Woody Weingarten

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

What might you get if you’d locked Noël Coward and Neil Simon in a room with Margaret Mead after they’d toured Tanzania?

A witty comedy tinged with a hint of sadness.

“Impressionism,” actually written by Michael Jacobs, is embedded at The Barn in the Marin Art & Garden Center in Ross, where I watched standoffish New York City art gallery owner Katharine Keenan (played by Mary Ann Rodgers) and burned out photojournalist Thomas Buckle (Tom Reilly) take eight scenes and 80 minutes to become whole.

But their journey often amused me.

Even though Katherine couldn’t bring herself to sell the gallery’s paintings, and Thomas couldn’t let himself snap pictures.

Even though each permanently hid out in the gallery because of life’s wounds — hers from a series of failed relationships, his from seeing too much of the world’s underbelly.

Director Billie Cox, fastidiously peeling back the pair of human onions, nimbly helped me learn who they were by utilizing flashbacks that shifted not only time but place.

And by brilliantly using “invisible” paintings.

The two lead actors give top-drawer performances, surely not equal to those of Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen in the play’s 2009 Broadway debut but way beyond acceptable for community theater.

Much of the play’s dialogue is sharp.

Katherine snarkily revealed a warped world-view by exclaiming that men, whom she refers to as “you people,” exist only “to knock me over.”

More seriously, she ruled about art that “getting it accurate isn’t as important as getting somebody to feel something.”

Thomas, correspondingly, described the self-imposed constraints on his photographic art this way: “I won’t take pictures of anything that [won’t elicit] true joy.”

And the two adversary-friends playfully debated whether life is Impressionism or Realism.

Nobody wins.

But nobody loses either.

Before the opening night performance Cox had primed me and other critics by explaining that the show may only contain “one-act but it’s about the second act of our lives.”

The main conceit of “Impressionism” is that Katharine has employed Thomas for two years and — shades of Scheherazade — he regularly entertains her with stories about the coffee he brings her each morning.

Though the play is officially labeled a romantic comedy, Jacobs, a writer and producer whose work has been featured on Broadway, TV and in film, has put so many obstacles in the duo’s path — much like potholes in many real African roadways — it can sometimes mean a bumpy ride.

It’s certainly a different breed of big African cat than Cox’s last outing at the home of the Ross Valley Players.

That was “Twentieth Century,” which I called a “shamelessly silly…time-machine homage to Broadway creatures of the night-lights.”

In “Impressionism,” the protagonists are informed by artwork masterfully projected onto the gallery’s rear wall. And scenes are connected by both blackouts and slideshows of paintings most likely familiar to even non-art lovers.

Empty frames on the set walls bothered me a bit, however. I was never sure if they were meant to be symbolic, and I found the device distracting.

“Impressionism” probably shouldn’t be summed up by the following exchange:

Katherine — “I don’t understand anything.” Thomas — “Neither do I.”

Nor could a revitalized Katherine be allowed to condense everything into, “What if I wanted to…be ravished in a chair once in a while?”

But she might summarize the show by observing, of both art and life, “You can’t get it when it’s right in front of you — you have to step back…you have to step back to see it other than splotches.”

“Impressionism” is definitely more than the sum of its splotches.

“Impressionism” runs at The Barn Theatre, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, through Feb. 15. Night performances, Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14 to $29. Information: (415) 456-9555 or www.rossvalleyplayers.com.

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

 

[Woody’s [rating: 2.5]

Two long rows of seats bordering the latest AlterTheater stage were so tightly packed it could have been a disaster had anyone needed a bathroom break mid-show.

A single theatergoer’s bad breath, in fact, might have been nearly as bad.

But, thankfully, nothing disrupted the world premiere of “Landless” in a storefront next to Johnny Doughnuts on west 4th Street in San Rafael.

That was a good thing because I, like everyone else opening night, needed all my faculties to absorb the breadth of issues  — and myriad flashbacks — proffered by playwright Larisse FastHorse in a mere two hours.

Enough, actually, to swamp my mind:

Native American heritage, homelessness, racism, bullying, discount stores choking ma-and-pa shops, the proliferation of casinos, and — in case that’s insufficient — friendship, love and benevolence.

It was as if she wanted to probe in two acts every feeling she’d had in her 43 years.

Her thematic pileup parallels the set, a mélange of cartons and racks of outdated and broken dreams from the life of Elise, a worn out and tapped out 68-year-old whose fingers are wedged in a metaphoric post-recession dike at her Matthews Mercantile store.

Not everything in “Landless” is hyper-serious, though.

Or depressing.

FastHorse sporadically uses humor as a leaven.

The play takes place in a small town where a new Walmart is squeezing fourth-generation Main Street merchants. But to find the heart of “Landless,” FastHorse, a member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation originally from South Dakota, interviewed local Indian elders, shopkeepers and business district residents.

Plus the homeless.

Silver makes the drama’s heart pound rapidly by passionately running a proverbial gamut of emotions as Elise.

And Nick Garcia is alternatively childlike, joyous, unhappy and angry as Josiah. a Hispanic-surnamed boy/man Elise had rescued 17 years before, a gay dreamer who’s part of a “landless tribe” seeking federal recognition.

He repeatedly tests the topic of identity.

“Do you know what it’s like to know who you are?” he ponders.

Emile Talbot and Michael J. Asberry fill out the cast by proficiently assuming several supporting roles each.

Mood-heightening lighting by Jack Beuttler also is noteworthy, especially since the storefront windows are left undraped so passersby can sneak a peek.

Bay Area theatrical legend Ann Brebner is an ex-casting director who led the drive to restore the Rafael Theatre and co-founded the Marin Shakespeare Company. Jeanette Harrison co-founded the nomadic AlterTheater in 2004, when the troupe turned a rocking chair store into a performance space.

Jointly, they directed “Landless.”

The two worked extremely well together, Harrison told me, but some rehearsal differences led them to test opposite ways of doing some scenes and then choose.

Opening night jitters, I suspect, can be blamed for multitude lines spurting forth before their cues were uttered.

That problem will undoubtedly get ironed out quickly.

But other flaws are not so easily corrected.

The faint recorded musical backdrop, for example, seems more intrusive than illuminating.

And I found some clichés irritating. Such as “You are not alone.” Or, “I need you to walk out this door and never look back.”

From play to play, the AlterTheater moves from storefront to storefront in downtown San Rafael, priding itself on prompting artists to “dream big, take risks, and push themselves to the limits of their imagination…and then take another step.”

I believe by exploring Indian culture and heritage, certainly not a mainstay of the Bay Area theatrical scene, it again has met that objective.

Now, if it would focus on a couple of the planet’s ills and not try to solve all of them at once…

“Landless” will play at the AlterTheater’s temporary space at 1619 4th St. (at G), San Rafael, through Feb. 1, then at the A.C.T. Costume Shop Theater, 1117 Market St. (at 7th), San Francisco, Feb. 12-22. Evening performances in San Rafael, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m.; matinees, Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Tickets: $25. Information: (415) 454-2787 or www.altertheater.org.

Check out Woody Weingarten’s www.vitalitypress.com blog, or contact him at voodee@sbcglobal.net.

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

I normally love playwright David Mamet’s rhythms.

And his caustic humor.

Nor am I put off by his usual torrent of f-bombs.

But “The Anarchist” is cerebral horseplay of a noticeably different color. It’s Mamet soberly executing mental calisthenics, taking both sides of an argument at the same time.

Using longer — and complete — sentences. Without vulgarities or drollness.

And with less of individuals talking over each other.

In a new Theatre Rhinoceros production, Mamet still does what he does best — poke beneath the veneer of characters to exhume the vagaries of human nature.

I see it as an 85-minute double diatribe.

Director John Fisher combines with Mamet to offer an intensely dramatic, philosophical feast that pinpoints a two-woman tug-of-war over rehabilitation, faith and sex.

But they present a dense repast not easily digested.

The storyline?

A lesbian anarchist on the day of a parole interview confronts a female “representative of the state” — perhaps her warden, maybe a prison psychologist, conceivably a parole officer — who will decide whether she should be freed.

The drama stars Tamar Cohn as bilingual, properly educated Cathy, an admitted terrorist killer of two guards in an echo of a real incident involving the Weather Underground in the 1970s.

She performs in tandem with Velina Brown as Ann, Cathy’s interrogator who may have been persecuting her —perpetually.

Both actors are splendid.

Flawless, in fact.

Each steeps her character with flesh and blood, with all the nuanced emotional back-and-forthness humans bring to challenging situations.

Each excels, too, at extracting the most from Mamet’s prose.

Such as Cathy’s pithy, “Neither God nor human worth can be proved.” Or, “The state does not have [the] power to put me on the cross.”

Fisher, meanwhile, magnifies the duo’s conflict by placing Brown, whose height is imposing and whose demeanor is appropriately unbending, next to Cohn, whose smaller, chameleon-like body can shift in an instant from servile to haughty.

Cohn, who lives in Marin County “with a terrific husband and a decrepit cat,” adroitly depicts an inmate who’s served 35 years and become a believer in Christ despite her Jewish upbringing.

Brown, co-artistic director of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, deftly reproduces a bureaucrat plagued with a major decision just before her tenure ends but hell-bent on having the prisoner reveal where her former accomplice/lover is.

Fisher and Mamet are, in a sense, joined at the hip.

Mamet had encouraged Fisher as a young director. And Fisher directed his “Boston Marriage” at The Rhino, America’s longest running queer theater.

When I attended “The Anarchist,” news bulletins became a factor.

I found it chilling that a trio of terrorists murdered a dozen people in the Paris office of a satirical publication the same day.

An anachronistic chunk of recorded pre-show music — Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A’Changin’” — also bothered me. I understood its symbolic value but the tune was jarring because it pre-dates by years the founding of the Weather Underground, whose terrorism had begun at San Francisco’s Ferry Terminal.

I’ve enjoyed Mamet creations for decades — “Glengarry Glen Ross,” which earned the Pulitzer Prize in drama, “Speed the Plow,” “American Buffalo,” “Oleanna,” “Race.”

As I do with Picasso’s diverse periods, I revel in Mamet’s — from his earliest male-oriented works (that emphasize character and the way people really talk) to his middle years (in which plot grows more important) to his latter-day female-oriented plays and their accent on social and political issues.

But “The Anarchist” is by far his thickest, most intellectual, wordiest exercise — and arguably the least entertaining.

The playwright apparently insisted that I — and the young, mostly gay crowd at The Rhino — work harder than I’d wanted.

It was as if I were expected to hold my breath for the duration of the play lest I miss a crucial phrase or concept.

Ultimately, however, the drama merited my full attention — even though critics bashed the original 2012 Broadway offering with Patti LuPone and Deborah Winger.

Causing it to run only 17 performances.

“The Anarchist” plays at the Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson St. (at Front and Battery streets), San Francisco, through Jan. 17. Evening performances, Sundays, 7 p.m.; Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Saturdays and Sundays, 3 p.m. Tickets: $15 to $30 (subject to change). Information: (800) 838-3006 or www.TheRhino.org

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

Almost all the buyers are incurable addicts.

So are the sellers, who occasionally purchase items when not volunteering.

But don’t be misled: There are no drugs. No booze. No butts.

Used books are their preferred vice.

Some are addicted to romance novels, bodice-rippers and the like. Some are drawn to true murder stories. Some favor volumes about sports or politics or scientific expeditions to the outskirts of civilization.

And some — like my wife — lean toward lighter fare, such as the humor of David Sedaris.

The buyer-fanatics would make the register in San Anselmo’s 20- by 40-foot Town Books ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching if the spanking new store had a machine instead of a cash box.

Me? I’ve bought nothing yet.

A voracious book reader into midlife, I’ve since turned to alternate worlds provided by newspapers, magazines, websites and, if you believe my spouse (who insists I’ll read anything), the backs of cereal boxes.

Cinnie Barrows — Friends of the Library stalwart who’s been as responsible as anyone for the shop’s birth — is much more typical.

She got hooked on books when her parents read to her “at a very early age. Then, still pre-school, I started using the library in my small West Virginia hometown. It was above the jail.”

She’s still addicted.

But others involved with the library, she insists, are even more so: “Some of the Friends read all the time.”

Cinnie’s worked her way down to wearing only two hats — “volunteer coordinator, which means I’m in charge of recruiting, and being the Tuesday manager.”

And she’s quick to cite two other Friends instrumental in the store’s gestation, Sue Neil and Shelagh Smith.

Sue, with her daughter Julie, helmed the shop’s design, including racks in the center of the room that clear away for special events.

She’s particularly proud of the shelves.

They were hand-picked, one by one, she says: “They’re all old bleacher benches from St. Louis that were re-purposed — some red, some black, some that had chewing gum on the bottom that had to get scraped off.”

Shelagh, who oversees Friends’ finances, co-wrote the volunteers’ handbook with Joan Boodrookas, the organization’s president.

Unpaid regular Sharon Bluhm commends it.

And says, “Fiction sells well — because it’s what we have most. So do children’s books and cookbooks.”

Early revenues hit between $500 and $600 a week, but they were based on being open only Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 to 4.

“When you consider most books sell for under $5,” says Sue, “even at $500, that’s a lot of books.”

Sales are expected to rise now because Fridays have been added.

Proceeds will help the library with what Debbie Stutsman, tow n manager, calls “a myriad of…things not covered by the general fund or parcel tax budgets.”

At least two volunteers staff the store at 411 San Anselmo Ave. each morning, two more each afternoon. Each day has a designated manager.

Though Town Books opened mid-September, the official launch wasn’t until last month, when 150 book lovers jammed what once housed Riccardo’s Italian restaurant and its endless empty bottles hanging from the ceiling.

Down San Anselmo Avenue, Michael Whyte, owner of Whyte’s Booksmith, rejects my question about competition. “I feel it’s more collegial,” he says. “The more bookstores in San Anselmo, the better.”

Whyte’s been supporting library projects for 30-plus years — “generously,” comments Cinnie.

Most of Town Books’ stock comes from individuals cleaning out their homes — folks like Lisa Mackey. “My mom is ill, in a nursing home,” she tells me, “and I’m bringing her books here.”

“Here” is the single room, but down the hallway is a 16×22 office where Eli Welber scans non-fiction barcodes to see if they can be marketed on Amazon.

His current online inventory is about 500 tomes. He expects the number to go up exponentially.

The afternoon I visit, a San Anselmo newbie who prefers anonymity scours the place for books dealing with the history of American poetry, while Oliver Kaufmann of Ross surfs the shelves (he’d earlier bought a novel and two nonfiction volumes).

They voice delight.

Some — like Kat Hench, who lived in San Anselmo but now resides in Novato — come to Town Books seeking something specific but don’t find it.

Few leave empty-handed.

But almost all, addicts or not, somehow leave with a smile on their faces.

Check out Woody Weingarten’s new blog at www.vitalitypress.com/ or contact him at voodee@sbcglobal.net.

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

When you come right down to it, I’m generally a non-believer.

I haven’t believed in the Tooth Fairy for a long time. Ditto the Easter Bunny and the Energizer Bunny. Double-ditto unicorns and centaurs.

Santa Claus? You must be kidding.

But ask me about a bumbling bozo brought up by elves at the North Pole who reunites in Manhattan with his human birth father and I’ll tell you, with a giant smile, that I wanna believe, brother, I wanna believe.

That’s because Buddy, hero of the gag-filled “Elf the Musical,” is so bouncy, so entertaining, so goofy.

Eric Williams, who plays Buddy in the touring company production at the SHN Curran Theatre in San Francisco, makes it virtually impossible not to like the character or believe in his good-natured, innocent spirit.

But to make sure my senior reaction paralleled those of theatergoers a few decades younger, I checked with the three kids I chaperoned to opening night.

Hannah, my 7-year-old granddaughter, was concise: “I liked the play better than the movie.”

She was referring, of course, to the 2003 comedy-fantasy Jon Favreau directed (starring Will Ferrell as Buddy).

She found the main character in the show “really funny,” but questioned the tale’s modernity. “I don’t believe that Santa has an iPad!” she exclaimed afterwards.

At least one urbane allusion had flown over her head.

Santa supposedly had stopped using reindeer after complaints from PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Questioned Hannah, “What’s a PETA? I know what a pita chip is, but what’s a PETA?”

Hudson, son of Hannah’s mom’s partner, was astute enough at 13 to discern minor blips. “Buddy forgot to button his vest,” he said about one of the many quick costume changes, “and it was obvious when he fixed it.”

He liked the show over all, though, especially its colorful costumes and multiple painting-like sets — despite finding the Buddy character “a little too dumb.”

But he also thought “some of the language might be a little harsh for little kids.”

Hudson’s younger brother, Kota, 11, clearly was the most sanguine of the trio. He appreciated 100 percent “how they integrated the musical numbers with the story,”

I loved watching my young companions’ reactions as much as I seeing the prime performers — all of whom were first-rate (most outstanding, besides Williams, were Harper S. Brady, who played Buddy’s half-brother, Michael, and Lexie Dorsett Sharp as Buddy’s stepmother, Emily).

Brady, who alternates with Tyler Altomari in the role, and Sharp were marvelous in two potent duets — “I’ll Believe in You” and “There Is a Santa Claus.”

Also superb was Maggie Anderson as Jovie, Buddy’s love interest. Her comic solo, “Never Fall in Love (with an Elf),” was brilliant.

A show-stopper.

The two-hour Christmasy musical will end its short local run Dec. 28, although it could easily become a perennial.

Because it oozes with charm.

Its 14-person chorus is as perpetually energetic as the aforementioned bunny, palpable in a scene of multiple dancing Santas and another when the elf-actors dance on their knees and create a Rockettes-like sequence.

Thanks to the combined imaginations of choreographer Connor Gallagher and director Sam Scalamonai.

Upbeat music by Matthew Sklar, lyrics by Chad Beguelin and a nine-piece orchestra conducted by Roberto Sinha help keep things blissful, with drummer/percussionist Aaron Drescher offering up the most perfectly timed, dramatic instrumentation.

For adults such as me, the show — which debuted on Broadway in 2010 — contains just the right amount of clever cynicism.

Such as when one department store Santa complains that today’s kids seem compelled to text while sitting on his lap.

Some adults, however, might prefer to take the family brood to “Nutcracker” again. Or re-read David Sedaris’ tale of his being a Macy’s elf, “Santaland Diaries.”

Some undoubtedly will pay attention to the youngsters.

The 15-minute intermission, Kota gushed, “felt so long — I couldn’t wait for it to end so the show could start again. ‘Elf’ made it onto the charts of my favorite plays. It was quite delightful. I’d see it again in a heartbeat.”

“Elf the Musical” plays at the SHN Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco, through Dec. 28. Evening performances, Sundays, 5:30 p.m.; Tuesdays through Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Matinees, Sundays, noon; Mondays through Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $45 to $160 (subject to change). Information: (888) 746-1799 or shnsf.com.

[Woody’s [rating: 2.5]

The woman sitting behind me kept laughing so loudly I thought she’d wet herself.

She was an exception.

The woman sitting next to me barely smiled throughout “The Complete History of Comedy (abridged).”

Most of the Marin Theatre Company audience, including me, was somewhere in between.

Which translated on opening night to laughing aloud more than a few times, grinning a lot, and occasionally yawning at professorial explanations that obstructed the rapid-fire delivery of punch-lines and screwball, high-energy performances.

The three-man Reduced Shakespeare Company troupe emulates the way-back zaniness of the Ritz Brothers, Marx Brothers and Three Stooges as well as the way-way-back cerebral intricacies of Chekov and Shakespeare.

They insert pie-in-the-face, rubber chicken and Muppet-like gags.

They deploy limitless props.

Austin Tichenor, a classically trained actor who sports pants intentionally too short, and Reed Martin, a former circus clown who wears his head without hair, are the show’s writer-director-actors.

Dominic Conti, a physically flexible actor who sports cutoff shorts, fills out the trio.

“The Complete History of Comedy (abridged)” starts with the ostensible origin of the genre, a cavewoman who ludicrously distorts the birthing process.

But it doesn’t proceed chronologically.

Instead, the speedy 90-minute romp divides itself into chunks — about clowning, Commedia dell’arte, violence, fooles (ancient and current), the best and worst all-time comedians (with slides and snide commentary) — cemented by a series of marvelous puns that draw loud groans from an appreciative crowd.

Add to that the references, beyond caustically skewering religious and political hypocrisy, to virtually everything relating to comedy.

Like George Carlin and his seven dirty words, minstrel shows, Monty Python and its dead parrot skit, Sigmund Freud and his psychological deconstruction of jokes.

The threesome acts out an Elizabethan rendition of the classic Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First?” routine, presents a two-man Greek chorus, and offers up a solo Abraham Lincoln in the guise of a stand-up comic.

Wigs are plentiful.

Coupled with enough pieces of fabric to facilitate scores of instant costume changes.

So much happens so fast it’s easy to miss something amusing. But you can be reasonably sure something amusing will come around the bend in another split second.

The funniest bit, in my estimation, was a look at the U.S. Supreme Court with each performer manipulating two puppets — vigorously.

Except the one representing Clarence Thomas, who, like in reality, sleeps through the proceedings.

Close behind was a segment in which two theatergoers were dragged onstage, then basically left to their own devices to provide sound effects.

Their lack of skill ended up being hilarious.

Squeezed between the infinite jokes and sketches were a handful of quick but serious moments — such as that provided by an archetypal character, Rambozo the clown, derivative of both Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” and a 1986 antiwar song by Dead Kennedys.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company began in Marin in 1981 as a pass-the-hat troupe at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Novato.

Its first actual production was, fittingly, “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).”

The current original production is the company’s ninth.

Some, I believe, were more successful than this — “The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)” and “The Complete History of America (abridged),” for instance.

The company, which works exceedingly hard onstage, has publicized the phrase “Saving the world one joke at a time.” But it tries to cover too much territory in “The Complete History of Comedy (abridged),” resulting in the show being slightly uneven.

Maybe that’s why, in a theater in which standing ovations are de rigueur, it drew only moderate applause at evening’s end.

“The Complete History of Comedy (abridged)” plays at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through Dec. 21. Performances Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Thursdays, 1 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $20 to $58 (subject to change). Information: (415) 388-5208 or marintheatre.org.

 

[Woody’s [rating: 4]

When it comes to worshipping at the altar of pop-rock singer-composer Cyndi Lauper, I’m a late latecomer.

At the height of her popularity in the 1980s, I wasn’t particularly taken with her voice, her compositions or her rebel-punk image.

I wasn’t even enthralled with her first big hit, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” a feminist anthem she reconstructed from Robert Hazard’s original male anthem.

But, then, I’m a boy.

However, when my wife and I saw Lauper perform at the Black & White Ball, the symphony’s fundraiser, on the streets of San Francisco in 2012, we became fans.

And now, having gone to the SHN Orpheum Theatre to hear the LGBT activist’s latest tunes in “Kinky Boots,” which won six 2013 Tonys (including best original musical), our delayed adoration has grown even more.

Others obviously share the attraction.

Those who hand out the Tonys, for example. They gave her one for writing last year’s best original score, making her the first woman to win that honor solo.

The 61-year-old also won a Grammy for this year’s album of the show.

The musical, an upbeat two-hour-plus toe-tapper overflowing with humor, proves that — contrary to Nancy Sinatra’s chartbuster — some boots are made for dancing rather than walking.

Even if you’re hesitant about a show that spotlights a flowing white gown on a man — plus numerous high heels, sequins, feathers and cross-dressers — you’re apt to enjoy this one.

Especially its poignant everyman ballads that mirror difficult relationships between parents and offspring.

The main theme is acceptance of differences (and getting past stereotypes and bias, despite the show being filled with stereotypes and clichés)  — and finding forgiveness.

In San Francisco, where the opening night audience was about 90 percent un-straight, those notions drew mammoth applause and cheers.

Our seats, in fact, happened to be surrounded by drag queens in full regalia, including glitter, whiteface, battery-lighted fuzzy hats and, naturally, high boots.

They made me think that, although the local run is scheduled to end Dec. 28, the musical potentially could sell out in the Bay Area forever.

Its mass appeal may have exceptions, though. Like the four elderly ladies sitting in the rear with dour expressions opening night that may have indicated they’d bought tickets to the wrong show.

The predictable storyline of “Kinky Boots,” based on the 2005 British film with the same title, has Charlie Price, a young Northampton owner of a failing shoe factory, getting help from Lola, a transvestite cabaret star.

They start producing tall high-heeled boots aimed for cross-dressers, so they must appeal to a wearer’s feminine side while supporting a man’s weight.

Kyle Taylor Parker is astounding as Lola, evoking sympathy and compassion while singing in multiple registers, and Steven Booth displays passion, vulnerability and power in the role of Charlie.

Although Parker’s diva rendition of  “Hold Me in Your Heart,” is a showstopper, so is a comedic number, “The History of Wrong Guys,” performed by Lindsay Nicole Chambers as Lauren, an assembly worker with a crush on Charlie.

The raucous “Sex Is in the Heel,” featuring Lola and six backups, The Angels, also is a major crowd-pleaser.

“Everybody Say Yeah” is yet another winner. It’s a gospel-like rocker highlighted by performers dancing, sitting and reclining on a moving — and separated — assembly line.

But the song that touched my heart and sensibilities the most was a tender duet between Lola and Charlie, “Not My Father’s Son.”

Lauper’s lyrics, by the way, are inspirational spirit-boosters — for drag queens, heterosexuals and virtually anyone with a heartbeat.

They can encapsulate significance in a few words.

• “You can’t move on if you’re still in the past.”

• “There’s a roomful of people who need to feel normal — comparatively speaking.”

• “You’re in my fantasy.”

The book by Harvey Fierstein is alternately funny and sensitive, albeit a tad preachy.

Jerry Mitchell deserves plaudits, too, for his direction and vigorous choreography — including a distinctive slo-mo boxing ring scene.

Still, “Kinky Boots” isn’t for everyone.

Those uncomfortable with not hearing every lyric enunciated perfectly, or having to decipher a makeshift English accent, or with in the company of transvestites or others different from themselves are advised to stay home.

For the rest, it’s pretty much a guaranteed evening of good feelings, glitz ‘n’ glamor.

“Kinky Boots” will play at the SHN Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco, through Dec. 28. Night performances Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m.; Special performance, Friday, Dec. 26 at 2 p.m. Tickets: $75 to $300 (subject to change). Information: (888) 746-1799 or shnsf.com.

[Woody’s [rating: 5]

Not everything Bobby McFerrin does musically is a 10. Once in a rare while he descends to a nine and a half.

In 1984, my wife heard a solo cut from his second album on jazz radio. She rushed out to buy “The Voice,” then made me listen.

I became an instant acolyte.

Soon, we caught him live in a Noe Valley church.

He vocalized unusual but pleasing sounds I hadn’t heard and, adding depth and texture, rhythmically pounded his chest in what I didn’t know would be recognized as beatboxing.

Humor was his sidekick.

Later we heard him reimagine all the “The Wizard of Oz” sounds and voices, and later yet watched him during a San Francisco rehearsal of Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion.”

Clearly we’d found a musical magician, a guy with a four octave vocal range able to transform his environment with improvisational genius.

Through the years he stretched his talent, his genres and his venues.

He won 10 Grammys and, with “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” reached the top of the pop charts. He collaborated with classical superstar Yo-Yo Ma and jazz hall-of-famer Chick Corea. He assembled an improv vocal troupe, Voicestra. And he conducted the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony and the Vienna Philharmonic.

His conducting debut, with the San Francisco Symphony, took place on his 40th birthday, 25 years ago.

I watched him conduct that orchestra (which is always splendid) and sing George Gershwin this month.

His hair and dreadlocks now are tinged with white. But his talents haven’t aged; they have, rather, expanded exponentially.

His concerts include frolicking galore. He likes to tell people he’s a graduate of MSU — “Making Stuff Up”

McFerrin bent his “Porgy and Bess” set, for instance, to include “I Got Rhythm,” a Gershwin tune that was never part of the jazz opera score; and an improv medley with “A Horse with No Name,” a countrified falsetto duet featuring him and his bassist, Jeff Carney, and a free-form “I Want to Thank You for Letting Me Be Myself Again,” none of which bore any resemblance to Gershwin.

He also playfully superimposed a British accent on “A Foggy Day.”

Periodically switching between registers to create polyphonic effects, McFerrin ultimately managed to saturate the set with “Porgy” tunes based on Gil Evans’ arrangements for Miles Davis: “Summertime,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing.”

His superb backup trio, functioning sans symphony, showcased pianist-arranger Gil Goldstein, who’d been an Evans’ protégé, and drummer Louis Cato.

McFerrin, who fingered the mic as if playing the clarinet (his first childhood instrument), also injected a screechy comedic voice that reminded me of Flip Wilson’s character Geraldine.

But “Porgy and Bess” has a special place in the singer’s heart.

His father, a baritone, was first African-American man to sing New York City’s Metropolitan Opera. The senior McFerrin also sang the “Porgy” role in Otto Preminger’s 1958 film, for lip-synching actor Sidney Poitier.

As a child, Bobby McFerrin was inundated with the music of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye, Led Zeppelin and Sergio Mendes, then the Beatles and Miles Davis — all overlaid with Verdi and other classical strains.

Plus Gershwin.

So it figures that using his voice as a multi-faceted instrument on “Rhapsody in Blue” might feel natural.

Ditto his conducting “An American in Paris.”

McFerrin’s audience was diverse in ethnicity. And age.

Within seconds, I spied an old man hobbling on crutches and a young girl hobbling on what obviously were her first high heels.

The gender split seemed equal.

I know not what occurred in the ladies room, but several guys were singing his encore — “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” Gershwin’s final composition — at the urinals after the two-hour show.

McFerrin’s been quoted saying, “I try not to ‘perform’ onstage. I try to sing the way I sing in my kitchen.”

He pulls it off.

Onstage at Davies Hall, he appeared at ease. And because he was having fun, his attitude spread over the audience.

Which gave him a standing ovation.

Of course.

Upcoming pop performance at Davies, Grove Street (between Van Ness and Franklin), San Francisco, will include “A New Year’s Event with Seth MacFarlane” Dec. 31, and “Patti LuPone: Far Away Places”(without symphony) Feb. 23. Information: (415) 864-6400 or www.sfsymphony.org.

December is not National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Neither was November.

October was.

So that means we needn’t think about it for the next 10 or 11 months, right?

Certainly every American woman who’s had the disease — all 250,000 diagnosed annually, all 2 million living with it — can relax ‘cause it’ll automatically go into remission until October 2015.

No?

Maybe that’s why I’m angry.

Despite claims that October’s pink ribbon barrage will fill research coffers, I don’t think awareness should be limited to one month-long streak of sentience a year.

I live on a San Anselmo hill with a fabulous woman who contracted breast cancer 20 years ago.

Yes, she’s survived the disease, the treatments, the trauma and the aftermath. But her survival doesn’t for a minute mean she won’t shudder the next time she goes for a mammogram. Or every time she feels a twang in her right breast.

Or the other one.

Or, indeed, each time she gets any kind of ache anywhere.

I’m outraged because I know breast cancer is chronic and can recur anytime and therefore I must spread hope 365 days a year (while some folks revel in making supportive noises one-twelfth of a calendar year).

The truth is, breast cancer hasn’t quite cornered the U.S. market on October awareness.

That month also has been abducted by advocates of sudden infant death and Down’s syndromes, infertility, pizza and liver and popcorn, domestic violence, dental hygiene, LGBT history, blindness, cyber security, mental illness, Hispanics and Americans with German, Filipino, Italian and Polish backgrounds.

Not to mention dwarfism.

All of which seems to spread awareness a little thin, I contend.

I’m livid that pink ribbons — whose main goal initially was to fund research for a cure — have become a marketing tool for all sorts of merchandise that have little to do with breast cancer and a lot to do with profit.

Do I worry about potential repercussions of making my resentments public?

No, especially since I’ve just published a book with a VitalityPress imprint that not only chronicles the downs but the many, many ups of my being a caregiver for my wife.

I’m hoping it will appropriately distribute awareness.

“Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer” is available at www.Amazon.com. The ebook sells for $9.99, the paperback for slightly less than the $18.18 that I initially established as a salute to the Hebrew word chai, which stands for both the numeral and the word “life.”

It’s a bargain if you want to learn what you might go through as caregiver or patient, what advances has occurred in breast cancer research or meds, or where to get help.

My book’s aimed at men.

You know about us — most believe we can fix anything. We can’t.

Most loathe being vulnerable. But we must be.

And most despise surrendering control. Yet sometimes we’re given no choice — like when our partners get a life-threatening disease.

For 19 years I’ve been running Marin Man to Man, a weekly support group where drop-in members often decode what physicians and other healers say (or don’t).

Along the way I’ve picked up a few to-do’s. I share them in “Rollercoaster.”

• The physical and mental health of a male caregiver is as urgent as the patient’s.

• It feels good to let go of anger at doctors for not having instant answers; at pharmaceutical companies for manufacturing life-extending but not necessarily life-saving drugs; at yourself for not having a magic wand.

• It’s crucial to remember each person is an individual, not a statistic (and that breast cancer couldn’t care less about race, creed, sexual orientation or politics, that it’s the most common cancer among Israelis and Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank).

• Downloading or renting comedies, taking walks, reading or listening to whatever brings you pleasure, encircling yourselves with folks who evoke positive feelings — all may boost your spirits (and your partner’s).

• Living one day at a time is good medicine, but best of all might be doing today what you’ve postponed forever.

Having absorbed those things, I can now sit here in my cozy Ross Valley home and pass along the verbal talisman my sainted Jewish grandmother blessed me with so often:

“Go in good health.”

Check out Woody Weingarten’s new blog at www.vitalitypress.com/ or contact him at voodee@sbcglobal.net.

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5]

Molly Ivins spent her entire life at war.

With her father. With Republicans. With breast cancer and with herself.

She lost them all.

Along the way, however, the acid-tongued writer made readers of almost 400 newspapers that carried her syndicated material laugh.

And reflect what lay underneath the jokes.

For four decades.

Ivins, in fact, caps my personal pantheon of columnists.

Alongside Maureen Dowd and Jimmy Breslin, other wordsmith-provocateurs armed with stylized, barbed wit.

So I was pre-programmed to watch a gravel-throated Kathleen Turner shine in the Berkeley Rep’s one-woman show, “Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins”

And she did.

In nearly every snippet of the 70-minute monologue that whizzes by.

It didn’t hurt that I’d twice before enjoyed her — in the title role of “Tallulah” in 2001 and as Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in 2007, both on San Francisco stages.

And that didn’t count films in which she truly sizzled, “Body Heat,” “Romancing the Stone” and “Peggy Sue Got Married.”

Turner captures Ivins’ outrage, as well as her battle to corral her emotions.

Ivins, a liberal Lone Star State lone wolf surrounded by a drove of politically conservative Texas sheep, had it tough from the git-go.

Her privileged mom — perhaps referencing Molly’s red hair, tallness and intelligence — labeled her “a Saint Bernard among Greyhounds.” Her right-wing father (“General Jim”) gave her no quarter, no love, but plenty of time at the dinner table to hone her skills at arguing.

But her brains and one-liners boosted her to success in a male-dominated industry.

I first considered not quoting her lines, but decided they bettered anything I could cook up. She admits loving Texas, for instance, but calls the sensation “a harmless perversion.”

While at The New York Times for six years, she declares, “I was miserable — at five times my previous salary.”

And she hopes “my legacy will be to be a pain in the ass to those in power.”

Turner proficiently captures the essence of Ivins, or at least the essence of her wisecracks. But the show, written by twin journalistically involved sisters, Margaret and Allison Engel, is skeletal at best.

Ivins’ siblings, the stuffed armored armadillo on her desk, her involvement with the ACLU and her compassion for African Americans, her cigarette smoking — all get bare-bones mentions, or none at all. Her troubles with the bottle are but fleetingly addressed (and dismissed as par for the newsroom course). Her love affairs (one man died in a motorcycle accident, another in Vietnam) also get short shrift.

And her daddy issues never get resolved (despite a struggle to write a tribute column).

The set is likewise skimpy.

It consists mainly of three castoff desks in the rear, her desk in the foreground (which allows Turner to pound on an antique typewriter), and an Associated Press machine that spits out old columns the character can cite.

Helpful is a large screen onto which black-and-white images are projected from the past: A newspaper library (“the morgue”). A rare female co-worker. A string of Texas politicos.

It’s as if I get to thumb through a fading family album.

The problem is, the photos of the real Ivins, who died in 2007, clash with Turner’s non-matching face.

The shots do depict many of the people she targeted, however, including George W. Bush, whom she knew in high school and subsequently dubbed “Shrub.”

She was not his biggest fan.

Indeed, she wrote, “Instead of 1,000 points of light, we got one dim bulb.”

Turner, who’d starred in the 2010 debut of “Red Hot Patriot,” has obviously gained poundage since her Tinseltown sexpot days. Partly due to drugs to fight years of rheumatoid arthritis, partly to the alcohol she’s consumed to quell pain.

Director David Esbjornson has done what he can to turn the monologue into a play — having her sit on the stage’s edge and its floor.

He even utilizes a silent male stooge as a copy boy, a device he might blue-pencil without loss.

But the brightest element won’t disappear: Turner’s mouth.

All in all, “Red Hot Patriot” is lightweight and fun — unless, I suppose, you’re a card-carrying member of the Tea Party.

And with Jeb Bush being touted as the leading GOP candidate for president in 2016, this lingers: “The next time I tell you someone named Bush should not be president, please pay attention.”

“Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins” plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre‘s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St. (off Shattuck), Berkeley, through Jan. 4. Night performances, Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14.50 to $113, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.