Woody Weingarten

Benoit Monin (right) and Rezan Asfaw flirt and discuss their film in ‘Continuity.’ Photo by Ben Krantz.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

[Spoiler Alert!]

Although Continuity doesn’t reference a dead frog in a boiling pot, the comic tragedy lays out how rising temperatures will inevitably lead to the end of humankind.

The script by Bess Wohl, whose current play Liberation is a current smash on Broadway, keeps theatergoers laughing for about 82 or 83 minutes of the 90-minute, intermission-less absurdist show at the Shotgun Playhouse in Berkeley.

But there’s a gut-punch awaiting at the end of Wohl’s comic tragedy, so if you don’t like twists, or are subject to depression, watch out!

Contrasts are the byword in Continuity, which satirizes Hollywood paragons as well as all those who remain bystanders in the much bigger show — climate change. It also spoofs hypocrisy and Show Biz politics (“The studio feels we have to have an antagonist and not just the weather” and “The film is carbon neutral — they’re planting a bunch of trees.”).

All that springs from the filming and re-filming and re-filming of an eco-terrorist story superimposed on a make-believe melting polar glacial ice cap in the middle of an all-too-real-and-hot New Mexico desert (lured by tax breaks).

Director Emilie Whelan realizes that timing is virtually everything when it comes to comedy, so she ensures that the gags and chaos are spot on. The ensemble cast, a small troupe as well-trained as a small resistance army, proves that laughter can stem from quiet, subtle acting as well as clownish movements.

Ije Success, as Lily, an actress in the film about eco-terrorists, is one side of the comedy coin, tickling the audience’s collective funny bone with a deadpan delivery.

But Matt Standley draws the biggest giggles as a nameless, wordless production assistant who jiggles, wiggles, and bounces through whatever activity’s going on while everybody else ignores him except in his best bit, where he’s wildly searching for the right soft drink in a deep cooler.

Nicholas Rene Rodriguez wields gun as Regina Morones tries to stop him from shooting Ije Success in movie being shot in ‘Continuity.” Photo by Ben Krantz.

Rezan Asfaw portrays the movie’s director, Maria, as an ultra-idealist, convinced she can produce a classic art film that can change the world, while her counterpart, David Caxton (Benoît Monin) is a ultra-practical man willing to remain in the here-and-now and still kick a future climate crisis down the road.

Regina Morones steps into the character of diva Nicole by creating an over-the-top cartoon performance. She exquisitely blends movie magic and non-reality. At the same time, one Nicholas Rene Rodriguez character inhabits a “real life” abs-obsessed body while his second takes on a murderous manner in reel life.

At the total other end of life’s stage — the one in which overwhelming environmental neglect has been around too long already — stands Malcolm Rodgers as Larry, a science consultant. He’s always the bearer of bad news (though, because of his mousiness, sometimes unable to deliver it). He’s not above being despondent because of the future climate destruction (“I’m thinking of moving off the grid to raise chickens.”).

Designer Ray Archie, meanwhile, has created sound effects that envelop the stage like smog-filled clouds top off many city skies — with a wonderfully growing boom-let at the center of an incoming storm.

Said one audience member in a recent Saturday matinee feedback session, “I love plays with a dose of humor to bring truth.” That’s a better perspective, certainly, than the character in the play who declares, “This whole situation is fakey-fake.”

 Overall, Continuity, which ultimately is about the life of the planet vs. the life of any given species, and which decidedly deals with truth vs. illusion, is a triple-“s” winner: superb, sublime, super-funny.

Let’s hope excellent reviews and excellent word-of-mouth can continue to help fill all its seats and motivate theatergoers to leap at least one step beyond the predictable preaching to the choir, and to change the planet’s history before the reiterated metaphoric need to film a particular shot “before we lose the light.”

Continuity will play through June 21 at Shotgun Playhouse, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. Tickets: $23 to $80. Info: boxoffice@shotgunplayers.org or 510-841-6500, ext. 303.

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.comand https://vitalitypress.com. His books include Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer, aimed at male caregivers; MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of his newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that he co-authored with his then 8-year-old granddaughter.

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Sarah McKeregham hams it up as I-reen-ee Adler in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B while Adrian Deane, as Ms. Sherlock Holmes, tries to figure out what’s going on.
Photo by Robin Jackson.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B is often clever, and as might be expected from the mind of a veteran, feminist comedy writer, delightful and funny.

The problem is that the Ross Valley Players farce is occasionally too clever, bogging down in exposition, verbiage, and some punchlines that are repeatedly repeated until they’re no longer delightful or funny.

Rising above that avalanche of words, despite having to learn about a gazillion of them each, are four extraordinarily fine actors: Adrian Deane (as a marvelously ultra-pompous Ms. Sherlock Holmes); Steve Price (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle villain Professor Moriarty, Inspector Lestrade, and Elliot Monk; Sarah McKereghan (Irene Adler, Mrs. Hudson, and others); and Jennifer La Blanc (an ever-collapsing Ms. Joan Watson).

Although Deane’s purposely robotic characterization may be the sharpest acting job, it’s not the funniest because of the writing by Kate Hamill, who’s penned a batch of successful parodies and in 2017 was named “playwright of the year” by the Wall Street Journal. The writer’s wit is occasionally too cerebral and difficult to access.

Steve Price comically portrays Inspector Lestrade. Photo by Robin Jackson.

Steve Price, whose face is so mobile and voice so cartoonish he makes it impossible to not chuckle frequently, and Sarah McKereghan, whose clowning chops precisely fit the wonder-to-behold cliché, top the laugh-ometer.

 Mary Ann Rodgers must be a better-than-good director, having staged the show so most of those rocket-fast words and concepts are understandable (especially considering the multiple foreign accents).

In truth, a prize should be awarded to those in the crowd who can keep the storyline straight, since it’s rife with subplots and subplots of the subplots. Killings, and faux killings, seemingly come even faster than the gags and character-reveals.

Although the idea of turning the classic detective and his sidekick into females may be intrinsically amusing, the gender-bending device feels underused as a slapstick tool (except in a lesbian scene that’s wonderfully over-the-top).

Sarah McKeregham hams it up as I-reen-ee Adler in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B while Adrian Deane, as Ms. Sherlock Holmes, tries to figure out what’s going on. Photo by Robin Jackson.

But a piece of the purposely cluttered set — a souvenir skeleton of “I’m-not-a-doctor” Watson — isn’t used at all. Why bother mounting it if you’re going to keep theatergoers futilely waiting for its involvement in one murder or another?

Still, be certain to keep an eye out for Mrs. Hudson, the landlady, and her multi-replicated fumble-fingers. They should ensure laughter.

Don’t miss the buckets of blood either. Third-grade hilarious.

Or the corpse in the tub. Pubescent boy sidesplitting.

Enjoy pop culture and literary references in quip form? It feels as though about 400 of them about yesteryear — mainly books and television shows circa Laverne and Shirley and earlier — are inserted. Some feel especially anachronistic because they belie the fact that Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson — Apt. 2B is only four years old.

Not incidentally, the title of the “today-ish” comedy may have affected the box office. A recent matinee in Ross found the jam-packed, white-haired audience made up of roughly 20 women to each man. And yet there’s not even a Superbowl, no World Cup.

Billie Cox, who’s earned praise for years for her work with sound, is clearly at the top of her game — everything being timed exquisitely, everything perfectly fitting the action. Also praiseworthy is Valera Coble, who apparently was happy to design costumes that depicted Hamill’s 2021 London rather than the original setting, the 1880s. The garb is so right-on  and so much fun that a lot of it would be great to stash away and wear on Halloween.

The two-hour show is long. It could do with half an hour of paring and the removal of excess jokes that relentlessly resemble AK-47 rifle scattershot.

A final note: Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B is peppered with short political and satirical digs at today’s America. But they’re scattered, almost purposely buried among other quick gags, so they don’t stand out.

It’s unlikely that anyone left the Barn discussing the Trump Administration. They were undoubtedly too busy talking about all the verbal and physical silliness. And whether they liked the show.

Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B will run at the Barn, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. on the grounds of the Marin Art and Garden Center, Ross, through June 15. Tickets: $30 to $45. Info: www.RossValleyPlayers.com or 415-456-9555.

 Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.comand https://vitalitypress.com. His books include Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer, aimed at male caregivers; MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of his newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that he co-authored with his then 8-year-old granddaughter.

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Jean (left), Irv (center) and Larry discuss old photo of Irv in Pictures from Home. Photo by David Allen.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Check out the upscale, retirement-age parents in their San Fernando Valley tract home where the wife’s real estate commissions have kept them afloat for years while the husband’s played golf thrice weekly and continually raged.

In Pictures from Home at the Marin Theatre through May 31, the lives and personalities of the Sultan parents — Irv and Jean — are methodically deconstructed by their demi-adult photographer son, Larry, who frequently sleeps over on weekends after traveling down from Greenbrae. Instead of a stuffed animal, he’s long been caressing a camera and recorder apparently borrowed from the San Francisco Art Institute and California College of the Arts, where he’s been teaching.

All three performers are Equity pros; all three easily bring their real-life characters to life on a cluttered stage set dominated by a large screen onto which still-photo after still-photo extracted from home-movie reels is projected.

Larry, as play’s narrator, has fond memory of portrait of his dad. Photo by David Allen.

Irv, a razor salesman and Schick V.P. who bears only a slight resemblance to everyman Willie Loman and who’s depressed because no one seemingly can afford “hopes and dreams” anymore, firmly believes photos depict events as they are. Larry, the son who’s decidedly more artistic, has spent the last 10 years working on a photo-cum-book project to prove that pictures can show more than bare reality, that they can judiciously recall memories in a way that some might label fiction or exaggeration.

He also acts as the 105-minute, intermission-less, fascinatingly different play’s narrator.

Jean, meanwhile, tries to skirt the ongoing debate, has convinced herself she’s “in charge,” and grumbles that she’d “just like a couple of nice photos for the fridge.”

The one-act Pictures from Home is sprinkled with lots of verbal and physical humor, so much you might think it would be enough to leaven the extremely weighty drama. Not quite.

That’s because what they’re discussing is too personal, too intimate, too raw. It’s visceral rather than cerebral, even when comparing generations.

The problem, if it is any problem, is that playwright Sharr White and director Jonathan Moscone have re-created a family that’s virtually everybody’s, regardless of ethnicity, socio-economic status, or geography. “That was my father up there,” one exiting theatergoer was heard to say.

Dad is played brilliantly by Victor Talmadge as a sad, vulnerable loudmouth who talks over everybody and tries to emasculate his son because he feels powerless himself. Though he appears to lack empathy, he contends that the “key to success is empathy.” Mom, portrayed by Suzan Koosin, flawlessly spends a good part of the play flitting from one edge of the stage to another while trying to get her husband and son to put down their verbal swords. Larry is well-crafted by Dan Cantor as an immature, cowed offspring unlikely ever to grow up.

The dramedy, which is based on a photo memoir by the real Larry Sultan, opened to critical acclaim on Broadway in 2023, with Nathan Lane as Irv.

No matter who’s in the role, though, when Larry’s proposal becomes a reality, Irv neither understands nor accepts the artsy concept and still feels invaded. “I see you’ve got pretty much every photo I don’t like in the book,” he bemoans.

Pictures from Home will run at the Marin Theatre, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through May 31. Tickets: $38 to $94, plus a $6 handling fee per total order. Info: 415-388-5208 or www.MarinTheatre.org.

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or via his websites,https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com

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By WOODY WEINGARTEN

If you want to guess how many facts, including fake ones, can dance humorously and philosophically on the head of a pin, scoot over to the 6th St. Playhouse in Santa Rosa.

There you’ll find Lifespan of a Fact, a cerebral 95-minute play that may test your patience for nit-picking and a sluggish first act but is sure to reward you with tons of snarky-based chuckles minutes later. The acting, meanwhile, morphs from wimpy and tough-to-hear into robust and boisterous.

Crisp dialogue. A little slapstick, including a character at war with his backpack. Farce-like slamming of doors. All are tossed in for good measure and laughs.

The basic plotline? It’s all about truth vs. lies.

John D’Agata, a Norman Mailer-type veteran writer played arrogantly and gruffly by Marty Pistone, has penned a career-best “legacy” essay about a teen suicide for a prestigious but fiscally challenged New York magazine.

Egocentric enough to list himself along the great essayists of all time, he’s taken more than a few liberties with the facts. A lifelong habit? Clearly.

Jim Fingal, an energetic young intern portrayed by Noah Vondralee-Sternhill, struts his Harvard grad cockiness once he gets into the work — after awkwardly beginning the bizarre series of fact checks. If not careful, his over-the-top corrections will diminish the essay by erasing its color.

D’Agata, always protective of his reputation, nastily chides him about overestimating his “importance in the entire process.”

John D’Agata (Marty Pistone) unsuccessfully tries to sweet-talk Emily Penrose (Shanay Howell). Photo by Eric Chazankin.

It takes no time at all for Emily Penrose, the editor who tasks Fingal, to recognize the pair’s polarized views (Shanay Howell alternates with Emily Lynn Cornelius, the troupe’s executive artistic director, in the role).

She listens to them swapping insults, attempts to mediate —  and then, with resignation, asks them “not to kill each other” (the outcome of which remains in doubt for some time).

Though the dramedy’s director, Libby Oberlin, has a tsunami of words to deal with, she keeps Act II at a pace that sprints — zingy enough to cause the audience to applaud between scenes.

The play (written by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell) is based on a 2012 book crafted by the real-life D’Agata and Fingal.

Lifespan of a Fact debuted on Broadway in 2018 starring Daniel Radcliffe, Bobby Cannavale, and Cherry Jones. Critics praised its cleverness.

And its timeliness.

When the play’s over, you might try thinking of someone out there today who might stretch the truth just a teeny bit to serve his own purposes?

Lifespan of a Fact will run at the Monroe Stage of the 6th St. Playhouse, 52 W. 6th St., Santa Rosa, through May 31. Tickets: $26.95 to $47.95. Info: 707-523-4185 or boxoffice@6thstreetplayhouse.com.

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com.

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The gods of comedy (Dionysus and Thalia), down from Mount Olympus, introduce themselves with a flair. Photo by Mike Padua.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Daphne Rain, a workaholic classics prof played impeccably by Anna Wesner, is mouse-like and straightforward, and early-on declares “I don’t need a boyfriend; I need tenure.” But she’s also fickle, flirtatious, and frisky.

Ralph, her male counterpart classics professor, is portrayed brilliantly, hilariously by Paul Bisesi as gawky yet lovable. But, nevertheless, he’s fickle, flirtatious, and frisky.

And Dionysus, one of two larger-than-life spirits who hustle down to Earth from Mount Olympus in The Gods of Comedy at the Masquers Playhouse, is rollickingly characterized by Jeffrey Biddle. But he, as well, is fickle, flirtatious, and frisky.

This screwball 2019 comedy by playwright Ken Ludwig, celebrated creator of Lend Me a Tenor, is crammed with sexual wordplay, sexual movements, and single entendres — with partners changing as often as those in a bad French movie that somehow never stoops to boring.

The most sex-crazed character, however, is none of the above. It’s Liddy Freeman as slithering bombshell actress Brooklyn De Wolfe, who, with apologies to Will Rogers, apparently never met a man she didn’t like.

That said, sex makes up only about 3% of The Gods of Comedy. Indeed, the farce is at once laugh-out-loud-funny, cartoonish, silly, clever, and witty. It’s filled with slapstick, mistaken identities, exaggerated mugging, buffoonery, gags coming as fast as gatling-gun bullets, and copious physical comedy.

A handful of costumed production numbers, moreover, guarantee keeping your family Grouch or Dr. Seuss’ Grinch away.

Two classics professors, Ralph and Daphne, cradle a lost Euripides play, Andromeda. Photo by  Mike Padua.

The plot itself — mainly a frantic search for a re-lost manuscript of an unearthed edition of as Euripides play, Andromeda — almost doesn’t matter.

It also makes no-never-mind ha the show features tons of champion on scenery as well as third-grade level clowning (that tickles adult funny-bones much better than red noses and floppy shoes might).

Think, too, about the impossibility of not laughing at the running gag in which costumed-to-the-nines Dionysus and the muse, Thalia (Melody Payne Alonzo), constantly re-introduce themselves as “The Gods of comedy” with a flourish, a pause, and arms thrust outward, followed by an over-the-top “Ta da!”

Theatergoers also chuckle at Ares, a narcissistic, oversexed god of war (played by Paul J. White, not Pete Hegseth) who responds when asked what he does for a living, “Rape and pillage.”

Awe is another frequent crowd reaction, especially to the most spectacular visual scene: Dionysus juggling, Thalia twirling batons, and projected fireworks going off on the backdrop.

Awe is also appropriate for most of the costume designs by Lynda Hornada, who’s done that work on Broadway and for the New York Shakespeare Festival.

The sets also deserve accolades. They range from a full-blown look at a college office to a naked curtain. It all works seamlessly.  

There are flaws in this community theater production, however, not because of any performances, not linked to the direction, the sound, or the lighting.

The two-act show is often uneven, because there are so many jokey moments the odds are, a bunch will fall flat. In addition, between sight gags that draw major giggles and squeals are a few slow moments when the dialogue is drab and audience silences are awkward.

And while there are topical references to the Marvel series of film franchises, there also are weird, outdated mentions — to an ancient television series, “I Love Lucy,” for instance.

Director Ronnie Anderson, who keeps the two-hour pace at unrelenting, breakneck speed, writes in the program, “I am thankful the Gods were smiling on me, when casting.” Clearly, they were: The entire ensemble is not only superlative but sustains as much fun on the Point Richman stage as anyone’s likely to see.

Anderson utilizes a successful device that allows the minor god-like characters to instantly change personalities. They also shift from invisible to visible and back again.

Not incidentally, each of the play’s characters consistently seeks either an adventure or “a happy ending.” They get one or the other. Or both. And, no spoiler alert here, so does the audience — despite the “pure chaos” that frequently colors the stage.

The Gods of Comedy will run at the Masquers Playhouse,  105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through May 17. Tickets: $15 to $35. Info: 510-232-3888 or info@masquers.org.

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com. His books include Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer, aimed at male caregivers; MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of his newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that he co-authored with his then 8-year-old granddaughter.

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Chip Fuller (played by Woody Harper, left) and Dan Drake (David Kudler) whoop it up as sports radio talk show hosts. Photo by Robin Jackson.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

A new play with an enigmatic title, Value Over Replacement, features sometimes confusing flashback and dream sequences. But it’s the specter of famed but un-hall of famer Barry Bonds, star homer hitter and alleged steroid user, that hovers over everything.

The dramedy by San Rafael resident Ruben Grijalva is a morality play that makes sure to sprinkle in enough laugh-guaranteeing lines to lighten the heaviness.

Many questions are posed but answers never become available — even by pondering long after the seven-member cast has taken its collective bows.

That said, Oscar “Woody” Harper is superlative as Ed “Chip” Fuller, a Triple-A minor leaguer who’s convinced he can still permanently make it to The Show, the major leagues, despite being short on talent, comparatively long in the tooth, and the long-time bearer of a bad knee.

Harper’s face projects a gamut of emotions as Chip goes through a series of introspections and causes a publicity surge by belatedly copping to injecting himself with Human Growth Hormone and other illegal substances.

The playwright — comments director Ken Sonkin in the program guide — “maps…one man’s tortured pursuit of a boyhood dream. [The play] doesn’t ask that you exonerate him, only that you hear him out.”

Sonkin’s encapsulation, not incidentally, links to Chip asking, “How many years would you be willing to trade to be exactly what you wanted to be when you were ten years old?”

David Kudler believably portrays Chronicle writer Dan Drake, Chip’s nemesis/friend/radio sports talk co-host on fictional San Francisco station KSFP, who cunningly prods him into a high-ratings moment — a confession.

By being onstage, Kudler, an Equity performer, ends a self-imposed theatrical absence of 19 years. And makes the audience hope the gap is forever closed.

Erik Forst, sitting in the bleachers, contemplates being a seasoned ballplayer. Photo by Robin Jackson.

Schoolgirl Amelia Stafford artfully switches genders as Alex, the Fuller’s son, especially agonized in a scene where he’s abused by his baseball-obsessed dad, and schoolboy Erik Forst is wordless but potent in dual bit parts as a young fan and young Chip.

Rachel Ka’iulani Kennealy (as Chip’s wife), Jennifer Reimer (as the mother of a boy who committed suicide after taking steroids), and David Schiller (as Jack Fuller, Chip’s late father, and as Mike Clawson, Chip’s drug supplier) fill out the cast. Effectively, all.

Value Over Replacement, a Ross Valley Players community theater production that’s part of its annual RVP New Works series, doesn’t depend on a deep knowledge of baseball to enjoy it — it’s a play about people, after all, not the math of statistics — but it might help if a theatergoer comes in knowing something about Bonds, the archetype for the never-seen character, Ken Hobbes.

Chip, meanwhile, is in effect a stand-in for all 27 players that allegedly received performance-enhancing drugs from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO).

The wonderfully familiar crack of a bat hitting a baseball is skillfully provided by sound designer Bruce Vieira, who never misses a beat when Chip’s father endlessly practices with his son.

Benicia Martinez merits praise for the striking, spare set that includes bleachers and a corner that serves as a fill-in-the-blank area ranging from a spot where the autistic Alex incessantly practices slamming a ball against a wall to a spot where multiple characters testify before Congress.

The title, usually shortened in real-life to VORP, stems from an obscure sports stat that supposedly can evaluate a player’s contribution when compared with a real or imagined player of the same level and position. There’s but one reference in two acts and two hours to the statistic, though, so a new title could be more informative to a potential theatergoer.

Grijalva has written a first act that drags with excessive exposition and choppiness and a second that sprints and is sprightly, a first that borders on boring and a second that’s jammed with enough emotion to fill two acts. A bald senior in the first row could be heard at the end of an opening weekend matinee suggesting, correctly, that a sharp editor might cut it down to a more compelling one-act show.

Chip Fuller (Woody Harper) consoles his wife, Emily (Rachel Ka’iulani Kennealy). Photo by Robin Jackson.

The playwright nevertheless needs to be lauded for inserting lots of Bay Area references and such thought-provoking lines as, “If heart were a thing, there would be a stat for it already” and the Death of a Salesman-like “Steroids never killed anybody — disappointment, that’s the thing that kills everybody.”

He deserves kudos, too for a lengthy, uproarious, lowbrow segment on farting, almost as funny as Mel Brooks’ notorious cinematic scene in Blazing Saddles.

Grijalva has written that his “theatrical worlds are full of abstract hopes colliding with concrete frailties. The resulting debris can be beautiful, grotesque, and often — thank God — hilarious.”

That, indeed, does sum up the best of Value Over Replacement.

Stylishly.

Value Over Replacement, part of the Ross Valley Players RVP New Works, will run at the Barn Theater at the Ross Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, through April 12. Tickets: $30 to $45. Info: 415-456-9555 or www.rossvalleyplayers.com.

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com.

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