Woody Weingarten

Woody’s [rating: 4]

Director Mike Nichols’ death saddens me.

His eclectic work ranks high on my all-time favorites’ list, especially the Monty Python musical “Spamalot” and a pair of films, “The Graduate” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”

Three disparate entertainments indeed.

At the pinnacle is “Virginia Woolf,” the Edward Albee masterwork that ripped the veneer off the institution of marriage.

No director ever pulled more out of Elizabeth Taylor or Richard Burton.

I distinctly remember, too, that Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill had blown me away in the original “Virginia Woolf” on Broadway in 1963.

All that history bounced around in my mind as I walked into the College of Marin’s Studio Theater to watch two cerebral but passionate one-act Albee plays, 1959’s “The Zoo Story” and 1961’s “The American Dream.”

Despite having seen thousands of theater pieces, somehow I’d never seen either.

To be sure, these were campus performances, yet both were equal to the professionalism of any Bay Area community theater — and, in fact, to some of the top nearby stages.

Funny. Intense.

Absurd.

W. Allen Taylor, whose directorial chops leave nothing to be desired here, notes in the program that, although neither play rings “a rational bell,” both clearly address Albee’s “dissatisfaction with [the American emphasis] on material and consumer-driven values.”

“The Zoo Story,” in which human beings eventually mirror a vicious dog and other animals, slowly builds on a foundation of isolation, loneliness, dysfunctionality and non-communication.

The two-man park bench encounter tragically ends in violence.

Supposedly penned in less than three weeks, “The Zoo Story,” which triggered Albee’s reputation as a pioneer of the Theatre of the Absurd movement, was the playwright’s first major drama. Its West Berlin debut was half a double bill with Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape.”

Its power — and a stunning performance of Skylar Collins as Jerry, a “permanent transient” — actually made me shudder at its climax.

“The American Dream,” in sharp contrast, made me laugh aloud — numerous times.

Despite it dealing with real or imagined adoption, mutilation and murder.

With a spartan set and tasteful costuming appropriately limited to shades of ultra-neutral beige, the background blandness helps exaggerate the perma-smiles plastered onto the faces of flesh-and-blood wind-up dolls, Mommy and Daddy, and their haughty socialite visitor, Mrs. Barker.

Melanie Macri, Jon Demegillo and Isabel Heaviside, respectively, nail the satire with over-the-top looks that pinpoint their faux sincerity and politeness (even to the point of partially disrobing when requested).

And Keara Reardon goes them one better as an absent-minded yet crafty Grandma.

Albee, an 86-year-old, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, has peppered the play with wondrously insightful one-liners.

Such as: “I can live off you because I married you.”

He has said “The American Dream” is “a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything [in the United States] …is peachy-keen.”

On the College of Marin stage, though, because of the supreme skills of playwright, director and actors, everything is peachy-keen.

“The American Dream” and “The Zoo Story” will run at the College of Marin’s Studio Theater, 835 College Ave. (corner of Sir Francis Drake and Laurel Avenue), Kentfield, through Dec. 7. Night performances, Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; matinees, Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $10 to $20. Information and tickets: 585-9385 or www.marin.edu/performingarts/drama/contact.html

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or check out his new blog at www.vitalitypress.com/

[Woody’s [rating: 4.5]

Back to basics.

That theme might best describe Cirque du Soleil’s “Kurios — Cabinet of Curiosities,” now ensconced in a tent behind A&T Park in San Francisco.

What’s different with this 30th anniversary show is that it strives less for innovation, more for familiar circus acts.

Umpteen acrobats. A jillion mid-air stunts.

Writer-director Michel Laprise has said he was aiming for “low-tech” astonishment — and a blending, of course, of fantasy and reality.

Mission accomplished.

Most of the dozen acts in the two-hour, time-traveling ‘Kurios” have touches of brilliance — despite most of the most being spectacularly unspectacular.

None of which fazed the opening night crowd one iota.

It applauded, cheered and stomped as loudly as audiences at any of the dozen Cirque shows I’ve seen.

Devices and costumes, as always, are amazingly inventive and somewhat mysterious, ranging from a huge metallic hand that converts into an underpinning for contortionists, to freakish nose cones that look like throwaways from an old show in which Madonna utilized them on a different part of her anatomy.

The music meanders, too — from the strains of an invented language, typical for Cirque performances, to traditional jazz, swing and electronic rock.

Tossed in for good measure are bluegrass, klezmer and classical passages.

My favorite interlude was the unique “Theater of Hands” segment in which a puppeteer lets his fingers do the dancing in comedic and poetic ways, projecting images unto a hefty floating balloon overhead.

In contrast, my seven-year-old granddaughter, my plus-one for the evening despite it being way beyond her bedtime, preferred “Invisible Circus,” where a clown leads an unseen troupe in numerous stunts while an equally undetectable lion roars from hither to thither.

The illusion’s sound effects are exquisitely timed.

Oldster and youngster both particularly enjoyed “ChaosSynchro,” staged bedlam with countless arms and legs flailing as two performers drum wildly on suitcases and whatever else’s handy, and its antithesis, “Continent of Doubles,” with a hunky, bare-chested male duo doing sensual, synchronized dancing on aerial straps.

The crowd, meanwhile, favored “Contortion,” with four females twisting their bodies into seemingly impossible positions.

It also reveled in “Upside Down World,” in which a guy negotiates table and chairs dangling from the tent-top while another hand-climbs perilously stacked chairs to meet him.

Burned into my memory, too, are weird curios that exit an oversized cabinet and come to life in a bizarrely mechanized world, and a trampoline that extends beyond than stage itself and lets gymnasts to bounce higher than I’ve ever seen.

My grandchild also was impressed by the three performing artists who greeted ticket-holders by prancing atop the big blue and yellow tent which that houses “Kurios,” which, not incidentally, features 19 nationalities in its cast and crew.

Speaking of other places, only 150 million devotees apparently have watched Cirque du Soleil shows in 300 cities on six continents.

I’m happy to be among them.

“Kurios — Cabinet of Curosities” plays in the big top behind AT&T Park in San Francisco through Jan. 18. Night performances, Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Wednesdays, 1 and 4:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 4:30, and Sundays, 1:30 and 5. General tickets: $53 to $135. Information: (800) 450-1480 or www.cirquedusoleil.com/kurios.

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or check out his new blog at www.vitalitypress.com/.

[Woody’s [rating: 2.5]

The legendary Lucille Ball, who played the title role in the fabled 1950s TV series “I Love Lucy” is long dead.

Since 1989.

Even longer gone are her series’ co-stars, real-life husband Desi Arnaz (since ‘86), Vivian Vance (‘79) and William Frawley (’66).

But all four are alive and well again, or at least their spirit and characters are.

A new musical comedy, “I Love Lucy — Live on Stage,” playfully resurrects Lucy Ricardo, Ricky Ricardo, Ethel Mertz and Fred Mertz.

And lets them fumble and stumble accordingly.

In primary colors, as opposed to my first encounter with them on a tiny black-and-white screen 60 years ago.

Opening night they made me grin, chortle and chuckle (while most of the crowd bellylaughed, howled and whooped).

It follows, then, that if you’re one of the multitudes who catch “Lucy” cable re-runs each year, you’ll enjoy the national touring company at the SHN Curran Theater in San Francisco.

And if you’re one of the dozen adults over 40 on the planet who’ve never seen an episode, now’s your chance to see two recreated.

Just prepare yourself for 100 minutes of vintage humor topped with white-bread jingles and choreography.

If you can’t handle nostalgia or ‘50s leitmotifs, you might want to catch something edgier.

Which means, I guess, almost anything else.

The show’s conceit turned the crowd and me into a Desilu soundstage audience that gets to witness Thea Brooks as Lucy (with huge eyes and an even bigger smile that intentionally never leaves her face) and Euriamis Losada as Ricky (whose crooning voice is better than Desi’s was).

As in the original series, Fred (Kevin Remington) and Ethel (Lori Hammel) survive being on the receiving end of Lucy’s convoluted plots and whacky antics.

Those of us seated in the theater could choose to hoot whenever the “Applause” light goes on.

I opted not to.

A company of 10, the most outstanding of which is Denise Moses, ably supports the leading actors. She amusingly exaggerates the role of Mrs. Birdie Mae Figg, an outspoken Oklahoma visitor (plus a quartet of other characters).

The cast breezes through a cartoonish version of “The Benefit,” in which the juvenile, talent-challenged redhead manipulates her tongue-tied Cuban hubby into letting her perform, and “Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined,” where eye drops blend blurred vision and slapstick.

Between those episodes are over-the-top renderings of ‘50s commercials by the Crystaltone Singers, a makeshift sextet that captures the simplicity, innocence and alleged merits of such products as Brylcreem, Alka Seltzer and Halo shampoo — and performs intentionally stilted movements ranging from a goofy maypole dance to rhythmic spasms that more resemble calisthenics than choreography.

Those performers also interject ditties from the long-ago that include hokey tidbits like “Glow Worm” and “Under the Bamboo Tree.”

A special plaque should go to bright costuming by Shon LeBlanc and Kelly Bailey (including an outrageous zoot-suit) and the mega-high energy of Andy Belling’s six-piece band.

“I Love Lucy — Live on Stage” began in 2000 as a 50th anniversary traveling exhibit that paused at state and county fairs, malls and casinos. It included memorabilia, still photos and video montages from the original TV programs.

In 2012, the series was voted “Best TV Show of All Time” in an ABC News/People magazine poll.

This fleshed-out pastiche, friskily staged and directed by Rick Sparks, had premiered in Los Angeles a few months before.

Curiously, neither Lucille Ball’s name nor those of any other original performers are uttered during the performance.

What is inserted, though, are references to wrestler Gorgeous George and other icons and elements of those quiet Eisenhower years. Check out this announcement: “Turn of all transistor radios and other noise-making devices, and that includes your children.”

Before and after the show, a young woman peddling Lucy souvenirs in the lobby had inadvertently obliterated that theatrical time-warp illusion.

She was tattooed from shoulder to wrist, not a female phenom of the fifties.

Then, as I was leaving, a wag suggested he’d have enjoyed the show more had it been done in drag.

I didn’t know what to say.

“‘I Love Lucy’ — Live on Stage” runs at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco, through Nov. 23. Evening performances Tuesdays through Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 6:30 p.m. Matinees, Saturdays, 2 p.m.; Sundays 1 p.m. Tickets: $40 to $135. Information: (888) 746-1799 or shnsf.com.

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or check out his new blog at www.vitalitypress.com/.

[Woody’s [rating: 3]

“Party People” is a provocative, adrenaline-charged, flashy ride into history.

But it’s depressing.

The new Berkeley Rep musical, with a fictitious veneer glued atop historical events, is a double-edged examination of good and bad aspects of the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords.

It’s embedded in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Yet it displays a legacy that bumps against 21st century incidents like the Florida killing of unarmed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch captain, and this year’s police slaying of a black teen in Ferguson, Missouri, which sparked rioting.

Or the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant in Oakland that led to a compassionate film reconstruction, “Fruitvale Station.”

The fact that discrimination against people of color and second-class citizenry haven’t disappeared is precisely what makes the play depressing.

Also, as a middle-class, suburban white man, I found the show guilt-inducing, discomforting and a little frightening.

Why?

Possibly because “Party People” — after examining compound facets of racial relations — ends up pushing for new revolution.

The disturbing play, replete with thunderous cries of “power to the people,” clocks back to a time when rank-and-file revolutionaries picked up garbage and provided free food and medical care in black and brown communities — at the same time fighting what they perceived as an oppressive federal government.

But it also shows betrayal, bewilderment and party in-fighting triggered by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI’s director who’d created Cointelpro, a counter-intelligence program that used tactics of infiltration, surveillance, harassment and assassination.

Hoover had labeled the Panthers, founded in Oakland in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”

“Party People” suggests the radicals were hardly that.

Rather, a group of complicated human beings with conventional flaws.

The chaotic times clang in my memory.

I recall having major difficulty accepting the assassination of Malcolm X. And, of course, those of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King.

I remember having difficulty, too, sorting through stacks of news reports in an attempt to excavate a capital “T” truth.

Unfortunately, my vision wasn’t cleared by watching “Party People,” which lamentably degenerates into a polemic despite showcasing brilliant acting-dancing-singing performances by an ensemble cast of 12, exciting live video projections that persistently flicker on 17 screens, and loud, heart-pulsing music that rebounds from hip-hop/rap to blues, from gospel to rock.

The exceedingly intense show, based on dozens of interviews, imagines members of the two groups at a modern-day performance-art opening ripe for generational and cultural gaps.

The fantasy was collectively penned by writer-performers William Ruiz (aka Ninja), who runs a gamut of emotions onstage as Jimmy, one of the two artists who shaped the reunion; Steven Sapp (formidable as Omar, a Panther suspected of being a traitor and forced to confess to things he hadn’t done); and Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, who portrays Helita and whose powerful singing voice is mesmerizing.

Liesl Tommy, associate director at Berkeley Rep, revamped the piece after she directed its world premiere in 2012 for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.

She obviously can relate to what she’s spotlighting because she grew up in South Africa, where her parents were anti-apartheid activists.

Practically everyone, of course, is familiar with the Panthers, who were conceived as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, aimed originally at monitoring police behavior and challenging police brutality.

A lot fewer West Coast folks will recollect the Chicago-based Young Lords, a Puerto Rican independence-promoting group inspired by the Panthers.

(“We were a social club but the police called us a street gang,” intones one character.)

No one, however, is likely to forget the clenched-fist symbols of “black power,” which are magnificently addressed — along with staccato militaristic and drug-generated shakes  — by choreographer Millicent Johnnie.

The vigorousness of what she’s invented is reflected, figuratively and literally, by the dancers’ sweat.

Humor is not absent.

Sometimes it stems from lighthearted wishful thinking (“The revolution can have its own website), sometimes with a modicum of irony (“This is America — learn to speak Spanish.”)

“Party People” takes pains to pay homage to dead and imprisoned social warriors.

It also tries unsuccessfully to sum up a narrative, in my judgment, can’t be condensed to bumper sticker size.

“The struggle for justice is always worth it.”

“There have to be consequences.”

“You have to ask yourself, ‘What are you willing to sacrifice?’”

“Party People” plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre‘s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. (off Shattuck), Berkeley, through Nov. 23. Night performances, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14.50 to $89, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.

[Woody’s [rating: 5]

I’m an itsy-bitsy old-fashioned: I’d rather use a Post-it than an iPhone.

So I ring my iMac with instant reminders, to-do lists and quick- or slow-witted brainstorms — as I’ve been doing forever (no, none of them date back 20 years).

The yellow stickies also sit on my desk in three piles (do-it-now, do-it-asap, and fergettaboudit!).

And I usually have a pad in my pants pocket, in case.

Though the mini-notes don’t define my universe or my San Anselmo homestead, they do let me prioritize them.

They also frequently offer pleasure or amusement.

Such as a verbal bon-bon from Nancy Fox, my wife, I reproduced: “I’m counting my blessings — and you’re a lot of them.”

From a source I can’t remember: “Hyperventilation is proof we’re still breathing.”

Sometimes the notes are edgy:

“Overheard geezer telling companion in San Anselmo Library, ‘My wife accuses me of being a pochemuchka, which is a Russian word for someone who asks too many questions.’”

“Friend bemoans steady San Francisco Opera diet of Italian offerings: ‘It’s pasta, pasta, pasta all the time,’ he complains.”

In contrast, some Post-its merely give me a chance to vent:

“Recent 5-4 right-wing rulings o f the U.S. Supreme Court don’t pass my personal stink test.”

“With tech support being what it is — outsourced and understaffed — I spend way too much time on hold with the Philippines or India.”

Sometimes I question the so-called evolution of our society: “When did ‘a learning experience’ get replaced with ‘a teaching moment’? And why?”

Or ponder what just happened: “Was standing in our backyard when gray squirrel mistook me for a tree and ran up my pants leg, then my arm. I brushed it off, then shook as, watching it scamper up a real trunk, I realized it might be rabid.”

Because I’m so fond of word play, I’ve enjoyed glancing at this one: “Overheard, from moped-walking young woman on the Parkade in Fairfax — ‘He makes so many mistakes his life is a reign of error.’”

Perfect for a musician? “Nobody knows the treble I’ve seen.”

Perfect for a difficult non-musician? “He’s not hard of hearing, he’s hard of listening.”

More than a handful of stickies are personal.

“Because I often write about my songwriter-wife, she’s threatened that she may start creating songs about my foibles.”

Or, in a moment of 117 percent syrupiness, “Nancy’s so charming and persuasive she could make The Devil don a halo.”

But then comes the moment I flaunt my ignorance:

“I didn’t even know vaulting existed as a sport until Hannah, my seven-year-old granddaughter who apparently can grow taller while I’m standing there talking to her, climbed onto a horse’s back and blew me away by doing the gymnastic exercises.”

After scrutinizing a gossip website a few weeks ago, I jotted down, “Just found tidbits about Mya, Ciara and Kesha, three one-name singers I’ve never heard — or heard of.”

Some Post-its are whimsical:

“How do you really feel about kohlrabi?”

“Hannah the other day stupefied her mother by saying, ‘Mommy, I’m stupefied.’”

And some are wholly unencumbered phrases or words I might someday use in a column (not unlike this one):

“A mental gulag.”

“Critter-sitter.”

“My inner cubmaster.”

“Puleeeze.”

“Donna Quixote.”

And then there are scads of items I don’t know quite know what to do with:

“’I-spy’ moment causes me to question what I saw — red-haired guy jogging barefoot, and bare everything else, on Fourth Street sidewalk toward downtown San Rafael.”

“Random notion: How’d I feel if I told an actor to ‘break a leg’ and he/she did?”

“War — does it have three letters or is it a four-letter word?”

“Kick-the-bucket-list: Things to postpone until after I’m dead.”

But, if forced at gunpoint to choose, the stickie I relate to best is a summation:

“I’m an addict. Dependencies, in order of import, include my wife and kids and grandkids, my iMac (incongruously combined with being a Luddite), Diet Pepsi Wild Cherry, High-Tech burritos, films, jazz, taking digital photos and inserting prints into old-fashioned albums, and binge-watching ‘Law & Order’ re-reruns.”

Oh, I forgot: And Post-its.

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net

 

[Woody’s [rating: 4.5]

Charlie slowly has been committing suicide by food.

Ounce by ounce.

He’s now somewhere between 550 and 600 pounds.

Playwright Samuel D. Hunter, 33, just last month was named a $625,000 MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” fellow — in part for creating “unlikely protagonists.”

Charlie, front and center in a new drama at the Marin Theatre Company, certainly fits that category.

He’s not a character I’ll soon forget.

Yet “The Whale” also deals with a mysteriously dead lover; a woman who’s become the protagonist’s friend, nurse and enabler; a missionary seeking to relocate his faith; and a daughter Charlie abandoned when realizing he was gay.

Plus wide-ranging targets: faith, death, parenting, teaching, obesity, truth.

Hunter, of course, has a resume jammed with plotlines that are upsetting, sad and profoundly stuffed with gravitas.

Including the enigmatic, dark and edgy comedy about faith and forgiveness, “A Bright New Boise,” which was produced at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley last year.

“The Whale,” an intermission-less drama a few minutes short of two hours, is never easy to watch — even with the persistent injection of quirky humor that makes the audience laugh nervously.

But, like the many references to biblical Jonah and fictional “Moby Dick,” that’s no surprise.

The minute I walk into the theater I know what’s ahead could be bleak: The set by Michael Locher forewarns me.

A grungy, overstuffed couch rests on chipped cinder blocks. In front are king-sized food and drink containers. Piled high all around is clutter. A coat of fresh paint wouldn’t help the dingy walls.

Effectively depressing.

Yet nothing could prepare me for the powerful, spot-on performance of Nicholas Pelczar as a lumbering shut-in who’s perpetually apologizing and eating himself to death because he’s grieving for his boyfriend.

For me, it’s unquestionably the best acting job of the year.

Pelczar convinces me, in spite of his average-sized head in a gigantic fat suit, that Charlie’s insatiable appetite is authentic.

How?

By obsessively wolfing down mounds of Kentucky Fried Chicken and chunks of a Subway foot-long while slurping an oversized soda.

Wheezing with every other word.

While struggling to get up so he can shuffle to the bathroom clinging to his walker.

Pelczar makes me believe, too, in Charlie’s rigidity (“I don’t go to hospitals”) even as his blood pressure climbs to a sky-high 238 over 134 and he’s plagued with heart problems and endless other ailments.

He also persuades me to accept the character’s divided persona: an emotional devastation coupled with shameless optimism.

The supporting cast also dazzles.

A 17-year-old novice actor, Christina Oeschger, adroitly captures Charlie’s antisocial, estranged daughter, Ellie, who’s failing her classes and busily posting a “hate blog.”

She spits out her misery: “Just being around you is disgusting,” she tells the dad she hasn’t seen since she was two, a man who’s bribed her to visit.

And in a chorus of pain, Adam Magill aptly flounders as Elder Thomas as Charlie’s caregiver becomes almost too intense to watch because of Liz Sklar’s performance skills.

Michelle Maxson isn’t on stage much as Mary, Charlie’s ex, but when she is, her acting chops are quickly visible.

Jasson Minadakis, the company’s artistic director for nine years, is once again at the helm. His work on this touching play, which ran off-Broadway in 2012, shows how impressively he’s matured.

Try as he may, however, he can’t keep the audience — before it feels compassion — from wincing collectively at the seemingly grotesque main character.

On the other hand, the climax of “The Whale” is so potent the opening night crowd, totally stunned, didn’t applaud for several seconds.

A thunderous tumult then rocked the place.

“The Whale” plays at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through Oct. 26. Performances Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Sundays, 1 or 2 p.m. Tickets: $10 to $58, subject to change. Information: (415) 388-5208 or marintheatre.org. 

Woody’s [rating: 4]

“Pippin,” fittingly touted as “Broadway’s high-flying musical,” is a seamless balance of acrobatic circus acts and theatrical extravaganza.

It blends impeccable singing and high-kick dancing with plentiful comedic interludes.

It spotlights droll magical illusions — and a cute dog trick guaranteed to keep your memory bank warm.

If only the show had a linear, cohesive storyline.

Still, the 2 hour, 20 minute fantasy-fairy tale at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco roughly based on historical realities won’t disappoint.

“Pippin 2.0,” my artificial designation because it’s so different from the 1972 original, is precisely what I expected from a touring company of the 2013 Tony winner for best musical revival:

Inventive. Glamorous. Spectacular.

What I couldn’t foresee, however, were the perfectly timed sound effects by percussionist Ken Bergman, who used a tiny 3×5 screen to monitor the stage action so he could sync everything without missing a proverbial beat.

He counted out for me during intermission the 31 instruments he utilized (including a small washboard).

“This is difficult,” he said. “Usually there’s a point where you can relax, but in this show, there’s always something coming up.”

True.

Bergman’s equipment is so expansive he requires a space of his own in the orchestra pit.

The other dozen-plus musicians (mostly locals) need something else: a net — in case plummeting detritus, runaway hoops, oversized balls or errant gymnasts fall onto them.

The curtain for “Pippin” gives the impression of a circus tent. When it first parts, an interlocutor/narrator (Sasha Allen, filling a role similar to Joel Gray’s emcee in “Cabaret”) quickly creates the illusion of a show within a show.

Her words, and a portion of others (including those of the mega-vibrant chorus), sometimes can’t be easily discerned. But that doesn’t matter.

The overall effect is so dazzling it etches a perma-smile on my face.

The plot’s basics?

A king — Charlemagne (played vigorously by John Rubinstein, who’d starred as the title character in the original) — wants his soldiers to unite Europe, at any cost.

His son, Prince Pippin (a charismatic Matthew James Thomas, who showed off his plentiful vocal, dance and gymnastic talents in the same role for the revival), is more concerned with uniting the wobbly parts of his personality.

Although he claims to seek the meaning of life, he’s really searching for the meaning of his life. He repeatedly gripes about being “empty and vacant” — even after a wild intro to sexuality.

Sabrina Harper (likewise from the revival cast) also turns in a top-notch performance, as Fastrada, Pippin’s manipulative stepmom.

But the showstopper is the sole property of Lucie Arnaz,.

The svelte 63-year-old daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz plays a gyrating granny, Berthe, with enough raw energy to light half the spotlights by her oomph quotient alone.

The audience applauded and cheered. Loudly.

I heartily approved of the outburst.

I also appreciated the fact that director Diane Paulus and circus creator Gypsy Snider, who began her career in San Francisco as a child of the Pickle Family Circus, insisted the acrobats/tumblers/trapeze artists learn dancing and the dancers learn gymnastics.

Paulus, who also was brilliant at the helm of “The Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess” and “Hair,” won a Tony for the revival.

Snider, who’d led her Montreal-based 7 Fingers circus company (officially known as Les 7 doigts de la main) to global success, plucked several of her top performers from it for the “Pippin” revival.

So I wasn’t surprised to find I liked this production more than 1972’s — despite Bob Fosse’s direction and choreography.

This version features dances cobbled by Chet Walker, a Fosse protégé who follows his mentor’s style but adds novel turns of his own. His sexually oriented dance, highlighting a simulated ménage a trois, may not ignite the audience’s fire, but almost everything else he conceived does.

What didn’t work for me?

Scenes like one in which dancers do infantile comedic turns as pigs and chickens. Or an über-melodramatic sequence in which the narrator demands the set be shut down.

Moreover, tunes by Stephen Schwartz, famed for “Wicked” and other Big Apple triumphs, failed to make me leave the theater singing or humming..

Or even thinking about them.

Another minor fault is that the second act, which slows considerably, becomes disjointed as it moves toward a finale that tries to determine if Pippin will settle for something other than his dream of “magic shows and miracles.”

But even with these minor fault-lines, the musical is unique.

And fun.

“Pippin” runs at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St. (at Market), San Francisco, through Oct. 19. Night performances Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; matinees Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $45 to $210 (subject to change). Information: (888) 746-1799 or shnsf.com.

Woody’s [rating:2]

You can be sure when a critic emphasizes costumes and set early in a review, giant imperfections stifle the production.

That being said, let me state unequivocally that costumes designed by Michael A. Berg in “The Fox on the Fairway,” the Ross Valley Players’ latest production, are first rate.

They instantly differentiate the characters.

And the 19th-hole set — including frequently swinging doors that become a focal point of the farce — accomplishes precisely what designer Ken Rowland intends.

Acting by each member of the six-person cast is admirable as well.

And director Julianna Rees keeps the pace so frenetic that the 100-minute show whizzes by.

The night I went, the RVP audience showed appreciation with sporadic laughter and vigorous applause at the end.

Yet the script of “Fox” is riddled with holes (and I’m not talking about the cups golf balls fall into) and predicable bits of business.

With cliché heaped on cliché.

Credulity in farces is often strained, but here it’s stretched as thin as a piece of limp Swiss cheese left too long in the sun.

Lightweight playwright Ken Ludwig, whom many once believed would be an appropriate successor to Neil Simon as the theatrical world’s comedy king, has become a master of playing it safe.

Perhaps that’s why his work has been seen in 30 countries in more than 20 languages, often in community theaters similar to that of the RVP.

Yes, his original “Lend Me a Tenor” and his adaptation of “Twentieth Century” did provide amusement (both were staged by the RVP). And  “Leading Ladies” (the Novato Theatre just did it) was enjoyable to watch.

But “The Fox on the Fairway” relies on old saws such as endless malapropisms and precious sexual innuendos, a lost engagement ring, the threatened destruction of a valuable vase, continued links between ex-spouses, a melodramatic revelation about parentage, and, of course, the making of a 90-foot putt.

All that and I’m still not sure who or what the fox is.

I do know, however, that the convoluted plot twists, as most farces are wont to do, come fast and furiously.

The president of the Quail Valley Country Club, Henry Bingham (played by Louis Schilling with suitable bluster) learns the golfer he thought could deliver a grudge match victory over Dickie Bell (Javier Alarcon), who heads the rival Crouching Squirrel facility and wears one ugly sweater after another, has switched loyalties.

Bingham, who’s made a six-figure bet he can’t afford, recruits Justin (an appropriately wide-eyed and awkward Derek Jepsen), a newly hired assistant, and engineers his club membership.

The hotshot, unfortunately, breaks his arm after building up a nine-stroke lead, so…

And while a non-logical frenzy swirls about everyone, Jepsen as a befuddled almost-hero, Eileen Fisher as a lust-laden Pamela and Sumi Narendran as a testosterone-oozing Muriel turn in exceptional performances.

“Fox,” first staged in 2010, was written in reverence to the English farces that began in the 1880s and flourished in the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s.

Maybe that’s why it sometimes feels as if its use-before date has passed.

“The Fox on the Fairway“ will run at The Barn, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, through Oct. 12. Night performances, Thursdays at 7:30, Fridays and Saturdays at 8; matinees, Sundays at 2. Tickets: $14-$29. Information: www.rossvalleyplayers.comor (415) 456-9555.

 Woody’s [rating:3.5]

“Fool Moon,” a Tony Award-winning show with Bill Irwin and David Shiner clowning up a comedic storm, made me blissfully happy.

So I impatiently waited for an encore  — for 16 years.

Finally, the baggy-pants pair is back, in a mostly non-verbal collaboration at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, “Old Hats.”

Though Irwin and Shiner are no longer chronologically young (they might be called middle-aged if they plan to live to 120), their bodies seem as rubbery, as lissome and acrobatic as ever.

And their inventiveness is nearly as agile.

They easily, and almost continuously, induce laughter with old-style chapeaus and new-style bits.

With a slew of newfangled technology tossed in.

This production, in conjunction with New York’s Signature Theatre, is quite different from their first go-‘round: Original musical interludes (heavy on country rock) by singer-songwriter-pianist Shaina Taub separate, and then overlap with, the twosome’s individual and dual segments.

Irwin and Shiner are, in effect, theatrical Renaissance Men.

They create hilarious comedy and prickly poignancy, they invent silent but sympathetic characters, they dance and play instruments and sing, they improvise and they inveigle audience members to play along fully with slapstick shtick.

I saw Pickle Family Circus co-founder Irwin not that long ago at the San Francisco Opera House, where he stole the show in a presentation of “Showboat.” I’d also thoroughly enjoyed his work in A.C.T.’s “Endgame” in 2012.

As for Shiner, a grad of Cirque du Soleil, he also starred as The Cat in the Hat in Broadway’s “Seussical: The Musical.”

Both are masters at the characters they assume — Irwin the good-natured schlub, Shiner the darker, more aggressive onstage persona.

Their 105-minute show is somewhat uneven, but its high points are extraordinary.

• Such as “Mr. Business,” spotlighting Irwin’s exquisitely timed playfulness with his own images on a tablet (my writing about it can’t compare to my joy watching it).

• Such as Shiner’s goading and mimicking four audience members in an extended bit about filming a mute old-fashioned Western, the side-splittingly funny “Cowboy Cinema.”

• Such as the opening number, “Old Hats,” which features projections that envelop the two spotlight-craving clowns as they flee an explosion in space.

• Such as “The Encounter,” with two guys waiting for a train initially badgering each other in highly amusing ways, then finding commonality via the sharing of pills.

• Such as an excursion into the sublime, similar to a lightning-fast riff by the late Robin Williams, when they break their silence barrier and convulsively swap lines from “Who’s on First” and “Over the Rainbow,” with a couple of quotes from Shakespeare added to the mix.

Alas, not everything is a 10.

Shiner’s “Hobo Puppet Waltz,” a solo set piece that finds a tramp getting more and more depressed as he jerks a predicable series of broken items from a trash bin can’t be saved by his imaginative creation of a woman companion from a white fabric.

And “The Debate,” a sketch about a political face-off, is filled with all-too-familiar lowbrow humor and standard pot shots.

But, overall, director Tina Landau ensured that “Old Hats” was an evening’s entertainment that kept me smiling.

And she proved that old clowns never die — they just slip into baggier pants.

“Old Hats” plays at the American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco, through Oct. 12. Performances Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Tuesdays, 7 or 8 p.m.; matinees, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $20 to $120. Information: (415) 749-2228 or www.act-sf.org.