{"id":19329,"date":"2015-06-27T13:32:37","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T20:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=19329"},"modified":"2015-06-27T13:34:07","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T20:34:07","slug":"puzzle-like-57-scene-play-in-restored-san-francisco-theater-enthralls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/puzzle-like-57-scene-play-in-restored-san-francisco-theater-enthralls\/","title":{"rendered":"Puzzle-like 57-scene play in restored San Francisco theater enthralls"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 2.5]<\/span><\/p>\n

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Shona Tucker (left) and Sharon Lockwood turn their faces into communicative canvases in \u201cLove and Information.\u201d Photo by Kevin Berne.5]<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Cindy Goldfield (left) and Dominique Salerno enjoy Chinese food and dialogue in \u201cLove and Information.\u201d Photo by Kevin Berne.<\/p>\n

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Dan Hiatt (left) and Anthony Fusco portray forgetful ex-lovers in \u201cLove and Information.\u201d Photo by Kevin Berne.<\/p>\n
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Leo Marks (left) and Joe Holt relish video game in \u201cLove and Information.\u201d Photo by Kevin Berne.<\/p>\n
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Sharon Lockwood and Dan Hiatt catch a bit of sun in \u201cLove and Information.\u201d Photo by Kevin Berne.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

I couldn\u2019t help fantasizing at A.C.T.\u2019s experimental \u201cLove and Information.\u201d<\/p>\n

English playwright Caryl Churchill\u2019s plot-less, 57-scene scattergun technique goaded me into it.<\/p>\n

I had the distinct impression she\u2019d dreamed \u2014 before writing this play \u2014 that Samuel Beckett, spouting weighty sentence fragments, was pitted against Harpo Marx\u2019s deadpan and wide-eyed comedic facial exaggerations while Ingmar Bergman flashed myriad disparate images on a split-screen behind them.<\/p>\n

\u201cLove and Information,\u201d playing at the refurbished Strand Theater, introduced me to some 140 mostly unnamed characters in 100 minutes.<\/p>\n

Through a stellar 12-member cast that magically spun many of the vignettes into gold.<\/p>\n

Enthralling.<\/p>\n

Yet, finally, a touch frustrating.<\/p>\n

As if someone had stolen more than a few pieces of a new jigsaw puzzle I was being asked to put together.<\/p>\n

Because so many of the pieces were mere fragments (ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes), audience members got to plug the holes from our personal histories and baggage \u2014 though we had to think fast because the next scene always tested our minds instantly after the last, much like one Henny Youngman gagline following another without a breath.<\/p>\n

My favorite moments included two men humorously and poignantly misremembering yesterday\u2019s love affair, two teens freaked out because they didn\u2019t know a personal detail about a crush on a guy they both had, two dudes discussing an apparent direct message from God, and a woman reflecting about life and death after being gifted with a red rose.<\/p>\n

Not exactly light subjects.<\/p>\n

But being inundated with technology was the main target of Churchill\u2019s stylized shorthand, with lust and longing (as opposed to love) finishing a distant second.<\/p>\n

By not writing stage directions or character descriptions into the text, and by suggesting vignettes could move from any of the seven segments to another, she gave directors and their whims plenty of latitude.<\/p>\n

\u201cLove and Information,\u201d therefore, has varied radically from city to city.<\/p>\n

Here, director Casey Stangl did astonishingly well \u2014 especially since I occasionally felt as though a carnival mirror had been shattered and I was left to reassemble endless shards.<\/p>\n

Introducing the first show produced at the refurbished Strand, Carrie Perloff, the American Conservatory Theater\u2019s longtime artistic director, cited Stangl\u2019s having successfully built the production while the house was \u201cbeing built around her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perloff also referenced the old Strand, where she teasingly suggested theatergoers might have caught films like \u201cThe Rocky Horror Show\u201d or \u201cDeep Throat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLove and Information,\u201d which opened in London in 2012, felt a gadzillion miles from such classic movies \u2014 in both tone and concept.<\/p>\n

It had no overall arc or linear storyline. Its scenes left the sensation of being almost<\/em> randomized.<\/p>\n

Perhaps because of those elements, the rebuilt 283-seat theater, which cost almost $35 million (and includes an even more intimate stage, The Rueff, which seats only 140), seemed like an ideal venue.<\/p>\n

The huge onstage screen in effect became the set. Movable, unattached doors were basically the only addition (except for various tables and chairs used as props).<\/p>\n

Before the show on opening night, actors mingled with the lobby crowd and performed shtick such as dancing wildly to plugged-in music, burying oneself almost catatonically in an iPhone, coughing and sneezing loudly and frequently. A huge LED screen flashed brief previews of what was to come inside \u2014 plus other glimpses of items relating to communication (such as binary numbers, Pig Latin and a tagger spraying graffiti with gaudy paint).<\/p>\n

Inside, the screen at the rear of the stage \u2014 which later would feature eclectic images that incorporated photos of Market Street \u2014 showed a live feed of the audience itself.<\/p>\n

Besides the quasi-trauma of seeing myself projected, I was subjected to a surreal moment:<\/p>\n

Early in the play, a patron\u2019s cell phone went off, adding a bouncy pop tune to the ambience. Had I not been sitting next to the guy, I undoubtedly would have thought it was yet another disconnected part of the play.<\/p>\n

Unlike Churchill\u2019s \u201cCloud Nine,\u201d \u201cTop Girls\u201d or \u201cSerious Money,\u201d \u201cLove and Information\u201d might be a perfect fit for anyone with a short attention span.<\/p>\n

And maybe \u2014 in today\u2019s exhaustingly frenetic fast-everything world in which \u201cUSA Today\u201d and \u201cTMZ\u201d head the most-read, most-watched lists \u2014 that could apply to all of us.<\/p>\n

“Love and Information\u201d plays at the American Conservatory Theater\u2019s Strand Theater, 1127 Market St., San Francisco, through Aug. 9. Night performances, 7 p.m. Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, Matinees, 2 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays. Tickets: $40 to $100. Information: (415) 749-2228 or www.act-sf.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Contact Woody Weingarten at www.vitalitypress.com\/<\/a> or voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 2.5] I couldn\u2019t help fantasizing at A.C.T.\u2019s experimental \u201cLove and Information.\u201d English playwright Caryl Churchill\u2019s plot-less, 57-scene scattergun technique goaded me into it. I had the distinct impression…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"