Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

Word from the California Shakespeare Theater is that artistic director Jonathan Moscone’s production of An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde has become the company’s biggest box-office hit in its 35-year history.

This breaks the previous record held by Moscone’s production of Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw last summer.

Says Cal Shakes’ outgoing managing director Debbie Chin: “We are so grateful that despite challenging economic times, we are part of a community that responds to, and frankly demands, great art.”

Ideal broke the previous record for gross sales, single tickets and group sales and performed to a 93 percent capacity during its 24-performance run July 2-27 at the Bruns Memorial Amphitheater in Orinda.

The Cal Shakes season continues with Emily Mann’s adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya opening Aug. 9 and continuing through Aug. 31. The season closes with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night directed by Mark Rucker, Sept. 10-Oct. 5.

Call 510-548-9666 or visit www.calshakes.org for information.

Opened March 21, 2008, Ashby Playhouse, Berkeley

Trish Mulholland as Mrs. Warren, Emily Jordan as Vivie. Photos by Howard Gerstein

Shotgun Players do bang up work on Shaw’s Profession
three 1/2 stars Zesty Shaw

“There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.” So says a character in George Bernard Shaw’s secret-filled comedy Mrs. Warren’s Profession, a play banned in England in the 1890s due to “lascivious content.”

Of course there’s no better way to grab attention than to call something dirty, so Shaw’s play about women’s liberation, fashionable morality and widespread cultural hypocrisy eventually made it onto the stage in 1925.

Only Shaw’s third play, Mrs. Warren is incredibly sharp and funny. It gets preachy, as Shaw is wont to do, toward the end, but there’s still plenty of zing.

Shotgun Players’ production, directed with a firm hand by Susannah Martin, is polished and full of the right kind of energy, which is to say it has sass, playfulness and satiric edge.

The only thing clunky about the two-hour, 20-minute production is the set (by Steve Decker), which looks great, but the scene changes in the cramped space involve stagehands clearing and rolling and turning and hauling. We’re so spoiled in this day of cinematic quick cuts — even in the theater — that an old-fashioned set change can seem laborious.

But it’s what’s happening on the set that matters more. Emily Jordan is delightful as Vivie Warren, the bright, well-educated daughter of Mrs. Warren (Trish Mulholland), an international success with businesses in Brussels, Vienna and other European capitals.

Vivie, raised in boarding school, hardly knows her mother, so when Kitty Warren pays a visit to her daughter’s small country cottage, certain facts are sure to come into play, facts such as this: Mrs. Warren went into the prostitution business with her sister when they were young, poor and struggling. Now they’ve mastered the immoral business world and have all the power and money they could ever want. The sister retired to a cathedral town, but Mrs. Warren, who has a great talent for managing all her “private hotels,” loves the work.

At first, when Vivie learns of her mother’s profession, she’s horrified. Then she realizes that bright, aspiring women have little choice in the business world, so she comes ’round to admire her mother’s business acumen.

But success in such a questionable business — a business that is still thriving — carries a whole lot of emotional and cultural baggage. Vivie has to decide just how involved she wants to be in her mother’s enterprise. The young woman has, after all, been the beneficiary of ill-gotten gains her entire life.

Mulholland, a Shotgun staple, always brings vivacity to the stage, but in Mrs. Warren, she has found new performance levels. She’s tough, tender, sexy, funny and extremely grounded in the reality of her character. Her scenes with Jordan are the play’s highlights because there’s so much emotion.

Martin’s entire cast is strong, with nary a weak spot in the bunch. John Mercer is suitably creepy as filthy rich aristocrat Crofts, who proposes marriage to Vivie as part blackmail, part business proposition. Her refusal of him is Shaw at his most vituperous.

Nick Sholley is Praed, a possible suitor for Vivie, and Joseph O’Malley (above with Jordan) is Frank, a country friend of Vivie’s who has his designs on her mother’s money. Both men are pitch perfect. Sholley is a compassionate prude and O’Malley is a likable scoundrel who berates his ineffectual rector father (a very funny, fuzzled Rick T. Williams) every chance he gets.

It’s not enough for Shaw to use prostitution as a pulpit for scolding an economic system that rewards immorality at every turn. He also has to throw incest into the mix. No wonder the Lord Chamberlain got his knickers in a twist when the play first appeared.

But there’s far more here than sensation. Mrs. Warren has a great line toward the end when she and Vivie are having it out: “You think that the way you were taught at school to think right and proper is the way things really are. But it’s not. it’s all only a pretense, to keep the cowardly, slavish, common run of people quiet. The big people, the clever people, the managing people, all know it. They do as I do, and think as I think.”

There’s no denying the power of knowing how the system works and working it for all it’s worth. But Shaw asks, and it’s still the question we need to ask every day: At what cost?

Mrs. Warren’s Profession continues through April 27 at the Ashby Playhouse, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. Tickets are $17-$25. Call 510-841-6500 or visit www.shotgunplayers.org for information.

I can always tell whether a theater year has been good or not so good when I sit down to hammer out my Top 10 list. If I can summon five or more shows simply from memory, it’s a good year. This year’s entire list came almost entirely from memory (which is a feat in itself as the old noggin’ ain’t what it used to be), so it was a good year indeed.

Here’s the countdown leading to my No. 1 pick of the year.

10. Anna Bella Eema, Crowded Fire Theatre Company — Three fantastic actresses, Cassie Beck, Danielle Levin and Julie Kurtz, brought Lisa D’Amour’s tone poem of a play to thrilling life.

9. First Person Shooter, SF Playhouse and Playground – What a good year for SF Playhouse. This original play by local writer Aaron Loeb brought some powerhouse drama to its examination of violent video games and school violence.

8. Bulrusher, Shotgun Players – Berkeley’s own Eisa Davis’ eloquent play, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama, turned the Northern California dialect of Boontling into poetic drama as it told the story of an outcast young woman finding her place in the world.

7. Avenue Q, Best of Broadway/SHN – Hilarious and irreverent, this puppet-filled musical by Jeff Marx, Robert Lopez and Jeff Whitty made you believe in friendship, life after college and the joys of puppet sex.

6. Jesus Hopped the `A’ Train, SF Playhouse – It took a while for Stephen Adly Guirgis’ intense drama to make it to the Bay Area, but the wait was worth it, if only for Berkeley resident Carl Lumbly in the central role of a murderer who may have seen the error of his ways. And note: This is the second SF Playhouse show on the list.

5. Emma, TheatreWorks _ Paul Gordon’s sumptuous, funny and, of course, romantic adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel came marvelously to life as a musical, with a star-making performance by Pleasanton native Lianne Marie Dobbs.

4. Argonautika, Berkeley Repertory Theatre _ Mary Zimmerman’s athletic retelling of the Jason and the Argonauts myth fused beauty and muscle and impeccable storytelling into a grand evening of theater.

3. Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People, Word for Word – Actually, the second half of Strangers We Know, this stage adaptation of Lorrie Moore’s short story was brilliantly directed by Joel Mullenix and performed by Patricia Silver and Sheila Balter.

2. Man and Superman, California Shakespeare Theater _ This unbelievably vivid version of George Bernard Shaw’s massive existentialist comedy benefited from superior direction by Jonathan Moscone and an impeccable cast headed by Elijah Alexander and Susannah Livingston.

1. The Crowd You’re in With, Magic Theatre _ The team of playwright Rebecca Gilman and director Amy Glazer fused into brilliance with this slice-of-life meditation on why we make the choices we make in our lives. Local luminaries Lorri Holt and Charles Shaw Robinson brought incredible humor and tenderness to their roles, and T. Edward Webster in the lead managed to make ambivalence compelling.

Now it’s your turn. Please post your favorite theater moments of 2007 — no geographical limitations, just good theater.

Opened Sept. 5, 2007

Mirth, wisdom reside in Berkeley Rep’s Heartbreak House
Four stars (GBS=Great bloody show)

What a good summer it’s been for George Bernard Shaw. First California Shakespeare Theater unfurled a tremendous Man and Superman. And now Berkeley Repertory Theatre has opened its 40th anniversary season with Heartbreak House.

There’s a reason that Heartbreak has now been performed in each of Berkeley Rep’s four decades: it’s a brilliant comedy with sharp teeth. While the crackling repartee makes you laugh, Shaw’s world view gnashes at your conscience.

As you settle into the Roda Theatre for three hours of Shavian wit, the playwright takes his time pulling you into the proper frame of mind (that is to say, HIS frame of mind). Like one of his characters in the play does, he practically hypnotizes us with comfortable comedy.

Act 1 is almost pure set-up. The curtain rises on director Les Waters’ production, and we immediately admire Annie Smart’s set for the living room of an English country home owned by the Shotover family.

Captain Shotover has spent his life as an adventurer and inventor, so his home reflects his travels. Hanging from the beamed ceiling are turtles, seagulls, planets, boats and an alligator. There are African masks on the walls and an Asian influence in the furniture.

The crusty, cranky Captain (Michael Winter), at 88 years old, is fully enjoying his dotage. He speaks directly and truthfully when he’s not being a childish fool, and he has plenty of reason to be foolish as he finds his home full of family members and their friends, all in various states of romantic distress.

His daughter Hesione Hushabye (Michelle Morain, above right, making a welcome return to Berkeley Rep) has a do-nothing husband, Hector Hushabye (Stephen Caffrey, below, who preens like a pro), who has a glorious moustache and a roving eye. That eye has landed on two women: Hesione’s long-absent sister, Ariadne (Susan Wilder, below), an uppity snob who prefers to be known by her title, Lady Utterword, and a proletarian young friend named Ellie Dunn (the luminous Allison Jean White).

Not knowing that her husband has a thing for Ellie, Hesione has invited the young woman and her father (Matt Gottlieb) for a weekend in the hope of averting a major matrimonial mistake. For complex reasons having to do with history and business, Ellie has been engaged to wealthy magnate Boss Mangan (David Chandler, in fine uptight form), whom she does not love.

For a proud Bohemian such as Hesione, marriage as a business transaction is unthinkable, so she’s going to meddle all she can and get Mangan to fall in love with her instead.

Because this is Shaw, we get too much of a good thing in the form of superfluous characters such as a fidgety brother-in-law (Michael Ray Wisely snagging an optimum number of laughs), an overweening housekeeper (Lynne Soffer) and a burglar (Chris Ayles), who seems to have dropped in from another play.

By Act 2 (which is merged with Act 3 for a long second half), we’re fully immersed in the romantic machinations, and we’ve fallen under Shaw’s spell.

Where else but from Shaw do we get characters conversing so intently and so intelligently that we don’t want them to stop? There’s a wonderful scene between the Captain and young Ellie when her youth and intelligence and his age and experience meld into the most dynamic, life-affirming chat imaginable.

Lest we settle into these upper-crust musings on life and its meaning, Shaw has other designs on our romantic delusions. He wants to remind us that there is a bigger world out there, so in the final act, as World War I dawns, bombs literally fall on our complacent Brits. Rather than terror in the face of death and destruction, Shaw’s characters find shallow, self-serving delight that such exciting things should be happening to them.

Heartbreak, we’re told, is life educating you. Shaw lets us know in no uncertain terms that we require an awful lot of education. His message is still clear: we’ll waltz happily into our destruction, sherry in hand, thrilled to toast such a marvelous apocalypse.

For information about Heartbreak House, visit www.berkeleyrep.org.

Opened Saturday, July 7, 2007, Bruns Amphitheater, Orinda

Cal Shakes’ Man and Superman soars with superheroic cast
four stars Shavian perfection

A lifetime happiness? No man alive could bear it.

So says Jack Tanner the irresistible leading man in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman, the second show of the California Shakespeare Theater season.

A lifetime of happiness may be unattainable, but for about three hours and 15 minutes, director Jonathan Moscone, his extraordinary cast and Shaw’s incredible gift for enlightened entertainment provide a distinct measure of glee.

The summer weather in Orinda, not to mention Shaw himself, can get a little chilly, and sure enough, Saturday’s opening night was shrouded in fog and brisk around the edges. But Moscone and his actors kept the chill at bay with a production so full of energy and ideas that you left the Bruns Amphitheater more charged up than when you entered it.

Moscone has judiciously trimmed what he could from Acts 1, 2 and 4 so that he can include the Act 3 play-within-the-play, Don Juan in Hell, a thrilling dream sequence that cuts to the heart of the issues in the play and provides an enjoyable philosophical take on humanity that essentially says nothing ever really changes, we’ll never fully know why we’re here, we’re obsessed with our fear/love of death and it would be foolish to exist without a balance of serious thought and serious fun.

Most productions of Man and Superman cut the Don Juan sequence (or produce it as its own one-act play), but it’s a joy to see the sequence in the context of the larger play, because it really does pull everything together.

Moscone aids this unity by incorporating swaths of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, with actors lip synching arias and choruses to great comic effect.

That’s really the only directorial embellishment here. Otherwise, this is straightforward Shaw, performed on Annie Smart’s elegant, simple sets: an industrial metal pair of curlicues provides a sort of proscenium with the gorgeous trees and hills fully visible (and lit beautifully by Russell H. Champa) behind.

During an Act 2 trip to a country home, we’re treated to a psiffy early 20th-century automobile, and when the scene changes to Hell, where the devil is outfitted like Hugh Hefner and nuns consigned to the lower depths drink Tab and Heineken, we get illuminated rocks and, ultimately, a disco party.

The tremendous efforts of the cast here cannot be emphasized too highly, especially those of leading man Elijah Alexander as the roguish revolutionary Jack Tanner and Susannah Livingston as the charming, conniving Ann Whitefield (above).

These two formidable actors carry the bulk of the play (with the heavy lifting in hell provided by an exuberant Andy Murray as Senor Satan) and attack their roles with such seeming joy, it’s almost impossible not to be swept away by them. They are overflowing with the Life Force that Shaw keeps bringing up in the text.

Alexander (last seen at Cal Shakes in Restoration Comedy) has numerous rants against the hypocrisy of so-called liberals and against the horrendous institution of marriage, but he’s never boring. Part of the reason is that he’s physically so invested in what he’s saying — his body language punctuates everything he says unbelievably well. Never mind that all the other characters listen to him then summarily dismiss everything he says.

And Livingston, a Cal Shakes regular, is all grace, intelligence and ulterior motives as her character manipulates pretty much everyone on stage.

L. Peter Callender is a marvelous Roebuck Ramsden, a pillar of society and a prude (as Jack Tanner says, “Pooh, prudery!”), and Ben Livingston (husband of Susannah in case you were wondering) almost makes the mealy mouthed Octavius Robinson pitiable as everyone keeps telling him to be more of a man.

Delia MacDougall is commanding as Violet Robinson, and Dan Hiatt is great fun as the chauffeur Straker, a man for more educated and worldly wise than the middle-class boobs who employ him.

Shaw jokes about the “pious English habit of regarding the world as a moral gymnasium built expressly to strengthen your character in,” but Shaw’s plays, especially Man and Superman provide a strenuous mental workout. Such an effort for our lazy 21st-century minds could be tedious, but when the exercise is as sharp, clever and captivating as this Cal Shakes production, there’s happiness to be found as Shaw asks us to ponder religion, politics, art and that trifling thing known as human existence.

For information about Man and Superman, visit www.calshakes.org.