Woody Weingarten

 Woody’s [rating:4.5]

Expect the unexpected.

And Meow Meow, leggy brunette bombshell and mock diva, will energetically provide it at the Berkeley Rep.

She’s fabulous — in all meanings of the word: mega-excellent; larger than life-sized; and a spectacular invention, in the fabled sense.

She’s half wildcat, half wild card.

With ersatz desperation, the combo singer-comedian-actress-dancer weaves her innate talents and cleverness into a triumphant 90-minute patchwork-quilt, musical-spoof that’s headed for Broadway.

She also parades as a wannabe revolutionary and philosopher (“Is there a God?”).

But her main shtick is to pull male theatergoers onstage and womanhandle them during “An Audience with Meow Meow,” a title with multiple interpretations.

Not for a second did I envy folks dragged from the front rows to paw her legs, grope her torso and act as comedic chairs and foils.

But those repeated gambits, albeit somewhat cheesy, are extremely funny.

Meow Meow — whose given name is the slightly less glamorous Melissa Madden Gray — along the way dices and slices diva and cabaret mythology, turning theatrical clichés sideways and upside down.

She revels in taking risks.

She satirizes superstars who thrive on flowers tossed at them, who physically toss themselves onto their fans, who praise to the rafters whatever venue they’re in.

With hints of, and homages to, Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf and Lady Gaga.

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn she’d secretly viewed re-runs of Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball’s televised physical antics.

Or been addicted to the black-and-white slapstick of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton.

Meow Meow, who as a small girl wanted to be a ballerina but ended up getting a law degree instead, isn’t above making cabaret standards her own.

She particularly excels with Jacques Brel melodies and Harry Warren’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

But the show-stopper becomes an antique Bobby Darin novelty hit, “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” with which she lampoons genre after genre after genre.

Her being exceptionally limber, agile and gymnastic also allows a self-serving self-reflection: “Is art a woman killing herself?”

Meow Meow says she especially loves entertaining audiences who’ve grown tired of green witches, jukebox musicals and singing Mormons.

I’d say the entire opening night crowd — including me — fully appreciated her creative efforts in that regard.

A multi-lingual international star (she’s been a headliner in Berlin, Sydney and Shanghai), she was ably supported by two boy-toy dancers, a four-piece band and a white-mouse puppet.

And competently directed by Kneehigh Theatre’s Emma Rice, previously represented winningly at the Rep by “The Wild Bride” and “Tristan & Yseult.”

Meow Meow, whose fame skyrocketed while performing in Michel Legrand’s “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” in London in 2011, slyly tries to be mysterious and cloak her origins, purposefully referring both to Moscow and Berlin.

But she’s really an Aussie.

I couldn’t determine, however, if she adopted her stage name before or after meow meow, the street drug, gained popularity. Mephedrone, that potent designer amphetamine, has become a British rave favorite because it produces effects parallel to cocaine and ecstasy.

Meow Meow, the performer who’s also credited with writing her show, supplies a public wave of ecstasy as an alternative.

Consequently, I might hate myself in the morning for using what may be a cat-astrophic ending, but I really can’t stop myself (she instantly turned me into a fan, you see):

Meow Meow’s act may not reach purr-fection, but it does come as close as a whisker.

“An Audience with Meow Meow” plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre‘s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through Oct. 19. Night performances Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14.50 to $89, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.

 

Fifty-six years ago I asked my first man-in-the-street question for a weekly newspaper.

I don’t recollect what it was, but it was shallow.

After all, I was a wet-behind-the-ears 21-year-old know-it-all who knew next to nothing. So it was appropriate that neither the query nor answers published in the Bronx Press-Review stirred any emotions.

The feature drew an unadulterated response:

Diddly-squat. Bupkis. Zilch.

Several weeks ago, hoping I’ve learned a speck or two in the interim, I decided to repeat the exercise. I expected, naturally, that my much deeper person-in-the-street probing would elicit vastly more profound responses from strolling passersby.

I was right.

Back in the day, I was forced to discard close to two-thirds of the replies I’d extracted.

They were unfathomable. Vacuous.

Or gibberish.

This time around, on picturesque San Anselmo Avenue rather than the hustle-bustle of a New York City street, I needed to trash only a few reactions (and then because they mirrored others).

My question prompted self-awareness, sensitivity and vulnerability: “Pretend I’m handing you a magic card. With it you get to do over any one thing in your life — not re-live, but do differently. What would your revision be?”

Most folks came up with their answers speedily.

But one guy went so far inside himself for such an elongated time I feared I’d have to summon either a shrink or a crew of paramedics.

Was there one predominant response?

Nope.

But the most prevalent had to do with education and academics.

The thought-provoking winner from that grouping, in my estimation, was what San Anselmo’s Katherine Willman, who categorized herself as “middle-aged,” conjured up.

Without hesitation, she said he’d have taken her “son out of public school and put him into a private school — because private schools promote individuality and independent thinking better.”

Spencer Hinsdale, 47, another San Anselmo resident, would have “chosen to study Spanish because I spent more years studying French than the number of French speakers I’ve met in this country. Meanwhile, everyone’s speaking Spanish.”

His choice made me ponder my own.

In retrospect, Latin and German didn’t quite turn out to be as valuable on a daily basis as I’d thought they might.

Erika Mott, 15, of Kentfield, wished she’d “have studied harder for my finals freshman year because it dropped down my Grade Point Average.”

Ronald Brozzo, 71, also of San Anselmo, said he’d “have finished college instead of going for only a year and a half. It would have helped me a lot later in life.”

And Josette Dvorak, a 48-year-old Mill Valley woman, mused that she’d “have spent a college semester abroad, at Oxford, so I could have experienced life in England.”

Others who were questioned provided a wide gamut:

• Amy Castagna, 58, Novato: “I would have gone home to Pennsylvania for my grandmother’s funeral. It’s my one big regrets in my life.”

• Alex Swanson, 32, Larkspur: “I’d have started investing in index funds, purchased my first rental property earlier, and learned to live on 50 percent of my income — so I could have been financially independent.”

• Yuko Fukami, 54, Berkeley: “I wouldn’t have become an architect but would have done something else — maybe become an artist.”

• Carlos Mock, 43, San Rafael: “I would have traveled more, all around the world, instead of being so responsible.”

• Mona Philpott, 63, San Anselmo: “I’d have taken my music lessons more seriously. My parents wanted me to, but I fought the practice.”

• Lynne Ashdown, 75, Novato: “I would have had one more child. I have two sons and I’d have liked to have a daughter.”

Several respondents declared they’d change nothing — folks like 61-year-old Cindy King of Mill Valley, visiting 57-year-old Yatra Sherwood from the United Kingdom and 35-year-old Mila Kronick of San Anselmo, who asserted “I’ve liked everything I’ve done.”

But my favorite answer came from Heather Richer, a 38-year-old San Anselmo resident — because of its levity. “I wish I’d have brought my Bed Bath & Beyond coupon with me to the store.”

When I posed the Big Question to myself, I thought that instead of becoming an editor and writer, I might have tried life as a cartoonist or actor.

The downside, of course, would be that this column, The Roving I, wouldn’t exist.

Hmmm…

Woody’s [rating:5]

When I watched him transform into George Gershwin in a one-man Berkeley Rep show in June 2013, I’d never heard of Hershey Felder.

Still, I reveled in his virtuosity as a pianist, actor and writer.

And wanted more.

When last fall I witnessed his puissant direction of Mona Golabek as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor in “The Pianist of Willesden Lane,” I basked in another of his talents.

I craved more.

And when I saw him morph into conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein in June of this year’s “Maestro” musical bio, I couldn’t wait for what came next.

Next is now.

“Monsieur Chopin,” also a solo show, is a bio and concert predictably more romantic than the others — musically, at least.

Some of Fryderyk Chopin’s melodies will be as instantly recognizable by classical music buffs as quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s tattoos would be to 49er fans.

But director Joel Zwick, who guided the Gershwin and Bernstein shows as well as the film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” proficiently has the keyboardist-playwright intersperse less familiar strains.

“Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin,” which runs at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre through Aug. 10, transports audiences to the 1848 Paris salon of the “Polish poet of the piano.”

There he hunkers down with an enigmatic, volatile author, George Sand, and entertains painter Eugene Delacroix, a sometimes bff.

And there, I, and an audience that leapt to its collective feet at the two-hour opening night’s conclusion, could appreciate Felder’s piano dexterity and a characterization that overcomes a heavy accent and feels authentic.

His Steinway tones range from ultra-soft to thunderous.

He nimbly plays all or parts of more than a dozen pieces, including three Polonaises (emphasizing their “rise to glory”), a handful of preludes and nocturnes, “Mazurka in A-Flat Major, Opus 50 No. 2,” “Marche Funébre, Opus 35” and “Romanza, E-Minor Concerto.”

Credit goes to lighting designer Richard Norwood for creating instant mood changes, and scenic designer for fashioning a period setting with just an upholstered chair, end tables, mirror and trinket-laden mantle.

Norwood’s pièce de résistance, however, is a gilded frame that borders the stage and heightens what occurs within: historic legitimacy, histrionic biography.

Felder injects heaps of humor, from the play’s get-go to the end of a 30-minute coda with the house lights on (in which he quick-wittedly answers questions from the crowd in character, cleverly improvising occasional anachronistic jests about cell phones and other today-technology).

He’s especially laugh-inducing when Chopin, a child prodigy and adult genius who died prematurely at age 39, sneers at Franz Liszt’s piano playing and works (“scales and arpeggios and so much noise”).

But pathos is even more prevalent.

From the performer’s description of the death of Emilia, Chopin’s sister, to the composer’s frequent sidekick, melancholia (in modern terms, depression).

And from his obsessive hand-washing to his semi-romantic proclivities (focusing on an eight-year relationship with the pseudonymous Sand, a woman he first encounters dressed in man’s clothing and smoking a cigar).

The playwright’s major conceit is to address the audience as if it were a Chopin class, a theatrical device that’s slightly awkward.

But some of his teaching moments are pithy and poetic:

“You must dust the keys with your fingers as if you were dusting them with your breath.”

“Forget your lunatic family and play as if you are playing for God.”

Felder, who’s been a scholar-in-residence at Harvard’s department of music and is married to Kim Campbell, former Canadian prime minister, apparently cannibalized “Monsieur Chopin” from his own, original three-performer construct, “Romantique,” first performed 11 years ago and skewered by critics.

He obviously rewrote, fixed and honed it.

And salvaged it.

So much so that, nine years after its debut, he’s performed “Chopin” more than 800 times to more than 250,000 theatergoers.

So much so that now it’s become a masterwork, a near-perfect integration of recital and biography.

“Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin” plays at the Berkeley Rep’s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley, through Aug. 10 and then returns for encore performances Sept. 16-21. Night shows, 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Sundays; matinees, 2 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $14.50 to $87, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.

You can contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net.

Woody’s [rating: 2.5]

The more things change, the more they stay the same — except they droop.

That’s the greeting card text I wrote 30 years ago.

My gag line again came to mind as I watched the Ross Valley Players’ new production of Wendy Wasserstein’s “Old Money.”

The play’s all about social climbing, generational gaps, moolah, art and real estate — with dual roles for each of the eight actors. But it feels stodgy and stilted despite the playwright’s renowned skill with barbed dialogue.

Her construct may be too clever, her play too New York.

Wasserstein invites us into a lavish mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

There we witness two dinner parties.

Jeffrey Bernstein, an arbitrage kingpin played as a man of equanimity by Geoffrey Colton, hosts the first — at the beginning of the 21st century.

The second, nearly 100 years earlier, spotlights Johnny DeBernard as a boisterous robber baron, Tobias Pfeiffer.

Colton doubles as even-tempered retail tycoon Arnold Strauss, and DeBernard also personifies Sid Nercessian, a Tinseltown director who repugnantly spews an f-bomb every fourth word.

All the actors do well, no mean feat considering they’re burdened with a plot unnecessarily complicated and convoluted.

Director Kim Bromley admittedly struggled with the plotline complexities and mélange of Wasserstein characters (“I had to read it three times to grasp the scope of it,” she writes in the program).

She suggested opening night reviewers feel what the characters feel.

I couldn’t.

Perhaps because Wasserstein — known for her intelligent, independent but self-doubting female characters trapped by male power — thwarted me by pricking too many heavy subjects.

Relentlessly, she tackles youthful rebellion and self-destruction, aging and death, legacy and immortality, Jewishness and assimilation, platonic relationships and sexuality, snobbery and acceptance.

Which almost bury all her valiant attempts at humor.

The script of the two-hour, two-act comedy of manners, which premiered off-Broadway in 2001, immediately tells theatergoers what they’re watching — an examination of how new money becomes old money (and what impact that evolution has on its wealthy stakeholders).

The problem is that the theme gets underscored over and over.

Mind-numbingly.

A single summation, such as the scene in which Bernstein and Pfeiffer engage in a verbal mine’s-bigger-than-yours debate about influence, would have sufficed.

Striking, however, are spot-on costumes by Michael A. Berg that range from elegant to flamboyant and instantly allow audiences to know which characterization an actor in inhabiting, and a ideal set by Michael Walraven, replete with large paintings and a massive always-needing-polish wooden railing.

Wasserstein, who won a Pulitzer and a best play Tony in 1989 for “The Heidi Chronicles,” isn’t above contrasting schmaltziness and whimsy. Check out, for instance, her having one actor stylishly dance the Gavotte but later prance in a lobster costume.

The playwright’s signature one-liners are numerous:

• “If the rich aren’t happy, who the hell will be?”

• “I like the opera. Big girls with elephants. Isn’t that enough?”

• “I’m having trouble ignoring you tonight.”

Top-notch performances are turned in by Gillian Eichenberger as both silver-voiced servant and self-destructive daughter; Robyn Wiley, as outdated as the figure sculpted by her character, Auntie Mame-ish Saulina Webb; Karen Leland as strident publicist Flinty McGee; and Jesse Lumb as sons of both Bernstein and Pfeiffer (and part-time narrator).

Add to the mix Wood Lockhart, who may hold the record for most RVP performances and is wistful as Tobias Vivian Pfeiffer III, and Trungta Kositchaimmongkol, snarky as underwear designer Penny Nercessian.

“Old Money” has many amusing and edifying moments yet, in the final analysis, couldn’t excite me.

And it somehow felt both long and long in the tooth (though not quite as antiquated as Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s “The Rivals,” the 1777 play it references) — despite anachronistic references to Jennifer Lawrence and Silicon Valley.

If asked to stick my two cents in, I’d have to say earlier works by Wasserstein — who died of lymphoma at age 55 in 2005 — were much easier to bank on for laughs or insights.

The RVP recently produced some incredibly good entertainments.

This wasn’t their best choice.

“Old Money” will run at The Barn, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, through Aug. 17. Night performances, Thursdays at 7:30, Fridays and Saturdays at 8; matinees, Sundays at 2. Tickets: $13-$26. Information: www.rossvalleyplayers.com or (415) 456-9555.

You can contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net.

 

Patrice Hickox would prefer I think of her as ordinary.

She isn’t.

The Fairfax resident’s a real-life Energizer Bunny.

Without floppy ears.

A perpetual motion machine with platinum-hued hair and hands that intermittently sketch pictures in thin air. A do-gooder everlastingly battling for one cause or another.

Since I’ve tilted at a few windmills myself, I like that.

Still, no matter how much she achieves, she’s never able to rest on her laurels.

 

She is resting one recent Saturday, however, on a memorial bench at the edge of Bolinas Park in Fairfax she fought hard to get installed at the end of May.

Not quite relaxed.

Trying to figure out how she best can help Marin’s foster children keeps her mind flashing like a July 4th sparkler.

She can’t know a Marin County Civil Grand Jury will shortly issue a report saying more funds must to be spent on the issue, more communication must occur between foster parents and social workers, and more access to therapy must be provided those neglected kids.

What to do? What to do?

She and I are together, me armed with interview pad and pen, she momentarily staring off into the distance at a bald hill she knows must be preserved.

Of course.

One cause at a time isn’t her style.

She’s also thinking about finding a way to replace “the dingy, worn-out, style-less sign announcing the Town of San Anselmo.”

And improving local median strips.

How?

“Re-plant, re-think, re-design,” she tells me.

The artsy wood bench we’re on is dedicated to the memory of her friend, Nancy Helmers, an environmental activist who died last year at age 82.

Patrice tactfully declines to reveal the political obstacles — “the kerfluffle, the brouhaha” — she had to vault to make it happen.

She’s just glad it’s a done deal.

Nancy had served on the county’s Open Space Committee for 10 years, as well as many other boards, and had been as non-stop energetic as Patrice.

She also was an unrelenting firebrand when it came to pushing petitions. “No one could collect a signature like Nancy,” Patrice tells me. “No one would say ‘No’ to her.

The two women met in 1988 when Nancy was collecting names in favor of creating a multi-purpose park on the 28 acres of the Marin Town and Country Club, which was being eyed by a developer.

The pair stopped the development from happening.

But they couldn’t come up with an effective plan to raise enough money to build their dream park.

“Instead, we became friends,” Patrice remembers. “We were both birders and environmentalists. We hiked, and we eventually collected thousands of signatures for a lot of things that failed.”

There were, however, sporadic triumphs.

Such as Lansdale Park in San Anselmo, a pocket-sized space with a children’s playground — or, as the town’s website says, “just what the neighborhood needed! Parents can enjoy a coffee-to-go from the nearby café while watching their children play outdoors.”

Patrice recalls “they were going to put condos there, but we got a petition to stop it. We got two grants from the Buck Fund, and got students from the White Hall Middle School in Fairfax to help. It was great.”

Her awareness began shortly after reading Rachel Carson’s best-selling “Silent Spring,” which detailed the detrimental use of pesticides.

“I was off and running after that,” she says. “I stopped eating meat and started paying attention. I was 14.”

As a Manhattan teenager, she’d attended be-in’s in Central Park, marched in Washington against the Vietnam War, and rallied for civil rights.

“I guess I’ve been a die-hard liberal ever since I figured out what that was,” she says.

Sometimes Patrice, who’s lived in Fairfax since 1995 with Charlie, her musician husband of 41 years, volunteers longer than she’d intended.

She helped out at WildCare for more than 10 years, for instance, “raising hundreds of baby things — from snakes to foxes to raccoons and squirrels.”

If she could accomplish anything in the world, what would it be, I ask. She replies without hesitation: “Get rid of Putin and Assad.”

Then she says, “I think I’d like to be empress of Oakland and just fix that city.”

And then, after a slight pause, she adds seriously, “Anything that I’d be effective at — so I wouldn’t have to beat my head against the wall again.”

I smile.

Since I’ve tilted at a few windmills myself, I understand completely.

You can contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net

 

No, of course I don’t eavesdrop on purpose.

But I do unintentionally pick up conversational crumbs during my dog-walking stints or other Ross Valley meanderings.

I’ve learned the vicinity is a veritable hotbed of amusing or thought provoking verbal tidbits. Such as the following, extracted from the pile of Post-it collectibles on my desk:

A pair of girl bicyclists rests, cross-legged, on a downtown San Anselmo sidewalk. Says one, “When I first met my boyfriend, he was feral.”

Chatting outside a Sleepy Hollow residence, a redheaded midlifer tells a male companion, “I thought Hostess was defunct, but I was wrong. Twinkies and Ho-Ho’s have new outlets. Which confirms what I’ve always believed — they have a shelf-life that ensures they, along with the cockroaches, will inherit the Earth.”

“When I see how many of my gismos, thingamajigs and appliances are breaking down, some after only 30 or 40 days,” laments a white-haired geezer to a checker in Fairfax’s Good Earth Natural Foods, “I hate to think about what’s going on in my body after 92 years.”

At the dog park behind Safeway in Red Hill, a grinning twentysomething guy rhetorically asks a chum, “Did you hear that canines here communicate via pee-mail?”

Husband in tattered shorts to overly loud wife in basic black outside Ross Post Office: “I heard what you meant.”

A blue-hair leaning on a cane at the Rino gas station in Fairfax says to a driver, “I don’t know about you but I can never rest in a restroom.”

Angry young woman to red-faced young man in Bolinas Park in Fairfax: “I am not a stand-in in your movie.”

As they both caress an assortment of nuts and bolts at Fairfax Lumber & Hardware, a young man with a nose-ring tells his girlfriend, who has both eyebrows pierced, “He got his B.S. degree in B.S.”

Succinctly, on the lawn of Town Hall in San Anselmo, a female teenager tells a gal pal, “I don’t do boredom.”

A forty-ish guy on the Kentfield campus of the College of Marin tells a younger classmate, “When anyone calls a celebrity ‘a legend,’ that means the person being referred to is old, old, old — or dead.”

At the Ross Valley Veterinary Hospital in San Anselmo, a mom asks her daughter: “When all the newspapers disappear, will puppies be trained on Kindles?”

Unsteady gray-haired guy in front of the San Anselmo’s Lincoln Park wine bar who clearly did more than taste: “My life can be measured in troublesome channels. When I was five, it was Guadalcanal. Now, it’s my alimentary canal.”

While discussing her daughter’s new boyfriend, a stylish Fairfax woman heading into 19 Broadway in Fairfax tells a companion, “My inner jury’s still out.”

Says one smiling matron to another as they window-shop at Fairfax Variety, “Having just learned that an American Headache Society exists gives me a headache.”

“She’s a magnet for desperadoes,” says one twinkle-eyed blonde in front of Andronico’s in San Anselmo to another.

A man in a 49ers’ cap says to a cop near the Parkade in Fairfax, “Oh, how quickly we forget. I wonder whatever happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Sperminator.”

Couplet overheard at the hub bus stop in San Anselmo: “Greeting cards are getting expensive.” “Yeah, but now they talk, sing and do your laundry.”

A redhead sips a latte in San Anselmo’s Marin Coffee Roasters and gripes, after her second date with the new man in her life, “I have yet to find his sense of humor or personality.”

An acne-ridden teen boy, licking a spoon in front of Gelato on San Anselmo Avenue: “I believe in stating the obvious — because most people overlook it.”

“I’m 87 years old and still very much a work in progress,” says a woman to her companion in Fairfax’s Siam Lotus.

In the doorway of the Sunshine Bicycle Center in Fairfax, a youth whispers to himself, “She’s somewhere between perfect and oh, my God.”

A housefrau enters Seawood Photo in San Anselmo telling one friend about another: “He lives partly in Manhattan, partly in Florida, and wholly in yesterday.”

Drake High School student describes a verbose acquaintance thusly: “He’s a wordaholic.”

And here’s my personal favorite:

A bald philosopher-king outside MC23 Salon in Ross says, “My recommendation for a bumper sticker is: ‘Life is not a bumper sticker.’”

You can contact Woody Weingarten @voodee@sbcglobal.net.

Woody’s [rating: 5]

It’s way too early for me to crawl out on this particular limb, but I’m impetuous enough to do it anyway.

The best flicks of any year, the sure-fire Oscar contenders, typically are released in December, often a day or two before year’s end.

That ensures eligibility.

And, usually, a booming box-office.

This year, a vibrant film I just saw breaks with the tradition.

“Boyhood” is Richard Linklater’s cinematic masterwork, a groundbreaking work of scripted fiction that took 12 years to film. It feels real.

Indeed, it’s the most emotionally nourishing movie I’ve seen in eons.

I expect it to cop the Oscar as 2014’s best.

Forget the competition.

For a dozen consecutive years, the director-writer’s cameras filmed the various actors while they grew up, grew furrowed, grew chunkier.

In three or four-day annual shoots.

Ellar Coltrane stars as Mason Junior, a youngster who loses his baby fat and innocence while we watch.

Lorelei Linklater, the director’s daughter, realistically portrays the boy’s officious cinema sister, Samantha. Olivia (Patricia Arquette) and Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke) come off as his blemished but loving parents.

All four are understated.

The veteran filmmaker overcame his gimmick by making the movie a non-formulaic exploration of human development — without the usual cinematic clichés.

Except for an abusive husband-drunk.

The characters seem transparent, even when internal mini-crises envelop them.

Mostly, though, Linklater, 54, examines the impact ordinariness has on human beings.

His novel-like study — based in Texas, where he was born and yetlives — meanders, but generally focuses on the less showy flashes that can influence life: sibling squabbling, routine schooling, cussing, parental guidance and lapses, Bible- and gun-toting, revolving haircuts and facial hair, juvenile bewilderment and sexuality.

Linklater’s finest scenes exude humor, including gutter bowling and blue fingernails.

But his characters are genuine enough to have been my neighbors in Clearwater, Florida, or Willingboro, New Jersey.

For some viewers, namely those who prefer high drama to watching inch-by-inch life changes, “Boyhood” may seem plot-less. Other moviegoers may suffer from a lack of zitzfleisch, the project’s 165-minute length tough on their bony backsides.

I had no such problems.

Rather, I found the film to be epic — not in the sense of explosions or thousands of warriors and computer-graphic stunts, but epic in the sense of zooming in on people reacting to life’s commonplaceness.

I’ve long been a Linklater fan — especially the documentary “Fast Food Nation,” the fact-based black comedy “Bernie,” and his fictional trilogy, “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight,” which tracks a loving but contentious couple.

If there’s an antecedent to “Boyhood,” it’s director Michael Apted’s “7-Up,” a documentary series that took 14 seven-year-old British pupils from varied soci-economic backgrounds and revisited them every seven years for the next 49 so far.

The fabricated “Boyhood” has vastly more impact, however.

For me, it creates a time machine.

Although my coming of age didn’t resemble Mason’s in the least, it lets me relive the warmth and angst and crossroads I faced while growing up.

So, thanks, Mr. Visionary, for skipping a cinematic stone over the water’s edge and letting the ripples of my past glisten in the sun. Thanks, too, for reminding me that a parent can be only as joyous as the least happy child.

And thanks for verifying that there’s always a little kid inside an older body.

“Boyhood” will grab no prize for taking more than a decade to complete. Hitler propagandist Leni Riefenstahl started a script in 1934 but didn’t release “Tiefland” until 20 years later. The longevity winner, however, is an animated feature, “The Thief and the Cobbler,” which took 28 years — mainly because writer-director-head animator Richard Williams ran out of money.

No movie this year should be more prize-worthy than “Boyhood,” though.

Linklater has planted the right cinematic seeds to merit his harvesting Academy Awards as best director and best film.

I predict he will.

“Boyhood” is playing at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, the California and Piedmont theaters in the East Bay, and the Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki Cinema and UA Stonestown Twin in San Francisco.

You can contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net.

Woody’s [rating: 2]

My silliness-appreciation gland may have malfunctioned.

At precisely the wrong time:

While watching “The Book of Liz,” a one-act revival written by a comic brother-sister team, David and Amy Sedaris.

Because my gland wasn’t throbbing properly, I couldn’t fully marvel at the queen-sized Mr. Peanut costume, the Cockney accents of two Ukrainian characters, the Pilgrim-suited alcoholics who staff the Plymouth Crock restaurant, or references to a Chastity Parade that red-flags the “danger of casual glancing.”

Nor did the intentionally fake beards of the black suited, black-hatted Squeamish clergy, a crypto-Amish spoof, make me chuckle.

I was, admittedly, among a small stone-faced minority though.

Many in the sold-out audience laughed loudly, and they applauded vigorously at the play’s end.

Brian Katz, artistic director, and Leah S. Abrams, executive director, co-founders of The Custom Made Theatre Co., which operates out of the Gough St. Playhouse in San Francisco, obviously believe in the 80-minute farce without qualification.

This run marks their company’s fourth time.

It was only my first.

Amy Sedaris, best known for portraying Jerri Blank on Comedy Central’s “Strangers with Candy,” in 2002 originated the off-Broadway role of Sister Elizabeth Donderstock, a disgruntled nun who runs away from the order because she’s undervalued and bullied by its leader, the Rev. Tollhouse, and newly arrived Brother Nathaniel Brightbee.

In this production, AJ Davenport plays that devout cheeseball-making nun with mock-seriousness (“Cheeseballs are practically my life — aside from God”) coupled with the comic conceit of wiping prodigious sweat from her face and brow.

Justin Gillman skillfully injects faux hypocrisy into his role as Tollhouse, and Stefin Collins capably portrays Brightbee as a highly flawed interloper.

Although all four actors play multiple roles, Teri Whipple becomes the numerical all-purpose champ by taking on half a dozen.

I’ve long found David Sedaris’ style of humor stimulated my funnybone better than Amy’s.

His writing most often seemed to me personal, witty and sophisticated while hers frequently struck me as off-kilter and sophomoric.

To me, “The Book of Liz” feels as if Sister Sedaris pushed infinitely more computer keys and concocted a Saturday Night Live sketch that went on too long.

David’s fame stems from his radio essay “SantaLand Diaries” (which detailed his experiences as an elf at Macy’s), his countless New Yorker pieces and a series of books, most of which rely on exaggerated tales of his life, his gay lover and the Sedaris family.

 

Typically he’s droll, although he leaned heavily on gravitas in a New Yorker piece late last year after his sister Tiffany killed herself.

Not everything in “Liz” is intended to be comical either; intermittently a serious undertone surfaces (“Why is it I had to dress like a peanut to feel human again?”).

Maybe I should have been checking my earnestness-appreciation gland all along.

“The Book of Liz” plays at the Gough St. Playhouse, 1620 Gough St. (in the basement of the Trinity Episcopal Church, at Bush), San Francisco, through Aug. 2. Tickets: $25 to $35. Information: (415) 798-2682 or www.custommade.org.

Woody’s [rating: 4.5]

Fiona is one princess Disney’s tiara empire let get away.

But Shrek, a lovable ogre, didn’t.

So all ends well in “Shrek The Musical,” an enchanting two-hour-plus amusement that bends and flips stock fantasy characters to come up with a key moral for kids and adults: Everything can be better when you accept people as they are.

Even if they’re different. Green-skinned, for instance.

Or ugly.

It’s a message underscored by the presence of a huge cast that’s multi-ethnic and multi-aged.

Shrek himself is a fleeting pariah — extracted from several worlds of imagination. He was a 1990 brainchild of William Steig in a book, which in turn spawned a 2001 DreamWorks film, which in turn birthed the Broadway musical that ran from late 2008 until a year later.

Now the main character (brimming with Scottish brogue) is onstage locally, colorfully supported by professionals and youngsters, at the Julia Morgan Theater/Berkeley Playhouse.

It’s highly entertaining.

Often silly.

Fun.

I went because I thought my seven-year-old granddaughter would enjoy it. She did.

She giggled frequently.

But her vintage grandpa chuckled a lot, too, willing not only to suspend disbelief but happy to be swallowed by the fractured fairy tale motif.

Many of the oldtimers in the audience cackled louder than most kids. One little boy across the aisle from us never stopped squealing with delight, however.

There’s certainly enough slapstick to fill any two comedies. And enough synchronized movement onstage to get everyone’s attention (particularly in the sizzling production number, “Morning Person,” choreographed by director Matthew McCoy with an homage to Bob Fosse, and the upbeat closer, “I’m a Believer”).

I witnessed no fidgeting.

And while some melodies tended to be forgettable (despite the musical direction by Rachel Robinson being spot on), the lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire usually moved the plotline forward — and were generally clever (“I’ve got your back when it gets scary; I’ll shave it when it gets hairy.”)

Except for turning the definition of beauty on its head, the tale is standard-issue kiddie fare.

Shrek’s swamp is invaded by storybook critters who’ve been exiled by the play’s comic villain, Lord Farquaad (Clay David in a show-stealing, short-puppet-legged performance that reminded me of Martin Short and Jerry Lewis at their best).

To regain his solitude, Shrek must rescue the princess from a dragon so the vertically challenged Farquaad can marry her and become king.

What happens?

Well, even though this is a mirror image of a fairy tale love story, we know upfront that our hero and heroine will get together and live happily ever after, right?

Although the younger cast members acquit themselves marvelously, it’s the leads who earn major respect (Tony Panighetti as Shrek, Brian Dauglash as a garrulous Donkey and Chloe Condon as Fiona).

But I must predict an extraordinary theatrical future for Emma Curtin, who provides an astonishing voice and stage presence as Fiona at age 7.

Characters that create excitement and glee by strutting around in recognizable Halloween-worthy costumes by Wendy Ross Kaufman include the Big Bad Wolf, the Pied Piper, the Wicked Witch, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, the Fairy Godmother, the Mad Hatter, the Sugar Plum Fairy and Humpty Dumpty.

What else is worth mentioning?

Well, my granddaughter was particularly awed when Shrek and Donkey pranced up and down the center aisle. But she laughed loudest at a burp-and-fart contest that could be compared favorably to Mel Brooks’ ground- and wind-breaking “Blazing Saddles.”

Some lines sailed over her head — local geographical and topical references such as Walnut Creek and the wedding of Kim Kardashian and Kanya West.

But that mattered not.

The show, partnered at the Berkeley Playhouse with Kidpower, a 25-year-old international nonprofit that highlights ways to stay safe from bullying, abuse and violence, delivers the best adult-child performance in these parts in a long time.

By far.

Or maybe I should say by Farquaad.

“Shrek — The Musical” will play at the Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave., Berkeley, through Aug. 3. Evening performances, 7 p.m. selected Wednesdays and Thursdays, 6 p.m. Saturdays, 5 p.m. Sundays; matinees, 1 p.m. Saturdays, noon on Sundays. Tickets: $17 to $60. Information: berkeleyplayhouse.org or (510) 845-8542, ext. 351.

 

My wife abhorred having to suffer through breast cancer.

I wasn’t thrilled either.

But the idea of her losing her lengthy tresses didn’t bother me, possibly because hair didn’t register on my Meaning of Life scale.

Possibly because I have the male Y chromosome.

I knew I’d love her — and still find her beautiful — even if chemotherapy destroyed every follicle, even if I stumbled over reddish clumps in our San Anselmo home.

For Nancy, though, hair loss filled the No. 2 slot on her hate parade.

As soon as the docs said baldness would follow her chemo cocktails, she freaked. And she never did get comfy with the identity crisis it spawned, “the most psychologically devastating part of the cancer.”

That was 19 years ago.

Today she’d have more options to relieve her distress.

Some free.

Such as cutting and styling from Hairdressers with Heart, a nonprofit founded 18 months ago by Nicole Hitchcock and Nina Husen, co-owners of NH2 salon in Novato, after they saw close-up what treatment-induced hair loss could mean.

What they’d watched was the anguish Brandy Hitchcock, Nicole’s sister, had endured when her hair fell out.

Before leukemia killed her in 2009.

Nina and Nicole, armed with scissors, hair products and truckloads of compassion, now celebrate Brandy’s life by signing up Style Heroes, stylists who donate time to aid cancer patients.

They offer pre-chemo haircutting and head shaving, wig fitting and customizing, and 12 monthly post-chemo cuts.

Free hairpieces are provided financially disadvantaged patients.

The program’s stylists work hard at ensuring their pro bono clients no longer feel powerless. And its website at www.hairdresserswithheart.org  — while noting “over a million people will be diagnosed with cancer this year in the United States” — says clients can transform the way they feel by transforming the way they look.

I remember wishing for a magic wand to do that to Nancy.

None ever appeared.

But what HWH accomplishes best is give “a person something positive to focus on,” declares Nina in a YouTube video.

So far, Style Heroes have worked on 22 women.

Bridgene Raftery, a Sonoma recipient diagnosed in August who’s still being treated for breast cancer, is one of them.

While her pre-chemo hair was being trimmed, she decided “to have fun by trying different colors — lavender, a little bit of pink.”

She’s now thrilled with her hair’s reappearance, despite it “coming back in different sections, fluffy bits, straggly.”

The image jerks me into a time warp.

Nancy’s hair had returned thick and course, multi-colored and strangely different than its former soft texture. The curls had vanished. She couldn’t wait to tint it back to her original color.

But she almost felt like herself.

Nicole, who’s been a stylist since she was a teenager 21 years ago, feels especially connected to Brandi McWade, a recipient whose name is only one letter removed from her sister’s.

Brandi recalls that they developed “a beautiful friendship” as Nicole trimmed her pre-chemo locks.

When it came time to shave her head, Brandi employed a San Diego outfit to “make a hair ‘halo,’ which is what I wore with a hat instead of a wig because it was my own hair.”

The Fairfax recipient, whose breast cancer has since metastasized to her bones, has retained a positive attitude.

Nicole’s attitude is one of appreciation — because the program is expanding, boosted by an influx of donations.

A May fundraiser picked up $24,646 (money that will be used to help the organization go national).

Meanwhile, at MC23 salon in Ross, three stylists and an assistant have become involved in the HWH program, according to sales manager J.J. Kwan.

“It’s almost like a spiritual journey,” she says, “and helps us give back to the community.”

At Sproos Salon in San Anselmo, Angele Perez is an independent stylist who’s “known Nicole from high school and was totally inspired by what Hairdressers with Heart is doing. It’s an emotional, tough time for cancer patients, but we can help coach them through it.”

Bridgene calls the program “absolutely brilliant — because losing your hair is so traumatic.”

And she, as does virtually every woman who’s discovered Hairdressers with Heart, endorse its rallying cry: “You are not alone.”

Nancy certainly was glad I stayed by her side during her nightmare.

But I bet she’d have preferred that I could wield a comb and scissors.