Woody Weingarten

[Woody’s [rating: 1]

Mom’s body and world are in a race to see which will break down first.

Even her garage is collapsing.

But armed with Paul Bunyanesque tall tales of the American frontier, a ukulele and an endless supply of cockeyed optimism, she’s hell-bent on retaining her pioneer spirit.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.

Nor does the play in which she’s the main character — the Marin Theatre Company’s “The Way West,” which is meant to be a whimsical but serious look at how a Central Valley family of three copes with the Great Recession.

A lot within the production does work, I concede.

The three main actors — Anne Darragh as mom, Kathryn Zdan as her older daughter, Manda, and Rosie Hallett as the younger, Meesh — are first-rate.

Costuming, set and sound all provide ideal trappings, and director Hayley Finn succeeds in keeping the play hurrying toward its abrupt end.

But original songs by Sam Misner and Meghan Pearl Smith don’t add much beyond a copycat Woody Guthrie folky flavor of the Old West — even though the three principals passably strum and sing.

A terminally shallow script by award-winning playwright Mona Mansour is the main stumbling block.

It attempts to tackle serious topics of financial ruin and homelessness and familial relationships but glosses over them with exaggerated, clichéd situations and forced humor.

“The Way West” is the third play on which the MTC has bestowed its Sky Cooper New American Play Prize. First came Bill Cain’s “9 Circles,” which I called “multi-faceted” and “dazzling.” Next was “The Whale,” which I found “touching.”

I suppose that, as the platitude goes, two out of three ain’t bad.

In “The Way West,” a 62-year-old mother has filed for bankruptcy and isn’t doing well physically. Yet she still stares through rose-colored glasses and embellishes already hard to swallow western mythology.

And hopes her daughters will follow her lead.

The kids, however, also are screwed up — and in deep emotional and fiscal trouble.

Mandy has overextended her credit cards and endangered her job back East by overlooking an obscene typo. Meesh has run into a legal hassle peddling stuff online.

“I always try,” Mansour has been quoted as saying, “to be equal opportunity about how messed up the characters are.”

She does accomplish that in “The Way West.”

But messes up the play in the process.

To be fair, the opening night audience laughed often, and a good deal more than I did.

I found most of the humor juvenile — including dialogue that demanded intentional overacting, and including satirical, melodramatic signs that resembled silent movie title cards.

“We are all in this together — and it’s not good,” one proclaimed.

To me, the line might also apply to performers and audience.

Toward the climax of the play, which at times crosses the fine line between clever and insipid, one character says, “Talking creates hysteria.”

The playwright creates stylized onstage hysteria, however, by having her inventions talk incomprehensively over each other — and panic because of a living room fire.

Having just published a book, I fully recognize what tremendous effort and perseverance goes into completing any creative effort, so I’m hesitant to pan any artist — especially a writer.

Sometimes, though, benevolence must give way to conscientiousness.

This is one of those times.

“The Way West” plays at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through May 10. Night performances, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays; 7 p.m. Sundays; 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays. Matinees, 1 p.m. Thursdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $10 to $53. Information: (415) 388-5208 or marintheatre.org.

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or http://vitalitypress.com

[Woody’s [rating: 4]

When “Head of Passes” ended, a stunned audience forgot to clap for a few seconds.

[Woody’s [rating: 4.5]

I was afraid I wouldn’t like it.

I’ve been going to the de Young Museum’s “Bouquets to Art” for so many years I thought I might be too jaded.

I wasn’t.

What I’d forgotten was that not only is each year’s floral art exhibit different by its very nature, trends spawn even greater changes.

The first time — when my wife had to drag skeptical me there because I was pre-positive it would be neither art nor good — I was totally blown away by how outstanding, how unique, the floral arrangements were.

Oh, how those designs enhanced and enriched the museum’s permanent collection.

That year, as the several before when my wife had gone alone, displays consisted basically of flowers, flowers and more flowers.

And green leaves.

A gadzillion varieties of flora to simulate the paintings and sculptures in front of which they rested.

Not many non-living materials.

Not many foundations.

Not many structures.

But inch by inch, year by year, like osmosis, those elements slipped in.

So it shouldn’t have surprised me that his year’s four-day displays were more structural than ever.

It turns out that that wasn’t a bad thing at all. It just meant more elaborate designs.

More — and more elaborate — eye candy.

And visceral joy.

Such as the Hunter-Lee Flowers’ impression of Picasso’s “Still Life with Skull, Leeks and Pitcher.”

Or life imitating art as a Plumweed Floral and Event Design construction simulated “Lady in Black with Spanish Scarf” by Robert Henri.

The bigger and better designs weren’t limited to displays favoring intricacy or heavy foundations, though.

Consider, for instance, the enormous, chock-full-o’-color bouquet by floral artist Valerie Lee Ow, who was celebrating her 16th year as a participant in “Bouquets to Art.”

It sat in front of “Rhapsody” by Richard Mayhew and, in fact, seemed to overpower it.

Want something a bit whimsical yet still colorful? The answer could be found in a floral peacock created by Natasha’s Designs in front of “The Flora and Fauna of the Pacific” by Miguel Covarrubias.

All in all, the evolved, more complex displays somehow helped my wife and me enjoy the show more than ever.

We can’t wait for next year.

Top billing at the de Young, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive at John F. Kennedy Drive, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, now goes to the “Botticelli to Braque” exhibit, which displays masterpieces from the national galleries of Scotland through May 31, and “Richard Diebenkorn Prints,” which will run through Oct. 4. Information: 1-415-750-3504 or contact@famsf.org.

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

[Woody’s [rating: 4.5]

I first saw Alvin Ailey’s choreography when I lived in New York City in 1960.

That was two years after he’d founded his troupe, one year after I’d returned from post-undergrad stints in Mexico and Hollywood — a time for both of us to be experimenting with innovation.

I embarked on a lifelong career as a journalist. He pursued his dream of coupling traditional African-American culture with modern dance.

And he drew upon his memories of his Baptist church upbringing in Texas, integrating traditional spirituals, gospel and blues in his legendary work, “Revelations.”

Now, 55 years later, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s still performing that ballet, still celebrating spiritual exuberance.

When I saw the Cal Performances offering at Zellerbach Hall the other night, it was as captivating, as viscerally exciting as ever.

Maybe more so.

I couldn’t help notice it’s aged without a wrinkle.

Two other reprises were equally compelling — the percussive “Uprising,” by Israeli-born Hofesh Shechter and Vex’d, performed with surging testosterone by seven male dancers, and “After the Rain,” a pas de deux by Christopher Wheeldon that gracefully enhances music by Arvo Pärt.

“Suspended Women” by Jacqulyn Buglisi, danced to music by Ravel, seemed flimsy by comparison with the others — almost like watching 14 ballerinas twirling atop a music box.

“Uprising” was intensity incarnate.

It featured mock wrestling, macho slapping and punching, with guys appearing and disappearing into a shadowy mist.

Riveting.

I found it impossible to look away.

But “Revelations” was the most fun to watch.

The “Wade in the Water” sequence was exceptionally eye-catching, with all its costuming and props white except for one blue sheet-like material that seamlessly simulated waves.

Most rousing were the portions devoted to the familiar — “Sinner Man” and “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.”

The traveling troupe’s performances run only through April 26. But if you can make it, do.

In my book, it’s the best dance troupe extant.

A few folks must agree.

The multi-racial New York City-based company has performed before 25 million people in 48 states, 71 countries and on six continents.

Ailey created 79 ballets for the troupe but long wanted it to include works of others.

It has.

More than 235 pieces by more than 90 choreographers now help constitute a repertoire for the company, which after Ailey’s death in 1989 was helmed first by Judith Jamison and now Robert Battle.

Both would have made him proud.

Upcoming Cal Performances dance dates include “Cinderella,” by the Marlinsky Ballet and Orchestra, Oct. 1-4; and Twyla Tharp’s 50th anniversary tour, Oct. 16-18. Information: www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/ or (510) 642-9988.

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or at www.vitalitypress.com/

We reveled in our fantasy.

Instead of deck-lounging in San Anselmo, our minds rocketed to Zanzibar, the semi-autonomous part of Tanzania in East Africa that’s housed humans for 20,000 years.

Why there?

God knows, since neither my wife nor I’d ever thought of going there — even when playing “let’s pretend.”

The mental trip was a lot cheaper than real airfare, of course.

And we definitely needed a break, fast approaching total pooped-outedness because of our typically intense, neurotic scheduling.

“I haven’t spotted a native all day,” I mused aloud, “but I have noticed animals nosing around.” Three deer-in-residence that devour whatever flowers dare pop up in our yard were grazing only a few feet away.

I had no clue what they were fantasizing.

Our compulsiveness made us set rules even for last month’s “impromptu” four-day staycation.

We’d monitor but not answer phone calls and emails. Nancy wouldn’t work on her upcoming piano-and-patter performances, nor I on promoting my book, “Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer.”

We mulled taking our dog, Kismet, to a West Marin beach, leisurely buying pants at the Northgate Shopping Center, taking out mu shu from Ping’s in San Rafael.

No deadlines. No schedule. No pressure.

The first morning, I asked our Zanzibarian chef to scramble eggs, with diced onions throughout.

When done, I said, “My compliments to the chef.”

“Thanks,” he replied.

Funny how much “he” resembled my wife.

The eggs were perfect. But we decided we’d prefer eating out most of the time, as if we were in a faraway Airbnb instead of at home in Marin County.

Relaxing has never been our long suit, though.

In fact, years ago I tried pulling off a Do-Nothing Day. It lasted under four minutes, after which I found myself checking 13 bookmarked news sites, exercising, phoning my daughter in New York, walking our dog at Drake High, helping Nancy unclog a filing cabinet, hauling a box to our storage shed, writing to an agent, and crafting a column.

We did better together.

One day we even watched a triple-feature in bed.

Best was “Alive Inside,” gifted us by Nancy’s Sausalito cousin, Laura Scott — a documentary about personalized music on iPods breaking through the solitary confinement of nursing home patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia.

It made us weep.

And rush to our checkbook.

The film also made me again appreciate Nancy’s shows. She regularly plays in memory-care and other senior facilities — geographically spread from The Redwoods in Mill Valley to Atria Tam Creek in Novato.

For years she’s told me of residents exiting almost catatonic states to tap their toes and fingers, swing their arms and mouth words from once forgotten tunes.

A two-way blessing, indeed.

Our second staycation day included laughing and crying at a Fairfax matinee of “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” and slowly strolling downtown in San Anselmo.

That was followed by a day of Nancy dipping into Ann Patchett’s anthology, “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage,” and my reading Roger Ebert’s autobiography, “Life Itself” — books with mega-positive messages.

But our best “go-nowhere day” was the one in which we went somewhere.

Unscheduled.

We rode past Fairfax and San Geronimo through manifold tunnels of trees to South Beach, where we watched huge waves blithely erase both human and dog prints from the sand for hours.

And we topped off the jaunt with an elongated outdoor lunch at Perry’s Inverness Park Grocery while watching sheep across Sir. Francis Drake Blvd. that were even more tranquil than we.

Wristwatches seemed wholly out of place.

Though we did make it through the staycation without working, we also re-discovered our love for — and addiction to — the endeavors that comprise “our revolving-door lives.”

Well, to be honest, we almost made it.

Our final staycation hours were corrupted by a computer glitch on my iMac.

I gave myself papal dispensation to work it out.

Nancy and I chortled at my obsessiveness — and copped to preferring the excitement of fifth gear to the stability of first.

But even if we never repeat our four-day experiment, we at least learned we can take time off from overload.

Maybe half a day.

Or an hour.

Hey, watch out Zanzibar, here we come again.

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or at www.vitalitypress.com/

[Woody’s [rating: 5]

“Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” would merit a rave review were the theatrical company decades old.

But it deserves special acclaim because the two-character, two-act drama is Flynn Spirit Productions’ first outing.

Let’s say, six stars out of five.

Paul Ulloa and Charlotte Garwood, who named their new venture after their son, Flynn, have said they “want to bring risk-taking and [emotionally] moving theater to audiences and artists.”

They’ve fully met both prongs of that goal.

From the git-go.

Ulloa gets maximum credit because he effectively doubles as the play’s star, assuming the violence-prone title role opposite Kimberley Roberts’ power as Roberta, a divorced mother tormented by the ever-present image of an ugly sexual encounter with a family member.

Both tattooed characters in their mid-30s are foul-mouthed, angry, father-hating, tortured souls — the epitome of self-loathing.

Both seek compassion and forgiveness.

And both shout a lot — almost eardrum-splittingly — in the 20-minute first act, which is as intense as anything I’ve seen on a Bay Area stage in many a moon.

Playwright John Patrick Shanley and director Estelle Piper turn down the decibel count a notch for Act 2, which is nearly twice as long — and soften the would-be lovers into something approximating likability.

That let me breathe normally again.

And be grateful for experiencing something fresh, crisp and improbably believable in the 48-seat Phoenix Theater, high up in a building just off Union Square in San Francisco.

What had drawn me there was the playwright, John Patrick Shanley, who’d written two other plays I admired, “Doubt” and “Moonstruck.”

It wasn’t the fact that Danny, a possible killer known to his fellow truck drivers as “The Beast,” believes his inner pain (“everything hurts all the time”) will lead to a heart attack, or that unemployed Roberta thinks she’s nuts, desires punishment and fantasizes about being blissful in jail, and has relegated care of her 17-year-old son to her parents.

It wasn’t that either’s desperate craving for tenderness, for happiness, for love, may appear too rapidly.

Or that they both are momentarily naked.

And it certainly wasn’t that the set reminded me of a seedy neighborhood bar in the Bronx where, on my first newspaper job, I’d frequently guzzled tap beer with locals.

In any case, I’m glad I could watch two downtrodden theatrical caterpillars morph into butterflies.

Despite Danny undoubtedly remaining, as Roberta labels him, “a caveman.”

“Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” runs at the Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason St. (between Geary and Post), Suite 601, San Francisco, through May 3. Night performances, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Matinees, 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets: $30. Information: www.eventbrite.com.  or (510) 843-4822.

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or at www.vitalitypress.com

[Woody’s [rating: 2.5]

She’s in a dual struggle — to transcend prejudices of her redneck family and to deflect ridiculing of her singsong name, Sally Talle.

He’s in an uphill battle to conquer his fears of remaining an underdog and misfit.

And to neutralize her anxiety about being adversely linked with him.

They’re an unlikely pair of walking wounded, unlikely to triumph over her kin’s biases.

Whether they eventually can is the puzzlement of “Talley’s Folly,” a two-character drama that won a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1980 and is currently being revived by the Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley.

I found the new, 97-minute production much like life itself — sometimes electrifying and fast-moving, sometimes sluggish enough to be doze-worthy.

It also made me remember a classic Yogi Berra phrase: It’s déjà vu all over again.

“Talley’s Folly” focuses on circa-World War II differences in religion and class — and on a prickly intimacy achieved through verbal and physical dances of love on the Fourth of July, 1944.

And because it’s replete with a glut of references to barefaced anti-Semitism, it repeatedly jerked me forward to scary 2015 headlines from Europe.

Sally’s family was once one of the two wealthiest in Lebanon, Missouri, a community that happens to be prolific playwright Lanford Wilson’s real hometown.

So the Talleys had severe expectations of her — the gentile princess.

Matt Friedman, a Lithuanian-born Jewish accountant from St. Louis, arrives unexpectedly after a year away — to persuade Sally, a nurse’s aide once fired as a Christian Sunday School teacher, that he loves her and that she should escape with him.

He’s disregarded her not answering his letters.

They verbally fence in her family’s rundown boathouse (the physical folly of the title). They talk and talk and talk, and finally swap secrets (which, in my opinion, dovetail a little too easily).

Insults become part of the mix.

She accuses him, for instance, of not having “the perception God gave lettuce.”

He in turn knocks her family (particularly brother Buddy, who apparently can’t see him as anything but a semi-human outsider/Communist-socialist/traitor).

Lauren English plays Sally with Southern drawl and demeanor intact, opposite Rolf Saxon, who’s utterly convincing as the urbane Matt.

“Talley’s Folly” is a serious play laced sporadically with humor.

Especially funny is Matt’s rambling opening monologue to the audience (which he repeats at breakneck speed).

Imitations of Humphrey Bogart and a repugnant German likewise evoke amusement.

For most of the play, though, Sally and Matt are both awkward, “private people” trapped in their histories and what she might have called their Sunday best.

It’s as if they were pimply teenagers at ages 31 and 42.

And they essentially resemble one of his verbalized thoughts: Because people are like eggs, they must be careful not to bump into each other too hard.

The play was directed by Joy Carlin, a Bay Area theatrical hall-of-famer who portrayed Sally in the 1979 American Conservatory Theater production of “Fifth of July,” the last part of Wilson’s trilogy, which the Aurora will reprise from April 23 through May 17.

Although “Talley’s Folly” — which acts as a prequel within that trilogy — is filled with conflicts, it’s almost action-less.

Which makes Carlin’s task of injecting life nearly impossible.

She actually does amazing well considering the loquacious raw material Wilson provides.

“Talley’s Folly” runs at Harry’s UpStage at the Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley, through June 7. Night performances, Tuesdays, 7 p.m.; Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $30-35. Information: www.auroratheatre.org or (510) 843-4822.

 Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or at www.vitalitypress.com

[Woody’s [rating: 5]

Bernie Krause’s been my friend more than 25 years.

In case you don’t recognize it, that statement’s a disclaimer.

A necessity — because the world premiere of “Biophony,” an exceedingly inventive Alonzo King LINES Ballet created collaboratively with Bernie, just exhilarated me.

Which I’m sure would have happened had I never heard of either of them.

“Biophony” is, simultaneously, aural and visual.

But my reaction was visceral.

Without warning, “Biophony” stripped away my desire and ability to experience it intellectually.

I’ve used the word brilliant in reviews before. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d had the foresight to know I’d need it for this three-way alliance (the third partner being English composer Richard Blackford, whose instrumentation has been tapered).

The experimental 38-minute piece opens with the clear chirping of an American cricket.

But the nine-movement work is performed without protracted breaks so I wasn’t always sure when I was being transported to the Amazon or Tanzania or the Arctic to hear a cornucopia of baboons and orangutans and chimpanzees, geese and ducks and exotic birds, wolves and pigs and giraffes, humpback whales, frogs, bees, creaking branches, waves and rain and thunder.

Even after reading the extensive program notes, I wasn’t always certain what critters or environmental elements were making the sounds I was hearing.

And I missed a lot.

A second, third or fourth hearing could be beneficial.

I was sure, though, that the natural sounds became incredibly melodic and worked divinely as a symphonic composition.

I was also positive Alonzo’s magical ballet blended perfectly with those sounds — a ballet that featured 11 dancers fashioning (on terra firma, sea and air) unconventional creature-like movements.

Bernie’d recorded the sounds in the wilds — jungle, tundra, wherever.

Alone mostly.

And in concert, so to speak, with the likes of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey.

Almost ­ — after his first ecological recording in Muir Woods and his initial soundscape installation in 1983 for the California Academy of Sciences — 5,000 hours of field recordings of 15,000 species in their natural habitats over a 50-year span.

Presto!

Enter “Biophany,” which consists of handpicked highlights from that collection — soundscapes of animals in self-contained ecosystems.

A unique orchestra-chorus.

In a KQED interview the day of the opening at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Alonzo said, “You want people’s…hearts to be opened.”

They were.

In an Exploratorium conversation, he said of his work: “I don’t want it to look like choreography…If it [does], it’s not working.”

He succeeded at that, too.

Alonzo’s choreography is impressionistic and impressive.

Ditto the minimalist costuming (diaphanous wisps can be found hither and thither).

And since the set is basically a black backdrop with tantalizing ambiance and floor mosaics designed by Axel Morgenthaler’s lights, audiences can easily imagine themselves in sundry milieus.

Alonzo, who’s dreamed up close to 200 ballets for the troupe he founded in 1982, conspicuously let the dancers be themselves (alternately original, acrobatic and graceful).

Bernie, meanwhile, mulled if audiences “would get” his underlying message — “an elegy and eulogy” for natural environs that are vanishing because of man-made intrusions.

Time will be the jury.

I must note, however, that ballet purists — especially those whose tastes are limited to productions like “Swan Lake”  — may be unable to wrap their minds around this breakthrough effort.

Is “Biophony” completed? Conceivably not.

In an email to me, Bernie wrote, “With the curtain [going] up in five hours, I’m still in the process of making changes.”

The previous night, after grueling deliberation, he’d eliminated the elephants.

Bernie’s normal conversation often contains heady words unfamiliar to most: Bioacoustician. Geophony. Anthropophony.

No matter. We’ll stay friends even if I don’t fully grok his vocabulary.

Our friendship can’t compare, anyhow, to his with my wife, which dates 62 years to their Detroit school days together.

But back to now.

In a 22-minute prelude, seven members of the Philharmonia Baroque Chamber Players played short pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederic Handel while King’s company feverishly blanketed and owned the stage.

Bernie earlier had voiced a tongue-in-cheek fear “Biophony” might replicate the opening of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” — incite tomatoes being thrown.

I saw no fruit hit the stage.

But I did feel whitecaps of applause as the audience — partially stunned by the brilliance of the work, partially stunned by a somewhat abrupt ending — rose to give “Biophony” an extended standing ovation.

“Biophony” will run through April 12 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. (at Third), San Francisco. Night performances, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Matinees, 5 p.m. Sundays. Special gala performance, 6 p.m. Saturday, April 11. Tickets: $20 to $65. Information: http://www.@linesballet.org or 1-415-978-2787.

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

[Woody’s [rating: 5]

No one plays board games in the new comedic drama, “Sister Play.”

And there’s no jump rope.

Repartee is the main pastime adult sisters Anna and Lilly engage in, alternating clever lines that guarantee Magic Theatre audiences will laugh loud and long.

Playful, zigzagging yet revealing soliloquies also flow from the mind of writer-director John Kolvenbach to the mouths of the siblings.

The same is true for two other off-kilter characters, Malcolm (Anna’s wooly-headed husband), and William Casy, a enigmatic drifter from Texas whom Lily picks up from the side of a Cape Cod highway.

All their monologues seem to begin with logic but end in amusing morasses of fractured philosophy and religion.

In between?

Non-sequiturs. Hyperbole. Near-gibberish that sounds poetic.

The setting is a rundown cabin to which we’re introduced when Malcolm thinks aloud: “What percentage of this place is mold, do you think?”

But the key question is if family fortresses and defenders can be over-protective.

I unconditionally loved Kolvenbach’s character-driven play.

I loved how all four intimately intertwined — and how so much of the human condition unraveled so quickly.

I loved how long toenails and a foot fetish, towels and the singing of a Roy Orbison tune, “Blue Bayou,” became comic foils.

But always I could sense an underlying seriousness.

Such as an early metaphoric foreshadowing when frantic, Lilly (wondrously fleshed out by Jessi Campbell) insisted that Anna (played with steely older-sister determination by Lisa Brescia) put her total weight on Lilly’s lap.

Such as later discussions of getting pregnant.

Such as the funny asides and mental meanderings of Malcolm (through the artistry of Anthony Fusco, a Richard Jenkins lookalike and soundalike who’s an A.C.T. stalwart), and the marvelous deadpan drawl of Patrick Kelly Jones as William.

Whether the dialogue was rib-ticking or solemn, I couldn’t wait to find out what came next.

Now and then, though, I was faced with pithy character summaries.

I can still hear 30-year-old bed-hopping Lilly saying, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

And Anna griping to her late, lamented father, “You left me holding the bag.”

Add to those Malcolm’s assertion that “I’m a pamphlet between two related tomes…written in a language I don’t understand…two books telling one story.”

And this poignant couplet: Anna — “You seem lost.” Lily — “I am.” When this goes to two lines it is hard to follow.

The company’s artistic director, Loretta Greco, showed great perceptiveness when indicating in the program guide that Kolvenbach’s characters here, as usual, “binge on mayhem.”

Some of his skillfully crafted chaos was psychological (probing constructive love vs. smothering love).

Some was tangible (therapeutic book-throwing).

In either case, Kolvenbach’s timing — and each actor’s, in fact — must be labeled exquisite.

Magic devotees were probably already familiar with the playwright’s talent, because Kolvenbach’s “Goldfish” and “Mrs. Whitney” were staged there in 2009.

Yet “Sister Play” proves that even a basically flawless show can’t satisfy everyone.

One elderly woman, after telling me during the opening night’s post-play reception that the acting had been excellent, twice added, “I don’t understand what was funny.”

Rather than be rude, I left my response unsaid:

“In my opinion, almost everything.”

“Sister Play” runs through April 19 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard and Buchanan Street, San Francisco. Night performances Tuesdays, 7 p.m.; Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Tickets: $20 to $60. Information: www.magictheatre.org or (415) 441-8822.

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

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

I left “Jewels of Paris” with lingering thoughts of flashy costuming and fleshy lack of costuming.

But that doesn’t mean I overlooked the new revue’s substantial, silly satire.

Or its clever songs. Or unadulterated bawdiness.

Or copious kitsch.

My afterthoughts insisted on zoning in on a couple of dangling participles and more than a few dangling body parts.

“Jewels of Paris,” a new musical revue presented by the Thrillpeddlers at the Hypnodrome in San Francisco, is clearly a throwback — first by comically reconstructing for me the City of Lights and the artistic revolution that exploded there in the Roaring Twenties, then by jerking me back to old-timey burlesque and shocking campus musicals.

Spoofed effectively along the way are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Josephine Baker, Pierrot (the sad clown of Commedia dell’Arte fame) and — yes, after all it is France — Marie Antoinette.

Yet never would I think this revue might draw audiences from an umpteenth touring company of  “Chicago.”

It’s way too South of Market for that.

“Jewels of Paris” will surely pull in exactly what it aims for: mainly gay audiences (in and out of leather), and heterosexuals interested in a funny show that revisits the kind of original Scrumbly Koldewyn melodies he composed for the legendary Cockettes, the psychedelic, chiefly drag theater troupe he co-founded.

Here Koldewyn puts his fresh musical and lyrical jewels on display, so to speak.

As well as his talents as musical director and piano- and synthesizer-playing accompanist — all the while managing to keep the nostalgic jazzy rhythms alive without becoming overly redundant.

He also contributes to the book (sketches that are also credited to Rob Keefe, Alex Kinney and Andy Wenger).

Just for giggles, naturally.

Lyrics can be amazingly droll. Consider lines such as “They see me as savage and shoeless, but I’m just a flapper from St. Louis” or “Wait — I’ll torture you with my metaphors.”

Noah Haydon, meanwhile, is responsible for the choreography, ensuring each movement (ranging from a mock can-can to simulated sex) be precise enough so none of the 16-member cast (many of whom play multiple roles) stumbles into another on the small stage.

The campy revue’s so professionally staged on a set that’s seamlessly moved piecemeal by the actors undergoing myriad wig and costume changes, in fact, there’s not a single “oopsie” moment.

In addition, extraordinary solo performances are proffered by drag queen Noah Haydon torch-singing “Singer in a Café,” Kim Larsen crooning “Oh What a World,” and Birdie-Bob Watt lamenting “Chic and Tragic” as Pierrot.

Russell Blackwood, the production’s director, induces a well-paced balance between farce and music — and safeguards the overriding theme that human differences must be acceptable.

The ensemble cast raises diversity to new heights.

Actor-singers are white, black and Asian; male, female and possibly other; skinny and fat, tall and short, hunky and frumpy.

But don’t look for a plot. It’s absent.

And direct links to France tend to disappear during the second act of the two-hour performance.

Thrillpeddlers, their website informed me, “have been performing authentic Grand Guignol horror plays, outrageous Theatre of the Ridiculous musicals, and spine-tingling lights-out spookshows in San Francisco for nearly 20 years.”

Guess which of those categories “Jewels of Paris” fits into.

Here, however, is a mammoth red flag.

I recommend you stay far away if you’re turned off by nudity (male and female, frontal and backal), by straight and gay postures that don’t demand an advanced degree in gymnastics but do require open-mindedness, by cross-dressing and other gender-bending, by the mere idea of S&M, or ridiculing depictions of a bearded lady and a hunch-backed “Quasi-homo.”

If you’re adventurous, however, it’s a one-of-a-kind San Francisco treat that could tingle your pleasure palate vastly better than Rice-A-Roni.

Because the back-of-an-alley theater holds only 45 people, with first-come, first-served seating except for a handful of higher-priced boxes in which you can recline (or otherwise unbend), I’d recommended that tickets be purchased in advance.

My wife and I chanced to sit in the Hell box, with its fiery red seat covers and wall mirror at genitalia level.

Perhaps because we enjoy the unfamiliar and rare, it and the show were heavenly.

“Jewels of Paris” runs through May 2 at the Hypnodrome, 575 10th St., San Francisco. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.  Tickets: $30-$35. Information: 1-415-377-4202 or www.thrillpeddlers.com

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or at www.vitalitypress.com