Mamma Mia! returns: How can we resist you?

Posted on December 6, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: Christine Sherrill (center, top) is Donna Sheridan with the company of Mamma Mia! 25th Anniversary Tour at the Golden Gate Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season through Dec. 10. BELOW: Grant Reynolds (front) is Sky, the groom, with members of the company. Photos by Joan Marcus

When Mamma Mia!, the jukebox musical recycling the hits of ABBA, had its U.S. premiere in November of 2000, I was there in the audience at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre, singing along and admiring the way director Phyllida Lloyd and book writer Catherine Johnson shoehorned beloved pop hits into a manufactured plot. There’s a wedding on a little Greek island and the bride, raised by a single mom, is determined to figure out which of her mother’s three old flames is her father. So the mom’s money woes erupts into “Money, Money, Money” and a wedding kerfuffle ends in “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do.” A bachelorette bash continues the repetitive song title theme with “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” and an older woman rebuffs a young man’s advances with “Does Your Mother Know.”

It was all good fun, and nearly 25 years later, it still is. The 25th anniversary touring production is rolling through San Francisco, this time at the Golden Gate Theatre, as part of the BroadwaySF season. This is probably the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen the show, and I will say the returns are definitely diminishing. The most bothersome aspect of this production is its sound design and music direction. If the show can’t be good, it can certainly be LOUD, or at least that seems to be the theory in play here. And the six-piece band honestly comes across as a pretty talented high school ABBA tribute band. All those meticulous production details that made ABBA songs some of the most immaculately constructed pop songs of all time are blurred and buried in washes of electric keyboard programming that barely feels live.

Disney’s The Lion King (also in town for the holiday season) actually has a lot in common with Mamma Mia!. Both have been around for a quarter of a century and both are still going strong around the globe. Both have earned billions at the box office (King’s $8 billion to Mamma’s $4 billion). And each has its distinctive appeal. Disney offers puppets, masks and gorgeous spectacle. And Mamma Mia! has those glorious, spirit-lifting pop songs. But in this tour, some of the voices, the orchestra and the volume are not doing those songs any favors.

That said, the Mamma Mia! machine still motors on, with some aspects as enjoyable as ever. Act 1 still has most of the fun. Three women re-living their days of being glam-rock singers yields irresistible “Chiquitita” and “Dancing Queen” and a bachelor party in scuba gear is still a blast in “Lay All Your Love on Me.”

Of the voices on stage, my favorite belongs to Carly Sakolove, an old pal of the bride’s mom. She gets a lively solo in “Take a Chance on Me,” but she could sing the whole score, and I’d be happy. Her way with the comedy (such as it is) also has a nice punch. That’s also true of Jalynn Steele as another old friend – this one rich, oft-divorced and full of wisecracks.

Act 2 gets bogged down with ballads and plot, but that leaves the best for last. The curtain call, when all pretense of story are banished, becomes a ’70s flashback concert with shiny costumes, some reprises of songs from the show (“Dancing Queen,” “Mamma Mia”) and one that isn’t (“Waterloo”). Pure, unadulterated (and perhaps I mentioned about this production) loud ABBA music that we are invited to sing and dance to. After all, isn’t that what Sondheim and Rodgers and Hammerstein were aiming for when they kept reinventing musical theater?

Back in 2000, when I reviewed Mamma Mia! for the first time, I wrote: “The end result is an earnestly pleasing show that tries hard to be a real musical with a real plot but never extends much beyond a new way to hear old favorites.”

I stand by that, and I don’t think I need to see the show again – or at least not until it gets some dark, wonderful reimagining. Could be a long wait.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Mamma Mia! The 25th Anniversary Tour continues through Dec. 10 as part of the BroadwaySF season at the Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco. Tickets are $. Running time: . Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com.
The show moves to the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts Dec. 12-17 as part of the Broadway San Jose season. Click for info.

Hot Coco spices up Golden Girls in 18th year

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: The cast of The Golden Girls Live: The Christmas Episodes at the Victoria Theatre includes (from left) Coco Peru as Dorothy, Holotta Tymes as Sophia, D’Arcy Drollinger as Rose and Matthew Martin as Blanche. BELOW: Martin, Peru, Tymes and Drollinger catch up on their People reading. Photos by Gareth Gooch

This time of year you have your Christmas Carols and your Nutcrackers. Here in San Francisco we have those, but we also have our own traditions. Now in its 18th year, The Golden Girls Live: The Christmas Episodes is one of our homegrown best.

This year’s installment at the Victoria Theatre comes with a tinge of sadness. This is the first production without the late, great Heklina, one of the driving forces behind the show and also one its stars. She played Dorothy Zbornak, the role created in the original TV sereis by Bea Arthur. So who to fill those large (in every sense) shoes?

That’s where the good news comes in. Drag legend and comedy dynamo Miss Coco Peru is now playing Dorothy, and she is superb. It probably helps that Coco was friends with Heklina and Bea Arthur, but she brings her own deft comic timing and inimitable stage presence to the part and absolutely shines. Dry and droll and funny as hell, Coco is the golden gift we all need this holiday season.

Another highly enjoyable aspect of this holiday outing – two episodes from the long-running series, this year they are “From Here to the Pharmacy” from 1991 and “Goodbye Mr. Gordon” from 1992 – is the wildly different styles of the performers. D’Arcy Drollinger (San Francisco’s first drag laureate, thank you very much) directs and co-stars as Rose Nyland (the Betty White) part, and the acting style could best be described as shameless mugging – and it’s hilarious.

Holotta Tymes is Sophia Petrillo, Dorothy’s mother, and Tymes is so spot-on in the re-creation of Estelle Getty’s indelible characterization that it’s almost like we’re seeing the real thing. And then there’s Matthew Martin, long one of San Francisco’s treasures, as Blanche Devereaux. He takes a little of original star Rue McClanahan and amps up the character with sexpot elements borrowed from every great movie star diva from the 1940s.

The star performers – the Girls, if you will – are experts at squeezing laughs from the sitcom script, but they also seem to be having a ball, laughing at each other and encouraging boisterous audience response. It also helps that the scripts themselves can be laugh-out-loud funny. Some of Dorothy’s lines, especially as delivered by the delectable Coco, are devastatingly funny. My favorite from the first act is, “I’ll say hail Marys until Madonna has a hit movie.” That’s followed closely by Sophia saying she’s saving money for her old age, to which Dorothy gasps, “Old age? You don’t leave fingerprints anymore!”

As in previous years, during the transition moments when there would be commercials on the show, the live version hands the stage over to Tom Shaw for rousing holiday sing-alongs. The raucous songs combined with flowing cocktails from the bar (in the lobby and in the theater before the show and during intermission) gives the even the feel of a Christmas party on the verge of exploding. For my money, this time of year if you’re searching for festivity, that’s just the kind of place you want to be. Thank you for being a friend, indeed.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes continues through Dec. 23 at the Victora Theatre, 2961 16th St., San Francisco. Tickets are $40-$75. Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes. Visit goldengirlslive.com for tickets and info.

Yes, Disney’s Lion King is still roaring

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: Gerald Ramsey is Mufasa in the North American touring company of The Lion King. Photo by Matthew Murphy ©Disney BELOW: The Lionesses dance. Photo by Deen van Mee ©Disney

This year for the holidays, BroadwaySF is giving us the equivalent of hot cocoa and nachos – comfort theater in the form of Disney’s The Lion King (now at the Orpheum Theatre) and Mamma Mia! beginning next week at the Golden Gate Theatre. The former has been around for 26 years and the latter for 24. While not exactly fresh, they’re reliable, enjoyable and, more to the point, beloved.

I last saw The Lion King about seven years ago at the Orpheum (read my review here), and the current tour feels sturdier in terms of performances and the overall production. It’s still a spectacularly beautiful show, and Disney has obviously invested in maintaining it at a high level. Other touring perennials (looking at you Les Misérables) seem to shrink in every way, making shortcuts (like too much video) and “reimagining” when they mean “reducing the budget.” But The Lion King is still mighty.

The weak tea Shakespearean book is never going to be one of my favorite musical comedy plots (it was fine for the animated feature, but the songs and spectacle could use more), but this King is all about director Julie Taymor’s ultra-theatrical production – a combination South African cultural festival, modern dance program (thank you, choreographer Garth Fagan) and phantasmagorical explosion of world puppet and mask traditions.

Taymor has blended her outsize theatrical vision with the more mundane aspects of the movie (comic relief, winky modern references, cardboard cutout bad guys) so that the 2 1/2-hour show moves expertly along, but it definitely feels like Taymor was way more invested in conveying the essence and beauty of African nature and wildlife than in the mechanics of storytelling.

There are two knockout numbers in Act 1, the processional, magisterial “Circle of Life” and the exuberant, dazzling “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,” alongside the still-dazzling effect of a wildebeest stampede. Which leaves Act 2 rather barren of high points. The act opener, a straightforward human musical number called “One by One” is charming, and then we get the nearly great “He Lives in You (Reprise)” to close the show. Before the curtain calls, we get a reprise of “Circle of Life” and more amazing animals, but nothing really new other than plot resolution, and that comes way too easily and predictably (kind of like in a Marvel movie).

But here’s what’s so great about The Lion Knig – it’s easy to love for anyone of any age. For many kids, this is their first taste of live theater, and it’s sophisticated in its theatricality while still being easy to digest. There’s a darkness to it (stemming from a lot of death in the story) that sits easily alongside the brighter moments, and the inherent message about maintaining the balance of nature, is no small accomplishment.

In this touring company, special shout out to Julian Villela as Young Simba (sharing the role with Mason Lawason), a star in the making. Charming, assured and affecting, Villela commands the stage like an absolute pro. Gerald Ramsey as Mufasa also makes a strong impression, especially vocally on “They Live in You.” I tend to resist the cornball schtick of Timon and Pumbaa, but Nick Cordileone and John E. Brady respectively are pitch perfect.

On Broadway and around the world, The Lion King musical has reportedly raked in over $8 billion. That’s astonishing. But given the rapturous response of Wednesday’s opening-night audience, it’s not all that surprising. It’s well made, beautifully produced entertainment. It raised the bar for Disney’s theatrical pursuits, a bar the mighty Mouse still hasn’t surpassed.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Disney’s The Lion King continues through Dec. 30 as part of the BroadwaySF season at the Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco. Tickets are $66.50-$300.50 (subject to change). Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes (including one intermission). Call or visit broadwaysf.com.

Captivating Crudup makes us wild about Harry

Posted on November 21, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE AND BELOW: Emmy and Tony Award-winner Billy Crudup stars in David Cale’s dazzling Harry Clarke at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre through Dec. 23 Photos by Kevin Berne

There’s no question here: the show to see this season is Billy Crudup starring in David Cale’s Harry Clarke at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Alone on the stage of the Roda Theatre for 80 minutes, Crudup creates an entire world of fascinating, flawed people, and at the center of it all is a man whose life is, in a way, theater.

That’s the genius of Cale’s play. He has created a story about acting and playing characters, but it’s not at all about the theater (except for one scene that takes place at a play). It’s about a continuum of being someone other than who you really are, and it goes from creating and playing a character for fun, excitement and challenge (or, perhaps, to shield oneself from the pain of the real world) to believing you are that character to fully crossing over into a state that could yield a mental health diagnosis.

Working with the seamless direction of Leigh Silverman, Crudup takes every appealing thing about his movie and television characters and populates the stage with people who want to be dazzled (entertained? overwhelmed?) by a forceful personality who will exert some influence on their lives. If that kind of charismatic, forceful person doesn’t actually exist, well then, he may just have to be invented.

The less you know about the plot of Harry Clark the better because it’s unraveling is so deliciously enticing. Cale has created an improbable but highly entertaining play with sharp twists and turns peppered with hearty laughs even though it’s not a comedy. And there is Crudup, handsome and in total control (even when the characters are not), making it all look effortless (when surely it’s not). The momentum that he, Cale and Silverman create is so propulsive, so captivating that the end comes far too quickly. And even though the play’s conclusion is a little too easy, you still don’t want your time with Crudup and his stageful of personalities to be over.

Crudup is a beguiling storyteller who is both inside and outside the play – a fascinating place to be for an actor – but it also happens to be where his main character lives as well. Inside and outside his own life. Crudup has the advantage of a sharp playwright guiding the action and a subtle but perfect design team – Alexander Dodge (set), Alan C. Edwards (lights), Kaye Voyce (costume), Bart Fassbender (sound) – to help shape the world that he conjures so effectively mostly just by standing and delivering (with a skosh of adorable dancing and singing).

It’s a stunning experience full of imagination (of a mostly R-rated variety), gusto and thrilling theatricality.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
David Cale’s Harry Clarke continues through Dec. 23 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Running time: 80 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $22.50–$134 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.

Bonus Audiobook
If you can’t make it to Berkeley Rep (or, if the show sells out, which it is likely to), Crudup’s performance was recorded in 2018 off Broadway by Audible and is available here (along with Cale’s one-man show, Lillian).

Of beauty, Bulrusher and Boontling

Posted on November 2, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: Jordan Tyson is the title character in Eisa Davis’ lyrical coming-of-age story, Bulrusher, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. BELOW: Cyndii Johnson (left) is mysterious stranger Vera, Jeorge Bennett Watson (center) is Logger, two people who loom large in the world of Tyson’s Bulrusher (right). Photos by T. Charles Erickson

Sixteen years ago, when I first reviewed Eisa Davis’ Bulrusher in a Shotgun Playes production, I marveled at the practically Shakespearean way Berkeley native Davis blended fantastical language, epic dramatic moments and intimate personal tragedies and triumphs.

All these years later, now that Bulrusher has returned, this time at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in a co-production with the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, N.J., my opinion hasn’t changed. This is a more opulent production, but Davis’ play is a classic American drama ratcheted up a few notches through the powerfully skillful way it looks at race and through the inclusion of Boontling, a jargon particular to Northern California’s Anderson Valley and the Mendocino County town of Boonville. Words like bilchin, bow for and heel scratchin, all of which mean having sex, date back to the late 19th century, and except for in this Pulitzer Prize finalist play, are mostly forgotten today.

You don’t have to know any Boontling to understand the words when they pop up (there’s a handy glossary in the program, which is available digitally and, praise the heavens and apologies to the environment, on actual paper). Davis is such an adept poet that she can slip in the words, and just through context we get the idea.

It seems most of Bulrusher takes place outdoors, and the set by Lawrence E. Moten III conjues an almost fairy tale vision of Mendocino, with the rivers and redwoods, fog and rain. Projection designer Katherine Freer devises the most beautiful evocation of waves crashing on a beach I’ve seen indoors.

There’s a crescent of water at the front of the stage because water is so important to the story. The first person we see in that water is Bulrusher (Jordan Tyson), a young woman who nearly lost her life in that cold water when, as a newborn, her mother set her adrift, like Moses, with only a small raft woven of river weeds to protect her. Bulrusher, a mixed-race baby, was found by a Black logger named Lucas, who goes by Loggeer (Jeorge Bennett Watson) and raised by Schoolch (Jamie LaVerdiere) a schoolteacher of few words.

Bulrusher’s relationship to water is a complicated one. Though the river could have ended her life barely after it started, the water also triggers her second sight. Such clairvoyance and her brown skin make Bulrusher an outcast in Boonville except for her tiny circle, which also includes the proprietor of the local brothel, appropriately called Madame (Shyla Lefner) and a boy (Rob Kellogg) who used to taunt her but now sees her as a possible romantic partner.

Into this contained little world, complete with its own lingo, comes someone from far away. Vera (Cyndii Johnson), fresh of the bus from Alabama, shakes up Bulrusher’s life in a lot of ways, not least because she’s the first Black woman Bulrusher has met, and has tales to tell of a country rife with racial strife and violence.

Secrets, confessions and love all begin to swirl in the wake of Vera’s arrival, and though Act 1 still feels overstuffed with exposition, Act 2 goes all in on the drama. Director Nicole A. Watson and her glorious cast find beauty and power in the lives of ordinary country people who are unafraid to expose their emotions, even at the risk of rejection.

Bulrusher is a long play (nearly three hours including intermission), but it’s worth every minute for the gorgeous and moving conclusion. We’re all familiar with the coming-of-age tropes, but here, we really feel the growth, especially spiritually, of Bulrusher. Tyson’s central performance grows and grows until we’re seeing practically a different person than the one we met hours before. It’s bahl (good) to know a little of the Boontling lingo, but it’s ever so much better to watch a young woman coming into her own power.

FOR MORE INFORMAION
Eisa Davis’ Bulrusher continues through Dec. 3 in Berkeley Repertorty Theatre’s Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $22.50-$134 (subject to change). Running time is nearly 3 hours (including a 15-minute intermission). Call 510-647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.

So a Jew walks into a room ful of neo-Nazis…

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Chad Jones

Alex Edelman has crafted a stand-up comedy/one-man play hybrid in the hilarious Just for Us at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre Oct. 26 and 28. Photos by Matthew Murphy

Alex Edelman is hilarious. And incisive. And just the performer we need right now.

His solo show Just for Us, hot off of its Broadway run, is especially of the moment in its exploration of anti-Semitism, online vitriol and the great American divide. His short run at the Curran Theatre courtesy of BroadwaySF kicks off his tour (next to Los Angeles and then his hometown, Boston), and I couldn’t imagine a more relevant show for this fraught moment in history.

On one level, it’s absolutely enjoyable to watch a skilled performer tell a fascinating story that is both hilarious and cognizant of all the dark and dreary forces at work in our world. There’s nothing wrong with frivolous laughter – bring it on! – but Edelman is such a canny performer that he seems to be shambling through a loose stand-up act when in fact he and director Adam Brace have constructed and finely calibrated a penetrating look into hatred on a colossal scale. This is powerful theater masquerading as a stand-up act.

The central premise is that Edelman did two things you’re not supposed to do: 1) he looked at the comments and 2) he responded to a troll. It happened on the dying platform formerly known as Twitter, and a nasty exchange with an anti-Semite led Edelman to the borough of Queens for a meeting of White Nationalists, where, for a little while, he passed for “white” (the gorgons at the meeting do not consider Semites to be the right kind of white).

For 90 minutes, the high-octane Edelman takes us into the details of that night. Is he really attracted to one of the women there, imagining a rom-com only Mel Brooks could dream of? Are there really jigsaw puzzles that take three months to complete? But he also frequently veers off into his Jewish Orthodox upbringing and tales of a young David Yosef Shimon ben Elazer Reuven Halevi Alexander Edelman navigating yeshiva, his relationship with Judaism and, to great comic effect, an Edelman family attempt at Christmas.

There’s something incredibly satisfying about laughing so robustly at something that is actually awful. It’s like Edelman is playing with electricity on stage and sending bolts out into the audience. Some tickle, some sting. There we all are just laughing away at Edelman’s foibles, and then suddenly one of the meeting’s attendees asks Edelman, “What’s your name,” but it’s not a friendly inquiry. It’s a first level of vetting, and the audience goes stone cold silent.

There’s a fair amount of that guffaw/gulp dynamic in Just for Us, but there’s also comfort in the fact that humor (and bold storytellers like Edelman) can bring us together with a galvanizing force. Together, we can look into the face of the worst of us with a little empathy, a little hope among the ruins and, mercifully, more big laughs than I’ve had in a very long time.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Alex Edelman’s Just for Us continues a short run through Oct. 28 at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco. Running time is 90 minutes (no intermission). Tickets start at $46. Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com.

Anthony Rapp mines grief and triumph in moving Without You

Posted on October 20, 2023 by Chad Jones

Anthony Rapp explores his life and work, his triumphs and his tragedies, in the solo show Without You at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre. Photos by Russ Rowland

In the blockbuster musical Rent, Anthony Rapp originated the role of Mark Cohen, a filmmaker who uses his camera as a sort of shield to protect himself from the pain and drama that seems to overwhelm the world he’s documenting. As Rapp points out in his deeply moving musical solo show Without You, now at the Curran Theatre courtesy of BroadwaySF, when he was involved in the first off-Broadway production of Rent at the New York Theatre Workshop, like Mark, he started documenting the process through his own camera – a detail that didn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated by Rent creator Jonathan Larson.

In Without You, Rapp further cements his role as a documentarian by taking us through those incredible, tumultuous early days of Rent, from a first workshop to that off-Broadway production and, most notably, to that fateful night of the final dress rehearsal when Larson, only 35, died suddenly. It’s a tragic tale, told often, but its emotional impact only seems to grow. Rapp relates a funny incident that happened at a party when a friend met Larson, who told him (probably half-jokingly, half not) that he was the “future of musical theater.” And in many ways, he was. He just wasn’t here to enjoy it or take it another step further.

Rapp was in his mid-20s when Rent changed his life – changed the lives of all the original cast members – and he recounts that time with the measured temperament of the 50-ish seasoned veteran he is, but he captures that youthful joy and then sudden grief with dazzling power.

The tremendous loss of Larson and the subsequent mega-success of his show create a highly emotional journey and give Rapp the opportunity to sing a number of songs from Rent accompanied by a five-piece band.

As if that weren’t emotional enough, Rapp’s exploration of loss and grief extends to his own family. Concurrently with his ever-intensifying Rent experience, Rapp’s mother was dealing with cancer and its various treatments, hospitalizations and life intrusions. He flies home to Joliet, Ill., when he’s able, and (happily), his mom is able to fly to New York for the Broadway opening of Rent. Her section of the story involves original songs, including one called “Wild Bill,” which is the name she gave the first round of cancer, and the wrenching “Visits to You,” a tense, tear-jerking musing on whether a visit will turn out to be the last.

From where we were sitting at Thursday’s opening-night performance, the sound mix in the Curran leaned far too heavily on the band and not nearly enough on Rapp, but in spite of that balance, Rapp’s performance kept the audience, well, rapt.

So much of the show, both the Larson side and the mom side, are about the weight of grief and the ways we can choose to move into it and, if we’re lucky, through it. That weight never goes away, which is probably why Rapp’s story from nearly 30 years ago still feels so potent and powerful. To borrow words from Rent, we seem to need a constant reminder that

There’s only us, There’s only this
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss
No other road, no other way
No day but today

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Anthony Rapp’s Without You continues through Sunday, Oct. 22 at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco. Running time: 95 minutes (no intermission). Tickets start at $49 (prices are subject to change). Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com.

Cult of terror ignites interactive horror show at SF Mint

Posted on September 30, 2023 by Chad Jones

Audience members are recruited into a spiritual cult gone terribly wrong in The Initiation, a new interactive horror experience at the San Francisco Mint through Oct. 31. Photos by Jose A. Guzman Colon

Claustrophobes be warned: The Initiation, the new immersive horror experience at the San Francisco Mint, is going to put you through some very tight experiences. You (and your date) will be locked into a dark cabinet and subjected to flashing lights, bursts of cold air and pounding noises. You will be asked to crawl through an air vent to reach a secret location to spy on evil-doers. And you will be expected to push your way through a dark, completely enveloping fabric tube that has the feel of making your way through and out of a very large intestine.

For some, those descriptions might inspire utter horror and repulsion. For others, they inspire utter horror and a desire to experience every shudder-inducing moment. Welcome to the world of site-specific, interactive theater mashed up with the creepy carnival-like house of horrors. Halloween season has officially begun.

From the producing team known as Into the Dark – local drag legend Peaches Christ, David Flower Productions and Non Plus Ultra – The Initiation is a full-blown Halloween experience, from the show itself to the ’80s/New Wave vampire-themed bar in the basement (Fang Bang) to the Instagram-ready photo op room. This is the sixth iteration of this dark holiday experience, and it’s exactly as fun – and as scary – as you want it to be.

There’s a 1970s low-budget horror movie feel to The Initiation, and that is in no way a criticism. In fact, it’s a groovy, grungy vibe captured perfectly by the set, costume and lighting designers to tell the story of a spiritual cult called INsight in which the leader, Father Isaac, has gone mad with power. Taking a cue from the Disney/Star Wars ride “Rise of the Resistance,” the plot revolves around a group of new recruits (you and your group of up to 10 people who are ushered through the experience every 15 minutes or so) who are being put through the initiation process in the form of training modules. The rebel alliance, sorry, I mean the cult members who are trying to fight back, shanghai the first module and tell us to act like we’re there to become new members, but really we’re going to help them find the leader’s imprisoned and imperiled wife.

There are lots of stairs, lots of dark, twisting hallways and byways and a pace that never slows for very long. Every transition means another opportunity for secret panels to slam open with someone jumping out or screaming at you (the jump scares are the scariest scares, after all). When you get to the new location, another actor (or two or three) will attempt to further the plot and demonstrate something shocking or pressing or just plain gross. There are some nifty effects involving removal of eyeballs and the frying of a naked man, leaving nothing but a twitching, mysteriously still breathing skeleton.

My favorite areas were the “outdoor” sequences with fog and trees and winding pathways. The action eventually leads to Father Isaac’s home on the institute grounds, and those interiors, from the drawing room and library to the dining room, are beautifully detailed environments. Once the rescue mission is going full bore and we end up in the basement, the show ends up feeling like a laser tag playground without the lasers. The action gets a little confusing, and the ending comes rather abruptly. But you do end up right next to the bar, so a horror-themed cocktail seems like the best option.

An event like this is quite an operation with seemingly hundreds of people working hard to rattle your cage, and the more you give in, the more fun it is. The actors range from those who seem to savor every interaction with the visitors to those who feel like they’re barely getting their dialogue out before the group moves on. But keeping in mind that they have to repeat their scenes ever 15 minutes, it’s a wonder they make any connection at all.

There’s a VIP package that offers more intimate interaction with the actors, so if you opt in, you get a glowing necklace and you get touched a lot more and pulled into the action more directly. We had one VIP in our group, and he had to throw a switch to kill someone and was caressed or mauled at every opportunity. He seemed quite happy about it.

I was content to experience my initiation and the subsequent rebellion as part of the pack and admired the way the cast maintained a sense of mounting tension and kept things moving right along. There’s gore and goofiness and a sense that a horror movie come to life is fun – but not for the uninitiated.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Into the Dark’s The Initiation continues through Oct. 31 at the San Francisco Mint, 88 5th St., San Francisco. Tickets are $55-$85 (plus $40 for the VIP experience). Run time: about an hour. Tickets and info at terrorvalut.com.

Women in the White House make for a crude, funny POTUS at Berkeley Rep

Posted on September 21, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: (from left) Stephanie Styles is Dusty, Deirdre Lovejoy is Harriet, Kim Blanck is Jean and Allison Guinn is Bernadette in Selina Fillinger’s feminist satire POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, performing at Berkeley Rep through Oct. 22. BELOW: Dominique Toney is Chris, a journalist and single mom. Photos by Kevin Berne

Berkeley Repertory Theatre opens its 2023-24 season with a hot property. Selina Fillinger’s POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive had a starry run on Broadway in 2022 and is now popping up all over the place because a) it’s very funny b) it features a cast of seven women and c) it attempts to turn our ongoing political nightmare (at least for half of the country) into the stuff of theatrical farce.

All the ingredients are there for a raucous experience. On this day in the White House – which could easily be imagined as a typical day between January 2017 and January 2020 – the president’s staff is attempting major damage control on a number of fronts. POTUS (who is not a named or featured character) has shot his mouth off in an astonishingly offensive manner. His international relations have gone nuclear. His constant infidelities are catching up with him. And he’s supposed to be hosting 200 feminists at a dinner for FML (Female Models of Leadership, in this case).

So it’s up to POTUS’s chief of staff, Harriet (Deirdre Lovejoy), and his press secretary, Jean (Kim Blanck) to keep the government running, as they usually do. Margaret (Stephanie Pope Lofgren), the First Lady, is also on hand to lend her brainpower (she has degrees from Stanford and Harvard) and her mammoth ego to the mayhem.

There are, of course, abundant surprises that upset the schedule and demonstrate just what a raging dumbass POTUS is and has been for the previous three years.

Playwright Fillinger has a wicked way with a one-liner, and her first act has some gargantuan guffaws. Her women are smart, ambitious and crude as hell. From the first line to the last, the play’s language is so salty you may need to bring hydration – and that’s when the play is at its best. The more outsize and crazy the action, the sharper the satire and the bigger the laughs.

Director Annie Tippe, who did such beautiful work at Berkeley Rep on Octet (read my review here), doesn’t show the same command here. When the farce really erupts in Act 2, the pacing (at least on opening night) never found the manic rhythm that would carry the audience through the hilarity without getting annoyed.

She also gets uneven work from her cast. What should be razor sharp in the performances too often feels forced and manic without being funny. That said, there are some strong moments from Stephanie Styles as a Midwestern farmer’s daughter (yes, like the old jokes) who slips and out of stereotype long enough to discuss recidivism and reproductive rights and from Allison Guinn as a woman of many dark talents who turns out to be kind of a super-raunchy, fresh-from-prison Melissa McCarthy.

There’s also something jagged in the play itself as it extracts laughs from what is actually a terrifying (and seemingly ongoing) situation in what’s left of our sand castle of a democracy. Sure, we want to laugh at the idiot in the White House. Sure, we want to fist pump in solidarity with the women who do the actual work and should actually be president. But the truth is (and this is pointed out in the play), they’re also enabling the Dumbass in Chief and perpetuating his destruction. So this satire has a very real edge to it, and the laughs often have a sickening feel to them. That’s certainly an interesting place to put an audience, and one that could be explored more thoroughly, but Fillinger tends more toward the sitcom than she does the dark farce.

There’s nasty fun to be had in POTUS, but the titular dumbass casts a mighty shadow that the seven women trying to keep him alive can’t quite escape.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Selina Fillinger’s POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive continues through Oct. 22 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $45-$134 (subject to change). Running time: 2 hours (including intermission). Call 510-647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.

Way down (again) in Hadestown

Posted on September 13, 2023 by Chad Jones

Hannah Whitley (front left) is Eurydice and J. Antonio Rodriguez is Orpheus (with members of the company) in the Hadestown North American Tour at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco before a run at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. Photo by T. Charles Erikson

It seems like only yesterday that the strangely magical musical Hadestown was playing at the Orpheum Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF. Well, it wasn’t exactly yesterday – more like 15 months ago. But the impression the show leaves is so powerful, it seems that hardly any time has passed since those crazy kids Eurydice and Orpheus had their sad adventure in the bowels of hell, all while singing rousing, beautiful songs.

Hadestown has indeed returned, but only for a minute (five days to be exact), and then it heads south (is there any other direction for Hadestown?) to San Jose for another five-day run.

At the risk of repeating myself, let me direct you to my June 2022 review of the national tour. All of that still holds, but we have a different cast putting different spins on their mortal and immortal characters. The most interesting thing about seeing Hadestown a second time is not necessarily the differences in performance (there’s still abundant talent on stage, from the leads to the ensemble to the on-stage band). It’s reveling in how mesmerizing and enveloping the production itself is.

The way that composer/lyricist/book writer Anaïs Mitchell and director Rachel Chavkin turn storyteller theater into such a moody, pulsating theatrical experience is absolutely wondrous. Mitchell’s New Orleans-infused score is a mood all on its own, with a special shout out to the gorgeous arrangements by Liam Robinson. But even without the striking visuals of Rachel Hauk’s set and Bradley King’s lights, the score stands on its own and could almost as captivating simply as a concert.

But it’s so much more than a concert, and toward the end of Act 1, we get one of the truly great modern musical theater moments with Orpheus’ “Wait for Me” as he attempts to walk into hell to retrieve the love of his life. Lights swing, fog swirls and Orpheus (played by J. Antonio Rodriguez in this tour) wails. The number gets a huge ovation because it’s practically a show unto itself.

The power of ritual and fate pulse deeply in Hadestown, which is why multiple viewings and listenings (the the various recordings) are so rewarding. As the company sings at the end, “It’s an old, old tale from way back when / And we’re gonna sing it / Again and again / We’re gonna sing it again.”

And we’re going to be enthralled again and again.

Hadestown continues through Sept. 17 as part of the BroadwaySF season at the Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco. Running time is 2 hours and 30 minutes (including intermission). Visit broadwaysf.com. The show runs from Sept. 26 through Oct. 1 as part of the Broadway San Jose season at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 S. Almaden Blvd., San Jose. Visit broadwaysanjose.com.

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