping.=
The packed crowd was nevertheless drawn into the songs, clapping and singing along and shouting approval, as well as offering an almost universal standing ovation at the end of the 95-minute concert. Support seemed loudest when freedom songs became political and angry and reminiscent of anti-apartheid struggles and rallies — and the choreography was highlighted by outstretched arms with fists.=
It was amazing that just two men — a keyboard artist and a percussionist — could supply sufficient musical sound to be a booming but flawless foundation for the vocals, which ranged from the melancholy sweetness of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to screeching like birds and animals.
Colorful backdrop complements costumes of Soweto Gospel Choir. Photo by Stefan Meekers.
The second half of the pre-Christmas concert was a contrast — soft, spiritual, and spunky — featuring gospel standards, snippets of four carols, and then ending with the rousing Leonard Cohen classic, “Hallelujah.”
Being present for the 23 musical numbers, which are sung in six African languages plus English, meant having a vibrant experience that dragged a listener emotionally back to the heyday of Nelson Mandela and Dr. Martin Luther King. It also became impossible to ignore the fact that Donald J. Trump is currently allowing only whites to emigrate from South Africa.
Members of Soweto Gospel Choir are in sync. Photo by Stefan Meekers.
The choir, which was formed in 2002 “to celebrate the unique and inspirational power of African gospel music,” stands, in effect, as a tribute, to Soweto township, a suburb of the city of Johannesburg. The area became world famous in June of 1976 with the Soweto rebellion, when up to 20,000 school children protested the government’s policy supporting education in Afrikaans, “the language of the oppressor,” rather than the native tongue. Police opened fire on the students.
In a sense, the Soweto Gospel Choir is a living monument to those who were killed.
Upcoming vocal performances at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley include the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus in a holiday spectacular Saturday, Dec. 20 and An Evening with Kelli O’Hara on Saturday, Jan. 31.
Danila Burshteyn portrays Frank Abagnale Jr., who pretends to be an airline pilot, in Masquers Playhouse’s production of ‘Catch Me If You Can: The Musical” onstage in Point Richmond through Dec. 7. (Mike Padua via Bay City News)
“Catch Me If You Can,” the 2002 Steven Spielberg film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, is a chase flick peppered with understated, semi-sophisticated humor. The musical version at the Masquers Playhouse is less subtle. But much funnier.
In many shows, a director’s work is invisible. Here in Point Richmond, it is visible to theater buffs because director Enrico Banson, along with choreographer Katherine Cooper and costume designer Tammara Noleen, have superbly reinvented what was a too-long tale. Now it’s a fast-paced, bouncy musical-comedy that well might keep a smile on your face throughout its 18 musical numbers and two acts.
After tapping your toes, though, you also may leave the theater with a serious aftertaste from some bittersweet themes: father-son relationships, identity, crime and punishment, and redemption.
Banson is also responsible for the projections seamlessly inserted as a backdrop; unlike those in shows trying too hard to be artsy, these images are simple and appropriate to the storyline. A few snippets are real TV clips from the 1960s, the show’s setting. Better yet, some gems are cinematic scenes that were shot beforehand.
“Catch Me If You Can: The Musical,” with score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman and book by Terrence McNally, steals the best lines and scenes from the movie and leaves much of the sluggish stuff behind.
Danila Burshteyn, who has a strong, resounding voice and a perfect countenance, plays Frank Abagnale Jr. in a leading role nearly as captivating and demanding as the Emcee in “Cabaret.”
Burshteyn is the complete singer-actor combo. But, like DiCaprio, being years older than his character, he doesn’t quite impeccably replicate a brash 16-year-old runaway and forger with dreams of stealing millions of dollars before he’s 21.
Abagnale, a comic book reader who struggles with loneliness and a futile yearning to bond with his father, a dapper con man who hands down criminal skills to his son, starts his life of crime by improvising the role of a substitute teacher. Then, pretending, he successfully becomes an airline pilot, doctor, lawyer, everything but an Indian chief. Interestingly, the story stems from a memoir written by the real-life Abagnale.
The framework for the show has Junior spilling his checkered story in a television studio with a flashing applause sign that pulls the Masquers audience into the action. Instead of remorse, he arrogantly claims that he “did it in style.”
Nicole Stanley, who charmingly portrays the momentary love of his life, Brenda Strong, stops the show with her amazingly powerful voice.
Nelson Brown plays FBI agent Carl Hanratty in Masquers Playhouse’s ‘Catch Me If You Can: The Musical.” (Mike Padua via Bay City News)
Nelson Brown as FBI agent Carl Hanratty, who’s frustratingly chasing master counterfeiter Abagnale Jr., fills out the top-billing slate. Brown has exquisite comic timing but is fittingly detached; the character admits that he’s “never been cool.”
Brown occasionally spews dialogue so quickly; it’s a little hard to hear every word. And the show’s sound is difficult at times, muffling some performers. Also, the seven-piece band at the side of the stage led by music director Camden Daly on keyboards now and then gets so loud, it drowns out the often-sardonic lyrics. Mostly, though, the band provides jazzy, upbeat rhythms that ultimately may be forgettable but in the moment are ear-candy.
At nearly 150 minutes (plus intermission), this version of “Catch Me If You Can: The Musical” may play havoc with your bottom. But despite its drawbacks, it would be a shame for anyone who likes upbeat song-and-dance shows to miss it.
“Catch Me If You Can: The Musical” runs through Dec. 7 at Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $30- $35 at masquers.org.
Costumes in Momix show are extraordinary. Photo by Sharen Bradford.
By WOODY WEINGARTEN
Momix, a troupe of dancer-illusionists, simply can’t be reviewed like one would an ordinary company of hoofers, or, for that matter, even some exceptionally first-rate ones.
This group was so much better — perhaps because it was so different, so fresh.
At times, the eight celestial, acrobatic performers became movable pawns in artistic director Moses Pendleton’s absurdist Alice, their newest traveling show at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. They could disappear and reappear into and out of lighting effects and projections. They could slyly, whimsically exaggerate dance moves as avant garde recorded jazz, rock, and choral music also captured the audience’s toe-tapping attention. And they could get embedded in mind-blowing, quirky choreography and costumes.
The performance was salted with somewhat subtle humor, via odd arm and leg movements and imaginative heads of critters and babies, via hidden wires that shot performers into the air, and via costumes that rapidly changed characters from this to that to the next thing.
The show also contained understated sexuality.
It’s unlikely most of the crowd had ever seen anything like the 105-minute, two-act Cal Performances Bay Area premiere, even from Momix, which has matured in its sophistication and its ability to create illusions over the years. The performance had a plethora of slick smoke-and-mirrors, minus the smoke.
Pick a descriptive word; these all fit — spectacular, amazing, magical, unique.Come to think of it, fantastic, with its multiple meanings, might be the most on the nose moniker.
The book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was the inspiration for the 23-number wonderment, with Act 1 carrying a “Down the Rabbit Hole” label and Act II being tagged “Through the Looking Glass.”
The spectacle was too superb to have only one show-stopper — it had three, the best of which spotlighted male performers toying athletically with extra-large mirrors that marvelously distorted reality.
Even if the last time you’d read Lewis Carroll’s stories was 20 or 30 years ago, you would immediately remember and recognize references to such classic figures as the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat (even though their identities here were somewhat fluid).
Exercise balls become dance props in Momix. Photo by Sharen Bradford.
One don’t-miss moment, another of the show-stoppers, was a synchronized bit that proved massive exercise balls could become extraordinary props.
Missing the red aerial silks of “The Mad Queen of Hearts” would have been a shame. The segment might have reminded you of a Cirque du Soleil act but with even more striking beauty and pizzazz.
Also, “Advice from a Blue Caterpiller” provided some charming, light-hearted moves that you most likely haven’t witnessed before.
So, with all those visual vignettes in mind, this sentence becomes incredibly easy to write: Next time Momix appears in the Bay Area, go!
Other dance performances coming up at Zellerbach that are certainly worth checking out are the Mark Morris Dance Group’s “Moon” from Jan. 23 to Jan. 25 and “Graham 100,” the Martha Graham Dance Company’s anniversary year celebration on Feb. 14 and 15.
Zev Rattet of Marin County shares a hug with Korean actress and influencer IU during a backstage visit on her “2024 IU Hereh World Tour” stop in Oakland, July 30, 2024. The 77-year-old Rattet is a K-drama superfan who earned the nickname “Grandpa Uaena” for his fixation with IU and her talent, and his story has been amplified on Korean media. (Framegrab from video via Zev Does KDrama/YouTube)
by WOODY WEINGARTEN, Bay City News
ZEV RATTET is a 77-year-old Marin County guy so passionate about K-dramasthat he’s seen 15,000 hours of that voguish Korean genre, a variant of U.S. TV’s limited series.
Watching has earned him, in addition to more than occasional bleary eyes, a big hug from IU, a 32-year-old K-pop queen with 35 million Instagram followers, and a free trip to Seoul, the 9-million-person capital of South Korea.
Zev Rattet in a partial framegrab from video talks about his favorite K-dramas of 2025. At 77, the Marin County retiree runs his own YouTube channel dedicated to Korean television dramas. (Zev Does KDrama/YouTube)
The white-haired Rattet, who cherishes the slightly reverent title IU’s official fan club bestowed on him, “Uaena Grandpa,” has in effect become a mascot whose fixation with the singer-actress and her talent has been retold and retold on Korean media. He impishly explains that Bernadette, his French wife of 43 years, “banned” photos of her from the main floor of their Fairfax home. “She thinks I’m going to run away with IU, but I just think of her as a granddaughter.
Uaena, the name of IU’s official fancafé, basically translates as “you love me,” and IU, singer-actor Lee Ji-eun’s stage name, means “I and you,” which symbolizes the closeness she wants to create with her audiences.
Rattet, a computer programmer who retired in 2018, a year after he started becoming a devotee of K-drama, has turned into a non-stop storyteller — charming, breezy, light-hearted. Some of his brief monologues and videos meander playfully, filled with not only run-on sentences but run-on paragraphs.
“I noticed IU a year and a half into watching, in a K-drama called ‘Hotel del Luna,’” he begins an interview with Local News Matters. “She was the star. I fell in love with her character, so I started looking for dramas she was in. In one, ‘You Are the Best,’ in episode 36 of a 56-hour drama, she sings toward the end of the story. I loved her music.”
Lee Ji-eun (IU) and Yeo Jin-goo in a scene from the South Korean fantasy romance drama series “Hotel del Luna.” (GTist via Bay City News)
Because of that, he searched out other K-dramas with her singing and soon became the oldest fanboy in Uaena. Those actions eventually brought him Korean celebrity — along with his YouTube channel, Zev Does Kdrama, which features videos of “the hug,” of him gushing about IU and her work, of scenes from K-drama, of him being interviewed, and of him cooking Korean dishes — plus a shot of the back of a hoodie that reads “I love IU … and my wife.”
Meeting his idol
After Rattet started posting “something every day, to keep IU in everybody’s consciousness,” her fans and staff kept telling her to check him out. She made contact, inviting him to sit way up front when her tour took her to Oakland. “She sent me an invite online,” he relates. “I dressed the same way I was dressed when she ‘discovered me.’ All through the concert, people waved at me because they recognized me from my channel. Backstage, she hugged me, something the Korean people normally don’t do. She was so gracious, so warm, so humble. She embodies qualities, like being kind, that I really admire. Meeting her was one of the high points of my life.”
Bernadette Rattet, IU and Zev Rattet, an IU fan nicknamed “Grandpa Uaena,” pose for a photo in Oakland on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. Rattet and his wife met IU during her “2024 IU Hereh World Tour” stop in Oakland. (Zev Rattet via Bay City News)
Korean officials clearly were interested in publicizing the cross-cultural aspects of Rattet’s enthusiasm. Last year, they offered him “a roundtrip business class ticket to Korea by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (to join) a subgroup with people from all over the world. It was great.”
Rattet became curious about Asian shows on Netflixin 2017, initially watching Japanese films. “But I didn’t feel connected,” he says, “so then I tried Chinese, but they reminded me of American TV. Then I found Korean, which were emotionally honest and culturally engaging. The quality of acting, the production, the story, and the music were all spectacular.
“‘Oh, My Ghost’ was the first one. I was hooked almost immediately. Every time I watched one, I wanted to watch another. I usually describe them as a 16-hour movie, although the length varies. But each story is complete, with an opportunity for character development. I’m closing in on 400 now; I crossed the 300 mark a year ago. That totals 5,600 hours, but I re-watch each one an average of two or three times, which makes it 15,000 hours. My wife’s on her 143rd, approximately 2,300 hours.”
They’re not all dramas, he notes, despite the K-drama rubric. “I also watch comedies, thrillers, rom-coms.” He views Korean movies as well, and, just for variety, popular animated American films that feature a female action trio, K-pop Demon Hunters.
Endless stories, boundless enthusiasm
Rattet never seems to get bored by his mainstay, K-drama, which we can’t say about his checkered occupational life. Before becoming a programmer, he was a daily newspaper reporter, a training materials designer, president of a software company in Kentfield, an insurance agent, and founder of a publishing company.
A former hippie who’d overcome childhood polio, Rattet describes his life as “non-standard.”
Nowadays, only because he can’t watch K-drama 24/7 on each of 365 days annually, he fills out his retirement by “taking bicycle rides, cooking on what I call Wok Wednesday, having Friday neighborhood get-togethers in my driveway, going on walks with my wife, and spending an hour every day doing something for my channel. And I go to gym every Saturday with my wife and watch K-drama while exercising. I had a knee replacement a few years ago, but I have no serious illness. I expect to live to 114.”
Park Bo-gum and Lee Ji-eun (IU) in a scene from the Netflix K-drama series “When Life Gives You Tangerines.” (Netflix via Bay City News)
Right now, Rattet’s immersed in “When Life Gives You Tangerines,” a new K-drama on Netflix starring IU in two mother-and-daughter roles.
He sighs, after watching her, remembering another character trait of IU’s he found he liked some time ago.
Susan (Tina Traboulsi), who’s blind, listens to ex-cop Carlino (Rob Garcia) lie about his crooked motives in Wait Until Dark. Photo by Robin Jackson.
By WOODY WEINGARTEN
Wait Until Dark, a theatrical thriller that’ll run through Dec. 14, proves that nothing can replace live theater. You’re not in front of a two-dimensional movie screen but, instead, you’re right there, close to the characters, close to the scary action, possibly gripping the edge of your seat until the suspenseful drama ends. You’re watching a play that’s often dimly lit or totally blacked out on purpose, nervously expecting the main character, who’s blind, to suddenly be attacked or killed.
The audience at the Barn in Ross, packed with white-haired ladies at a matinee, is kept in the dark, so to speak, as long and as much as the protagonist is.
Superb direction by Carl Jordan and solid acting by a cast of six Ross Valley Players keep the intensity going throughout, overcoming a complicated, dated 2013 script that’s a rewrite of the original 1966 Broadway version.
Jordan ensures that the play’s stereotypical characters aren’t quite caricatures but that their pawn-like movements from the pens of writer Frederick Knott and adaptor Jeffrey Hatcher are followed.
In contrast, Tina Traboulsi is so realistic as Susan, a newlywed who hasn’t adjusted yet to sightlessness caused by an auto accident, you might feel a desire to reach across the stage to keep her from stumbling over furniture that was moved, to protect her from the danger of three intruders who separately enter her apartment without her knowledge, permission, or desire.
Sporadic humor, almost all of it intended, may break through the tension from time to time,
A leather-gloved Roat (David L. Yen) leaves no fingerprints while searching for a valuable doll. Photo by Robin Jackson.
although Susan’s paranoia starts early and builds geometrically as each character enters the stage. She, naturally, suspects everyone, including her husband, of lying to her or plotting something even more evil.
Rob Garcia portrays Carlino, an ex-con, ex-cop involved in a non-theoretical conspiracy with just enough likability to make his otherwise menacing demeanor tolerable.
Portraying a snarly, leather-gloved criminal, whom Susan and you may both believe wouldn’t blink at the need to dispose of someone in his way, is David L. Yen as Roat.
David Abrams inhabits the personality of Mike, who may not be so dead-set on killing — or getting caught.
Coco Brown and Diora Silin, who alternate each performance of Gloria, play a troubled teen who repeatedly drops into Susan’s basement apartment to avoid a mom who entertains a string of men, and Benjamin Vasquez (Susan’s disappearing hubby, Sam) fill out the cast of the murder mystery.
A mysterious doll with something valuable hidden in it becomes the taut focal point of the climax of Wait Until Dark, which was made into a 1967 movie starring Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin with different plot points.
It takes almost no time for costumes and furniture that could have existed in the World War II era to quickly pull the audience into the basement digs in Greenwich Village. Gifted sound cues by Billie Cox and equally perfect lighting designed by Frank Sarubbi pinpoint a noir atmosphere that cinematic classics from director Alfred Hitchcock and Hollywood power couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall honed.
The plotline may take place in 1944, with occasional references to such past-their-sell-date items as malt-flavored milk mix Ovaltine and radio soap opera heroine Helen Trent, but two hours of intensity in Ross are definitely here and now.
Wait Until Dark will play in the Barn at the Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, through Dec. 14. Tickets: $30 to $45. Info: 415-456-9555 or www.rossvalleyplayers.com.
Dana Hunt (center) discusses with Tajai Britten (left) and Jonathen Blue his possibility of gay sex. Photo by David Minard.
By WOODY WEINGARTEN
Perhaps unexpectedly, since the play’s about growing up black and gay, whites in the audience of Bootycandy made up a plurality. But it made no difference. Boisterous laughter frequently erupted from every seat during the opening weekend matinee at the California Theatre of Santa Rosa.
The comedy, which details homosexual intimacy, employs f-bombs and nearly every other curse word you’ve ever heard. It’s belly-shakingly funny.
The top-notch, five-member cast, four of whom are dark-skinned, delivers about 1,738 laughs in less than two hours on the Left Edge Theatre stage (don’t count; you’d probably miss a bunch of gags that way). But, in addition to multiple over-the-top slapstick segments, the audience gets to see black culture through some serious lenses based on a dozen autobiographical sketches playwright Robert O’Hara theatrically threaded.
It takes some time, though, for the Big Reveal to tie the sketches together and transform what initially seems disjointed into something complex but a good deal more linear. In keeping with the offbeatness of the show, no backdrop exists for the actors to play off (or is necessary for the bawdy coming-of-age story) but scene changes are brought to life by substituting chairs, costumes, and props.
Tajal Britten skillfully portrays Sutter, O’Hara’s alter ego, who grows from an awkward kid obsessed with Michael Jackson into a semi-mature playwright. Jonathen Blue, meanwhile, stops the show with an exaggerated, hysterical portrait of a minister who passionately preaches about supposedly wayward choirboys.
Jonathan Blue (right ) provides big laughs in ‘Bootycandy.’ Photo by David Minard.
Dana Hunt, Lexus Fletcher and Shanay Howell, who each deserve an award for superlative clowning, fill out the ensemble cast in multiple roles that range from a pudgy male rape victim to a lesbian named Genitalia who goes through a “non-commitment ceremony” that spotlights such smart lines as “wherever you go, I will not follow.”
Director Serena Elize Flores makes sure the sometimes subversive and provocative two-act play zips along so fast that audience members leave with the sensation that it’s much shorter than it actually is.
Because the plotline is thin, the vignettes risk being labeled stereotypical and racist. That viewpoint, however, discounts the text also containing more than a few wonderfully crafted, expository lines like “All chocolate cakes ain’t the same.”
Although the playwright has adeptly fleshed out his male characters, he was somewhat stingy with the women’s personalities.
Bootycandy begins with a dude clad only in white briefs and white socks. It ends with a touching moment with an Alzheimer’s-afflicted octogenarian grandma craving baby back ribs, a poignancy that’s diluted because it’s followed too closely by a wonderfully comic dance performed by the actors after their bows.
Bluenoses and children should stay home. Most everybody else should see this show.
Bootycandy will play at the Left Edge Theatre stage in The California, 528 7th St., Santa Rosa, through Nov. 23. Tickets: $22 to $44. Info: (707) 664-7529 or info@leftedgetheatre.com.
Steve Budd’s face shows how he feels in Oy, What They Said About Love. Photo by Michael Prine Jr.
By WOODY WEINGARTEN
Steve Budd, in Oy, What They Said About Love, is committed — to not being committed.
Throughout the amusing and heartbreaking 70-minute solo performance at The Marsh Berkeley, he desperately wants to find The One, his beshert, his soulmate.
And he does. Momentarily.
The 50-year-old’s relationship is at best tumultuous — on and off, on and off again, on and off once more. From Kenya to Boston. From ultra-hot to icy.
The Oy in the title should be a dead giveaway: Budd’s clever one-man show is Jewish-oriented.
In it, he sings snippets of Hebrew songs and prayers, occasionally inspiring some audience members to do an impromptu unison sing-along. He also tosses in a handful of words that might not be familiar to every theatergoer. Like schmutz (dirt), traif (non-kosher), and shiksa (non-Jewish female).
The Oakland-based actor/writer/storyteller/standup comic embodies his own being and that of his wannabe wife, a strikingly beautiful Black émigré from Africa. She’s everything he desires in a woman — except she’s not Jewish. She’s willing to convert, however, and wants to have “Einstein kinky-haired kids” with him. Going from one tribe to another wouldn’t be a big deal, she submits.
Budd, a white-haired guy who knows exactly how to comedically utilize his rubbery body and face, explores commonalities and differences in relationships, and why his fail while others succeed. He also illustrates his bumpy journey by morphing himself into the personas of both genders of friends he’s interviewed.
He depicts, for example, Connor and Sarah (an interfaith couple who met at a Halloween party) on an escape trip to Canada, a visit to an Emergency Room because of an ear infection, and a heartfelt, long-withheld utterance of “I love you.”
He shows Gaby finally accepting Matt as her partner, after having met not cute but on Craigslist, by lowering her expectations.
He exquisitely describes folks through their own words. “He does not know how to blow his nose quietly,” for instance.
He also details his mother’s death. And switches the om chant to one emphasizing the word mom.
Steve Budd’s relationship crumbles. Photo by Michael Prine Jr.
The monologist’s acting chops have evolved enough so there’s no need for props or costumes or a set. The stage, indeed, is barren except for a chair and two undecorated blocks on which to sit. Infrequent lighting changes and recorded music do add some atmosphere.
Budd’s journey — directed by Mark Kenward and Kenny Yun —is at once funny and agonizing. And he displays it all while wearing a simple shirt with hoodie, darkish trousers, and old-fashioned black-and-white sneakers.
But, oy, he weaves his own written words into a narrative so real that it’s easy for the audience to visualize each character in his theatrical stockpile.
Oy, What They Said about Love will run at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley, through Oct. 25. Tickets: $25 to $35; reserved seating $50 to $100 (plus a convenience fee of $3 a ticket). Info: 415-641-0235 or www.themarsh.org.
Bethany Cox plays Doralee in Novato Theater Company’s “9 to 5: The Musical.” (Kara Schutz via Bay City News)
By Woody Weingarten, Bay City News
It was nearly impossible in 1980 to leave a movie theater screening “9 to 5” without singing Dolly Parton’s hit title tune. In 2025, it’s nearly impossible to leave the Novato Theater Company without singing or at least humming that same song.
The madcap film comedy, a cult classic set in the late 1970s, had a stellar cast, including Parton, due to unrevealed health issues), Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dabney Coleman.
The NTC musical can’t compete with Hollywood’s star power, of course, but it can equal the amount of pleasure the fast-paced, zany show delivers.
“9 to 5: The Musical,” with added music and lyrics by Parton, debuted on Broadway in 2009. Its wire-thin plot adhered to the film fantasy by Patricia Resnick, who adapted her original screenplay for the stage. A trio of working women daydream about getting revenge on the villain, their disrespectful, lecherous boss, Franklin Hart Jr. Under the influence of cannabis called Maui Wowee decide to kidnap and tie him up.
How does a throwback view of women’s place in the business world compare with today’s? One 18-year-old theatergoer in the workforce overheard after Sunday’s matinee performance said “not that much has changed. Men still make sexual comments all the time — and brag about sleeping with somebody when they haven’t.”
L-R, Lauren Sutton-Beattie and Andrea Thrope appear in Novato Theater Company’s production of “9 to 5: The Musical.” (Kara Schutz via Bay City News)
Andrea Thrope plays Violet Newstead (the Tomlin role), an angry long-timer passed over for a promotion; Bethany Cox portrays Doralee Rhodes (the Parton role), Hart’s sexy target (with long blond hair piled as high as Parton’s and almost as tall as Rebel Wilson’s in a current TV commercial spoof); and Lauren Sutton-Beattie plays Judy Bernly, (the Fonda role), the newbie secretary.
All three are noteworthy actors with robust voices that allow the lyrics to shine through in the bouncy, breezy community theater production. Also noteworthy are the rubber-faced comic chops displayed by show-stopping Amy Dietz as Roz Keith,who hounds Hart ever more than he pursues female flesh.
In the recent weekend performance, Larry Williams handled the role of Hart, a skirt looker-upper and bottom-pincher, with aplomb. Pat Barr portrays the sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot boss in remaining performances.
Costumes designer Adriana Gutierrez provide wondrously eye-popping attire (such as pouring Violet into playful, colorful, Snow White outfit) and keyboard player Nick Brown conducted the just-offstage band with mastery, keeping members of the sold-out audience tapping their toes.
Board president Marilyn Izdebski, who also dons hats as choreographer, program co-designer, and producer, proved the old chestnut that if you want jobs done well, give ‘em to the busiest person around.
9 to 5: The Musical will run at the Novato Theater Company, 1520 Nave Drive, Novato, through Oct. 12. Tickets: $25 to $37. Information: info@novatotheatercompany.org or 415-883-4498.
Gabrielle Maalihan and David Siniako are awestruck as they enter a new universe in “The Motion.” All photos by Jay Yamada.
By WOODY WEINGARTEN
The Motion, a new sci-fi dramedy, provides laughable and challenging theater while occasionally making audience members believe their brains are about to explode.
In a good way.
Obie-winning playwright Christopher Chen crams about eight tons of material into 105 intermission-less minutes at the Ashby Theater in Berkeley. He explores, for example, morality, memory, identity, emotions, science, and animal welfare vs. animal rights.
Oh yeah, and love.
What’s dubbed a “metatheatrical sci-fi fable” is a five-character production with each of the Shotgun Players’ actors trying to out-superb the others as they try to figure out what it means to be human. The backdrop, the first of several universes that are explored, is a debate stage.
Dr. Alan James (played by David Siniako), “a humane doctor,” implies that critters have souls. To buoy his support of a ban on animal-testing, he describes in gory detail the vivisection of a bunny.
Dr. Sarah Matthis (Erin Mei-Ling Stuart) counters with facts, leading with the notion that 44% of testing does “no harm to animals of any kind” and attempts to show that most experimentation is on lower forms. “Fish are used to study cancer,” she reports, and “worms are used to test Alzheimer’s.” She declares that animals are sentient creatures that shouldn’t be mere tools in scientific research by humans. Along the way, she quotes 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant and cites an illustration of not knowing who to toss overboard when there are five people in a lifeboat that safely holds only four.
Matthis’ alternately cocky and insecure anti-ban partner, Prof. Neel Serrano (Soren Santos), believes the key to settling the debate is by determining how to eliminate suffering. A ban, he warns, might “halt most medical experimentation in its tracks”
Gabrielle Maalihan and Soren Santos provide a love undercurrent.
Prof. Lily Chan (Gabrielle Maalihan), perhaps the most susceptible to emotions and thereby the most vulnerable debater, admits at one point that she has “this thing where I can’t allow myself to be happy.” In a crisis, she simply feels “so helpless.”
Moderator Jack Donovan (Erin Gould) futilely tries to keep the lid on the debate, circling back to the initial question when everything starts flying off the rails, with participants either talking over each other or flirting. He gets to deliver many — but by no means all — of the laugh-lines.
James, white-bearded, distinguished, and nattily attired, tries swapping one-upmanship lines and concepts with Sarrano, but ends up angrily blurting out, “Please stop interrupting me.”
After loud claps of thunder and blinding lightning flashes, the four debaters are transported to an alternate world in which they are momentarily trapped behind invisible walls. Reading each other’s thoughts, a concept that frightens all of them, is but a first step in a journey that leads to them evolving in other places where they learn to live in the present with AI as a sidekick.
To make the presentation immersive, audience members get to vote on how the debate affected them.
Playwright Chen is popular in the Bay Area. His works have been produced and developed by such companies as the American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Rep, Magic Theatre, and SFPlayhouse,
Erin Mei-Ling Stuart (left), Gabrielle Maalihan (center) and David Siniako brave a bitter-cold snowstorm.
Artistic director Patrick Dooley founded the Shotgun Players in 1992 in, the website says, the basement of a pizza parlor with “20 eager actors and a bucket of black paint.” Their aim: “to make great, affordable theater.” In the following 12 years, the players performed in 44 different spaces before finding their permanent home on Ashby Avenue in Berkeley.
In a post-show conversation after an opening week matinee of the world premiere, audience members cheerfully dove deeper into the morality issues — politely debating one another and, now and then, ignoring TDooley, who was moderating the half-hour bonus.
During the conversation, he suggested that perhaps the audience might want to consider what the play’s characters and they, as well, have learned about themselves. In the program, he advises theatergoers to retain “a spirit of thoughtfulness and wonder. Stay open. Stay curious.”
Both he and Chen make it virtually impossible to do otherwise.
The Motion will run through Oct. 12 at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. Tickets: $23 to $80. Info: 510-841-6500, ext. 303, or boxoffice@shotgunplayers.org.
Wine leads to the release of some inner Big Scary Animals at the Masquers Playhouse. From left are Kim Saunders (Rhonda), Joseph Walters (Donald), David Zubiria (Clark), and Duane Lawrence (Marcus). Photo by Mike Padua.
By WOODY WEINGARTEN
It’s easy to forget that human beings are critters — unless you’re seated in the Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond watching Big, Scary Animals. Then you can’t ignore our baser behaviors and instincts.
If you have any sense of humor at all, you’re apt to spend much of the 90-minute comic drama by Matt Lyle laughing out loud at the dialogue and feral antics of four Homo sapiens, Until the playwright’s “truth bombs” abruptly smack you between the eyes.
The hidden biases and contradictions of each character either ooze or explode in unexpected ways at unexpected moments.
The plotline is simplistic and predictable: A middle-aged, straight white couple relocates to Dallas in 2015, “a simpler time,” to be closer to their granddaughter. But they’ve unintentionally bought into a “gayborhood.”.
Midway through, all hell breaks loose when a polite dinner conversation with their gay black and Latino next-door neighbors deep dive into sensitive subjects — race, sex, sanity, the N- and C- words, and gun control, among others. Director Gabriel A. Ross milks all the bathos possible while ensuring that no potential laugh-line is downplayed.
The entire ensemble cast is superlative, with Kim Saunders standing out as Rhonda, a naïve Christian “cracker” whose inner big, scary animal can be triggered by a single action and a single glass of wine, and David Zbiria as Clark, a flaming, hysterically funny, Latino homosexual whose common sense eventually erases his emotional spasms. Duane Lawrence inhabits the character of Marcus, a serious black college professor whose secrets are bursting to be revealed, paralleling the inner angst and problematic memories of Joseph Walters as Donald, whose wife repeatedly labels him as stupid.
Consoling Joseph Walters (Donald, center) are Kim Saunders (Rhonda) and Tristan Rodriguez (Ronnie). Photo by Mike Padua.
Two others — Natalie Ford as Sophia, a 20ish black “slut” who tries to use her psych-major tools at inappropriate times, and Tristan Rodriguez as Ronnie, the straight couple’s “troubled” son who’s gently being seduced by Sophia — do the most with under-developed roles.
The audience at a Sunday matinee rocked the small theater with laughter and expressed its consummate pleasure during a 30-minute Talk-Back session afterward. One theatergoer summed up the show this way: “It was heavy butreally funny.” Another said, “My eyes are still wet.”
The director, meanwhile, said he thought one takeaway from the provocative show should be, “There’s a good chance that you have something in common with the person you despise.”
Big, Scary Animals will run at the Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through Sept. 28. Tickets: $30 to $35. Information: 510-232-3888 or info@masquers.org.
