{"id":8333,"date":"2013-10-26T18:34:20","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T01:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=8333"},"modified":"2013-10-26T19:47:25","modified_gmt":"2013-10-27T02:47:25","slug":"3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/3\/","title":{"rendered":"Play about Bill Gates enthralls, but with a big \u2018but\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating:2.5]\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
\"\"

Jeremy Kahn and Rinabeth Apostol are counterpoints as Bill Gates and Luz Ruiz in \u201cFirst.\u201d Photo: Kent Taylor.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cFirst\u201d is a fictional glimpse into the future of today from the yesterday of 1976.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an episodic feast of words and ideas \u2014 for geeks, freaks, nerds and eggheads. Or recovering or aging geeks, freaks, nerds and eggheads.For others not obsessed with computers, not so much.<\/p>\n

Count me in the latter list.<\/p>\n

Why? Because the 105-minute play\u2019s excessively crammed with factoids and history and real icons of the computer and software universe that may make delicious provender for techies but overpower folks like me.<\/p>\n

I remember having a friend in the early \u201880s who swore by The Well, a social networking site where co-owner and \u201cFirst\u201d playwright Evelyn Jean Pine first experienced this \u2018n\u2019 that.<\/p>\n

My gal-pal constantly regaled me with stories of bulletin boards and other now-obsolete niceties \u2014 niceties I couldn\u2019t grok (or sometimes even pronounce properly).<\/p>\n

I remember that she\u2019d tell me of the hours and hours she\u2019d spent on this game or that, on locating this obscure piece of trivia or that.<\/p>\n

And I recall endlessly discussing such nonsense like whether online should be spelled on-line or OnLine instead.<\/p>\n

Mostly, I couldn\u2019t get excited. Then.<\/p>\n

But I got hooked on the software and hardware like everyone else (just as Bill Gates and his Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, and a handful of other technology prophets had predicted).<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst,\u201d which was commissioned and developed by PlayGround and which will play in the tiny Theatre Werx space through Nov. 3, details the origins of the digital revolution.<\/p>\n

With drama. And humor.Exactly how much is accurate, how much exaggerated, I can\u2019t say.<\/p>\n

But I can say that it\u2019s interesting.<\/p>\n

And entertaining.<\/p>\n

And amusing.<\/p>\n

And that all six actors are competent at worst, excellent at best. The latter category includes Jeremy Kahn as a 20-year-old Gates, a mono-focused, egocentric boy wonder, and Rinabeth Apostol as Luz Ruiz, ex-pot dealer waitress.<\/p>\n

Ruiz, the only grounded character, acts as a significant counterpoint to the head-in-the-clouds, persona non grata Gates.Instead of perceiving him as a future-seeking marvel, she sees him as \u201cthe kid doing wheelies in the parking lot this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

She speaks in English, he in gobbledygook.<\/p>\n

Except for a telling moment when he seriously advises her, \u201cPeople let you do anything \u2014\u00a0if you push hard enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The catch-all scene is the first personal computer conference.<\/p>\n

There, Gates, a Harvard absentee, faces Ed Roberts (David Cramer) \u2014 a real-life guy who manufactured the first commercially successful PC kit, the $397 Altair.<\/p>\n

He faces, too, a horde of customers irate because he\u2019s demanding they stop sharing software.<\/p>\n

Gates reads hate mail; the throng he perceives is \u201crobbing him blind\u201d boos; and Roberts (\u201cI didn\u2019t know I was inventing the future\u201d) futilely urges him to apologize to the crowd.<\/p>\n

Michael French directed this world premiere, and does well for the most part.<\/p>\n

He does stumble into opaqueness a couple of times, however \u2014 when staging a game of keep-away with a Basic code disc, for example, and when IBM marketer Kevin Panik (Tim Green) does an awkward striptease.It\u2019s also problematic trying to define a flighty character, Georgia Potts (Brandice Marie Thompson), self-taught programmer and computer addict who\u2019s drawn to Valentine Smith (Gregory W. Knotts), visionary-dreamer-philosopher who renamed himself for a character in a sci-fi novel, \u201cStranger in a Strange Land,\u201d a title that doubles as a \u201cFirst\u201d theme.<\/p>\n

Without the humor or the Ruiz character, this would be a mediocre portrait but plot-less play. With them, it\u2019s notable.<\/p>\n

The real Gates might be pleased with his visage here, but he most likely hates that his love-child company may be following the path of IBM into irrelevancy.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019d definitely despise that I\u2019m writing this review on an iMac.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst\u201d runs at Stage Werx, 446 Valencia St., between 15th and Sparrow streets, San Francisco, through Nov. 3. Night performances, 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; matinees, 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets: $25 to $35. Information: (415) 992-6677 or www.playground-sf.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating:2.5]\u00a0 \u201cFirst\u201d is a fictional glimpse into the future of today from the yesterday of 1976. It\u2019s an episodic feast of words and ideas \u2014 for geeks, freaks, nerds…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-8333","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":"