Category Archives: Magic Theatre

Life, death and a ’70s groove in Magic’s Happy Ones

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Happy Ones 2
Bao (Jomar Tagatac, right) and Walter (Liam Craig) form a unique relationship in Julie Marie Myatt’s The Happy Ones at Magic Theatre. Below: Craig (left) and Gabriel Marin as Gary marvel at the perfection of their Southern California lives. Photos by Jennifer Reiley

At first the music is loud and fun. Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” seems like the perfect audio accompaniment to a grown-up birthday party scene set in a Garden Grove, Califorina, suburban home circa 1975, where the swimming pool gleams and the neighbors all swing with martinis well in hand.

Then tragedy strikes, and there’s silence. The SoCal dream life suddenly has no fitting accompaniment…until it does, and that sound comes from another part of the planet – Vietnam to be exact. There’s a smattering of Creedence, of Paul Simon and Randy Newman. And when the good-time music returns, it’s in the form of Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime,” but the “living the dream” moment has passed, and it’s time for new songs and new chapters.

That’s the story of The Happy Ones, an achingly beautiful play by Julie Marie Myatt now at Magic Theatre. Of course there’s a lot more to the play than the songs and the sound design, but they acutely underscore the emotional ups and downs in director Jonathan Moscone’s shrewdly observed and deeply felt production.

That this is a play about grief shouldn’t dissuade you from seeing it. There’s a lot of comedy packed into the two-hour drama, some of it from the acuity of mid-’70s details in Erik Flatmo’s set and Christine Crook’s costumes. Some of it from the notion that sometimes, when life is at its bleakest, all you can do is laugh.

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For protagonist Walter Wells (played with spaniel-like charm by Liam Craig), life is so good he can’t quite believe it. The house, the family, the hardware store he owns, the fun-loving friends, the pool – it’s all so dazzling, Walter can’t quite take it in. Standing outside the Unitarian Universalist Church where his best friend Gary (Gabriel Marin) is the minister, Walter says, “Beautiful women. Beautiful children. Great neighbors. Fantastic jobs. Gorgeous weather.” To which, Gary replies, “Praise God.” And Walter adds, “Praise California…Seriously. This is the dream right here. We got it.”

Such dreams have a way of not lasting. In a way, after everything collapses in on him, Walter remains caught in a world he can’t quite fathom. Just as the good life bedazzled and stunned him, so does grief. Gary can’t reach him, and neither can Gary’s girlfriend, the neighborhood divorcee and busybody, Mary-Ellen (a wonderfully overwhelming and gorgeous Marcia Pizzo). The only person who can cut through Walter’s numbness is a man linked to Walter’s tragedy, a complete stranger named Bao Ngo, a Vietnamese immigrant who was a doctor in his native land, and after the war has found himself far from home working nights in a suburban bakery.

Played with humor, dignity and tenderness by Jomar Tagatac, Bao is an unlikely savior, but what’s really interesting is that Walter turns out to be just as much a savior to Bao, though his unconventional methods include onion dip and barbecued steak with baked potatoes. Sometimes the American dream is only accessible if you can eat it.

The Happy Ones makes for a poignant journey and a nostalgic one if you happened to be alive in the ’70s. The ongoing quest for happiness as a destination (or even as an American birthright) hasn’t changed much in almost 40 years, which is probably why the unlikely relationship between Walter and Bao, bound by loss and grief and the darkest that life has to offer, is so moving. And it’s definitely why Myatt’s play, in its fleeting moments of happiness and hope, is so inspiring.

[bonus interview]
I talked to playwright Julie Marie Myatt for a story in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the feature here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Julie Marie Myatt’s The Happy Ones continues through April 21 at Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street, San Francisco. Tickets are $22-$62. Call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org.

Magic’s Se Llama Cristina or What’s in a name?

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Sarah Nina Hayon and Sean San José star in the world premiere of Octavio Solis’ Se Llama Cristina at Magic Theatre. Below: Rod Gnapp is the embodiment of bad guys plaguing the lives of struggling people. Photos by Jennifer Reiley

There are moments when Octavio Solis’ darkly poetic writing leaves me breathless. Take this passage from his world-premiere play Se Llama Cristina as two lovers are driving down a lonely highway. The driver looks at his sleeping passenger and says: “And your head is leanin’ against the window and the passing cars light up your face like a Hollywood starlet. Famous, then not. Famous, then not.”

Truth be told, there are also moments when the San Francisco playwright’s writing leaves me befuddled, and that happens, too, in Se Llama Cristina. But confusion and mystery is part of the foundation – albeit rocky a rocky one – on which this intriguing drama is built.

Essentially Solis is telling the story of everyday triumph, specifically the ability move beyond the horrors of the past to stake a claim as a functioning – however flawed – human being capable of sustaining important relationships such as spouse to spouse or parent to child. Parenting is the guttering neon sign at the center of this creation, flickering at various levels of brightness until it all but explodes by the end.

Solis eschews a linear narrative and, curiously, turns his protagonists into audience members as they watch their story unfold in bits and pieces, with flashbacks within flashbacks and even flash-forwards.

Lights come up on a dingy, battered room (the low-ceilinged set is by Andrew Boyce). A man and a woman are just coming to after what appears to have been quite a bender. The guy still has the rubber strap tied around his arm with a syringe embedded in his skin.

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Neither of these characters knows their names, where they are or how they came to be so drugged up. The doors and windows of the room are locked, and there’s a crib in the corner. Only instead of a baby, the crib holds a piece of fried chicken, a drumstick.

We’re just as confused as the characters on stage, and when the first explanatory flashback happens, we learn things right along with them. How that works exactly, I’m not sure. I know how it works for the audience, but what exactly are the characters seeing in that room? That’s really too literal a question for this play, which has the feeling of a fever dream leading up to the making of a pivotal life decision.

Director Loretta Greco’s production feels substantial, even at only 85 minutes. As the play jerks us back and forth in time and tone – flights of poetry crash against gritty realism – she guides her cast from a strong emotionally grounded center.

Sean San José and Sarah Nina Hayon are superb as broken people who don’t expect to accomplish much in this life beyond surviving and making mistakes. They find each other by accident and begin a journey, sometimes a reluctant one, toward realizing potential they didn’t know they had. As rough and gritty as this play is, there’s a current of hope that continually pushes through the violence and neglect and poverty (of many kinds) in these people’s lives.

San José, whose character is a would-be poet, is especially adept at navigating Solis’ dramatic turns from naturalism to fantasy. He has two scenes on the phone, one with Hayon and one with a figure from his past, and both are incredible. One of those conversations is mostly in Spanish, and you don’t have to understand a word of the language to feel your heart break along with the character.

If you want charm and menace in equal measure, Rod Gnapp is your go-to guy. Here he embodies every bad choice a woman can make, and though he’s a walking nightmare (an effect augmented by Sara Huddleston’s sly sound design), he’s also funny as hell and completely recognizable as someone you may know.

The performances are so good here (the cast also includes a nice turn by Karina Gutiérrez) that they almost compensate for the ways in which the fractured structure confuse the narrative and cloud the emotional impact. Piecing it all together isn’t all that hard, but the emotional through line gets somewhat clouded because there are so many questions about what is reality and what isn’t. Questions are good in drama, but when those questions are straddling dream and reality, it’s hard to know what to trust and grab hold of so that by the end you’re holding on to what’s important in this story.

But then again, that’s so much of what Se Llama Cristina is about: what’s worth holding onto and what’s better left behind. Sometimes you don’t have a choice in that, but sometimes you do.

[bonus interviews]
I talked to director Loretta Greco and playwright Octavio Solis for a feature in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the story here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Octavio Solis’ Se Llama Cristina continues through Feb. 5 at Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street, San Francisco. Tickets are $22-$62. Call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org.

2012 flasback: 10 to remember

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James Carpenter and Stacy Ross in Magic Theatre’s Any Given Day by Linda MacLean, the best play of the year. Photo by Jennifer Reiley Below: the cast of Marin Theatre Company’s Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker, another highlight of the Bay Area theater year. Photo by Kevin Berne.

One of the things I love about Bay Area theater is that picking a Top 10 list is usually a breeze. My surefire test of a great show is one I can remember without having to look at anything to remind me about it. The entire list below was composed in about five minutes, then I had to go look through my reviews to make sure they were all really this year. They were, and it was a really good year.

10. “The Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden” by Thornton Wilder, part of Wilder Times, Aurora Theatre Company

9. The White Snake by Mary Zimmerman, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

8. Tenderloin by Annie Elias with Tristan Cunningham, Siobhan Doherty, Rebecca Frank, Michael Kelly, Leigh Shaw, David Sinaiko and David Westley Skillman, Cutting Ball Theater

7. The Scottsboro Boys by John Kander, Fred Ebb and David Thompson, American Conservatory Theater

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6. The Aliens by Annie Baker, San Francisco Playhouse

5. The Hundred Flowers Project by Christopher Chen, Crowded Fire and Playwrights Foundation

4. Spunk by Zora Neale Hurston, adapted by George C. Wolfe, California Shakespeare Theater

3. Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker, Marin Theatre Company

2. The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer, American Conservatory Theater

1. Any Given Day by Linda MacLean, Magic Theatre

Playwright Annie Baker appears twice on this list and could have appeared a third time for Aurora’s Body Awareness. This was the year of Annie Baker in the Bay Area – the first time her work was done here, and with any luck, not her last.

The most valuable player award in this list goes to Stacy Ross, who was extraordinary in #1 (Any Given Day) and #10 (“The Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden”). In Any Given Day, she appeared opposite James Carpenter, another valuable player, and to see two of the Bay Area’s best actors work opposite each other in a remarkable play was sheer theatrical joy.

Three of the shows on this list – The Normal Heart, The Scottsboro Boys and The White Snake – all originated at other places, but that doesn’t make them any less brilliant or make ACT or Berkeley Rep any less canny for having the wherewithal and smarts to present them to local audiences.

Another name that is on this list twice is George C. Wolfe, represented as the adapter of Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk, seen in a joyous production at Cal Shakes, and as director of the riveting and emotionally intense The Normal Heart at ACT.

There are two new plays here (#5, Christopher Chen’s The Hundred Flowers Project and #8, Cutting Ball’s ensemble-created Tenderloin). They couldn’t have been more different, but they were both illuminating and exciting and felt a whole lot bigger than the small spaces in which they were taking place (in scope and importance, not in size).

As ever, thank you for reading Theater Dogs. This is a labor of love, and it would be silly for me to be here without you.

Happy New Year.

Magic camps it up with Another Way Home

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Daniel Petzold as Joey (foreground) and Jeremy Kahn as Mike T. in the world premiere of Anna Ziegler’s Another Way Home at Magic Theatre. Below: Mark Pinter is Philip and Kim Martin-Cotten is Lillian. Photos by Jennifer Reiley

Director Meredith McDonough’s production of Another Way Home, a world-premiere play by Anna Ziegler, at the Magic Theatre, is so sharp, so expertly performed and executed it may take a while to realize that the play itself is a fragment that doesn’t amount to much or really even make much sense. There’s a play in there I’d like to see, but it’s not the one that Ziegler has delivered.

Like John Guare did in Six Degrees of Separation, Ziegler has a well-heeled Manhattan couple address the audience directly as if whatever story they’re about to relate has had little effect on them beyond another story from the “anecdote jukebox.” They’re speaking from the other side of the events that comprise the action of the play, and that distance is a chasm that the drama only occasionally bridges in the play’s short, 75-minute running time.

The crisis at hand involves a difficult 17-year-old, summer camp and self-involved, overbearing parents who also serve as our narrator guides. Philip (Mark Pinter) works too much for two primary reasons: to provide for his family and to escape his family. Lillian (Kim Martin-Cotten) is a wife and mother without enough to do except obsesses over her marriage and her children. The older child is Joey (Daniel Petzold), a difficult kid who has been diagnosed with everything from ADD to depression. He has learning issues and social issues, so the fact that he can go away to Maine’s Camp Kickapoo and have a reasonably good time is something of an achievement. Younger child Nora (Riley Krull) is a stark contrast to her brother: she’s well behaved, good in school and doesn’t antagonize her parents at every turn.

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When Philip and Lily show up in Maine for parents’ day at camp, Joey, who is serving as a counselor-in-training, goes ballistic and goes missing, much to the surprise of his counselor/friend Mike T. (Jeremy Kahn). Joey’s absence gives his parents ample time to squabble with each other, call Nora back in Manhattan and guide us through not-so-interesting flashbacks and internal monologues. We spend way too much time focused on the parents and not nearly enough on the kids, especially Joey.

Seeing this story from Joey’s perspective and not through the cold storytelling vantage point of his parents would be ever so much more interesting. There’s a scene (with no narration) between Joey and Mike T. that is full of emotional charge as two boys, damaged in different ways by their families, forge a connection. The scene is beautifully performed by Kahn and Petzold, and it makes you long for more of their individual stories. But this is a brief respite from the parents, who soon regain control of the story. There’s also a poignant interaction (via phone) between mother and daughter. Nora admits that she doesn’t really believe in god, but since her brother went missing, she’s been praying and wants her mother to pray with her. Lillian agrees, but rather than seeing how it might transpire that a not particularly religious mother and daughter pray on the phone, Lillian switches into narrator mode and tells us that it happened. Whatever happened to the preference for showing rather than telling?

The performances are solid throughout, and Martin-Cotten and Pinter work especially hard to overcome the fact that their characters are aggravating and annoying more than they are interesting or endearing. They don’t ultimately succeed, having been trumped by the performances of Kahn, Petzold and Krull as the young people with much more intriguing narratives. Something tells me that if any one of the young people had been the focus rather than the parents, this over-told story would end with something other than a supposedly meaningful family portrait session, something that actually illuminated the parent-child dynamic rather than just related one more story about it.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Anna Ziegler’s Another Way Home continues through Dec. 2 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street, San Francisco. Tickets are $45-$65. Call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org.

Magic between a tricky spot and The Other Place

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Donald Sage Mackay is Ian and Henny Russell is Juliana in Sharr White’s The Other Place, the season-opener at the Magic Theatre. Below: Carrie Paff (left) plays several key characters in the unraveling mystery of Juliana’s illness. Photos by Jennifer Reiley

There’s a slippery quality to Sharr White’s The Other Place, the drama opening the Magic Theatre season. The first half of this 80-minute one-act is especially slick as we try to gain our bearings, but White and director Loretta Greco keep tilting the playing field. Just when we think we know what’s really going on in the story of a brilliant scientist’s life, along comes new information or a trip to the past that reconfigures what we thought we knew.

Memory is a tricky, tricky thing. How accurate or trustworthy are our memories? That’s a question that Juliana Smithton should be asking herself, but she’s not, because she doesn’t know anything’s wrong. A renowned medical researcher, Juliana heads a team creating a revolutionary drug that will aid in the treatment of dementia. But as we see her making a presentation on the drug to a group of doctors in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, we begin to sense that this pioneering scientist may be suffering from the very disease she’s trying to cure.

White further complicates our discovery of Juliana’s exact condition by having her narrate her own story. As played by Henny Russell, Juliana is a sharp, funny storyteller. She vacillates between her drug presentation and bringing us up to speed on what’s going on in her own life. In addition to her intense work promoting the new drug, she’s also dealing with the repercussions of her teenage daughter’s disappearance a decade ago.

It’s not long, however, before we begin to sense that Juliana is probably not the most reliable teller of her own story, and that’s when The Other Place subtly turns into a horror story. Not a slasher, blood-and-guts, ghosts-bumping-in-the-night horror story, but a reality-based tale of terror that could, and probably will, affect each of us in some way.

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Juliana is a fascinating character, not least because we’re constantly trying to piece together who is the real Juliana as opposed to the Juliana fragments we see that are affected by things other than her own personality. Russell’s performance is so grounded, and full of so many blasts of warmth, ego and genius, that’s it hard not to recoil when Juliana is sharp and defiant with the people she doesn’t realize are trying to help her.

When The Othe Place opens on Broadway later this year, Laurie Metcalf will play Juliana. She’ll be brilliant and probably rack up a bunch of awards (it’s that kind of role), but it’s hard to imagine anyone more believable in the role than Russell.

Surrounding Juliana is a trio – Donald Sage Mackay, Carrie Paff and Patrick Russell – that holds keys to her situation and to that elusive thing known as the truth. Mackay is especially sympathetic, though his character seems the least developed. Except for one key emotional scene, his function seems to be dispensing important facts and being incredibly patient.

Russell has a great telephone scene that only intensifies the mystery surrounding Juliana, and Paff has several showcase roles, including a very understanding doctor, that show off her range and charisma.

Greco’s direction is understated and solid, with a production featuring an excellent set (by Myung Hee Cho) that transitions from the cold and technical (aided by projections by Hanna Sooyeon Kim) to the warm and personal in a quick blackout.

The Other Place is as fascinating as it is unsettling, and it will linger in memory. Until it doesn’t.

[bonus interview]

I talked to playwright Sharr White for a feature in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the story here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Sharr White’s The Other Place continues through Oct. at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street, San Francisco, Tickets are $22-$62. Call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org.

Magic time, or what’s all the Bruja-ha?

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Sabina Zuniga Varela is Medea in Luis Alfaro’s Bruja at the Magic Theatre. Below: Sean San José is Jason, Medea’s husband and a man with some powerful secrets. Photos by Jennifer Reiley

Sometimes names are facts. Like now – there’s magic at the Magic Theatre.

The play is Luis Alfaro’s world-premiere Bruja, and it’s extraordinarily powerful. Even better, it has one foot very firmly grounded in the real world, and the other somewhere else that’s hard to describe, but rather than being some twinkly netherworld, this supernatural zone can be dangerous. And deadly.

Being an adaptation of Euripides’ Medea, you know this experience wont’ end happily. But what you might not know is that Alfaro, who scored at the Magic two years ago with his award-winning Oedipus el Rey, is going to make you care and he’ll freak you out a little, maybe a lot. How does he do this when we know how the story goes and how it ends? How can he make the story personal and infuse it with believable magic that stretches into cultural traditions that are eons old? The easy answer is that he’s an awesomely talented writer. The trickier answer is, of course, magic.

Walking through the new wood-paneled corridors into the Magic Theatre auditorium, you hear children playing. Part of the sound is from Jake Rodriguez’s sound design. The rest of it comes from the two boys playing soccer on the stage paneled in the same wood that now surrounds the theater space. Ah, children in a production of Medea. The heart sinks a little because you know their fate.

When Wilma Bonet as Vieja, the servant, begins addressing the audience, her tone is at once colloquial and poetic, talking about life in the Mission District and referring to the deep currents of Mexican history and culture. That dichotomy of everyday and historic, of culturally specific and universal is where Alfaro’s art lives, and it’s thrilling.

Turning the Medea story into a modern-day tale of Mexican immigrants making a life for themselves in San Francisco seems like a stretch, but Alfaro makes it seem as natural as can be. The gorgeous Sabina Zuniga Varela as Madea is wife, mother and healer. She practices her art, which lead some to call her a “bruja” (witch), and makes as happy a home as she can for her twin boys, Acan and Acat, and her hardworking husband, Jason (Sean San José), a contractor.

How can such a seemingly ordinary existence reach the majesty and magnitude of Euripides’ Medea? In the skilled hands of Alfaro and director Loretta Greco, easily.

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Ancient undercurrents swirl under this highly modern scene, and by the time we meet Jason’s boss, Creon (Carlos Aguirre), who has plans to leave his construction empire to Jason, we begin to see how this new tale will synch with the original. The really interesting thing is that we feel the connection between Medea and Jason (thanks to the passionate performances by Varela and San José), and we sense how invested Jason is in creating a better life for his family.

When it all starts to unspool, the tragedy comes fast (the play is only about 90 minutes), and this Medea truly puts the fury in furious.

The imagery in Greco’s surprisingly gorgeous production — who knew such beauty could come out of such rough wood and such ordinary surroundings? (well, clearly set designer Andrew Boyce knew) — is stunning and feels as integral to the story as Alfaro’s charged langauge.

You get to feel so invested in the story, in fact, that you hope against hope that maybe this time Medea will turn her fortunes around and avoid using her magic for destruction and her machete for bloody murder. She’s a smart, powerful woman, and just this once, you want to see her escape the horror without dragging everyone — the innocents and the guilty — down with her.

But this remains a tragedy. Triumphant in its art and staggering in its darkness.

[bonus video]
This sneak peek of Bruja is short but potent – it gives you a real sense of the production.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Luis Alfaro’s Bruja continues an extended run through July 1 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street, San Francisco. Tickets are $22-$62. Call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org.

Extraordinary Day dawns at the Magic

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EXTENDED THROUGH APRIL 29
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Christopher McHale is Bill and Amy Kossow is Sadie in the Magic Theatre production of Any Given Day by Linda McLean. Below: James Carpenter is Dave and Stacy Ross is Jackie. Photos by Jennifer Reiley


Linda McLean’s Any Given Day, now having its American premiere at the Magic Theatre, is theater for grown-ups. There’s nothing fanciful or sensational about. It’s basically duet conversations in two acts and less than 90 minutes. But the richness of McLean’s language, seemingly so simple yet so precise in defining the characters and their relationships to each other and to the world.

The pain and sadness is palpable in these people, yet so are the passing moments of joy and kindness and good humor. McLean’s world is full of the kind of emotional upheaval you only get to see when you spend time with people and see what’s really happening with them under their reasonably calm, reasonably functional exterior selves. To catch glimpses of the real turmoil underneath is an astonishing achievement, and that’s what McLean and this powerful production manage to accomplish.

Directed with subtlety and precision by Jon Tracy, Any Given Day revels in the simple complexity of everyday life. The first half introduces us to Bill (Christopher McHale) and Sadie (Amy Kossow), two residents of Glasgow council housing. The more we learn about them, the more we see that they’ve probably spent time institutionalized or under some sort of supervision but are now living on their own.

We also learn what kind and genuinely sweet people they are, how tender they are with each other when they’re able and how their partnership forms a sort of protective blockade from the world outside their windows. Kossow’s performance is especially poignant – her Sadie is clearly damaged in some key ways, but her moments of panic, terror and anger are balanced by washes of happiness that make her giggle and shine like a little girl.

McLean introduces an element of danger into this cocoon, and from that moment on, the play becomes quite different. The valiant efforts of Sadie and Bill to organize their day and make preparations for a visitor are suddenly underscored by a growing sense of dread. It’s a fascinating thing because we find ourselves feeling protective of these characters we’ve only just met, yet there’s nothing we can do for them.

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In the second half, we’re in another part of Glasgow at a bar (authentic and efficient sets by Michael Locher lit with restraint and realism by York Kennedy) where the owner, Dave (James Carpenter) and his newish employee of three months, Jackie (Stacy Ross), are having a chat. Their whole relationship unfolds from the sharing of a phone message, and they find themselves suddenly in the midst of an intimate conversation over a bottle of Sancerre.

The two halves are related most significantly by dramatic irony. We have information that will affect Bill and Jackie but once again are powerless to do anything but watch them, in their unknowingness, as they delve into topics of sex and family and what makes a good day. Carpenter and Ross deliver their customary insightful, beautifully honed performances, but Ross find heartbreaking depth in a woman feeling herself slide ever closer to just giving up.

All the actors in the cast, including Patrick Alparone filling in for Daniel Petzold in a small but important role, are so focused and strong. They even manage believable Scottish accents, which is no small feat in itself. Restraint and reality rule in this everyday world, but passions are present, too. There’s violence and heroism in large and small ways on this Given Day, and it’s an absolutely phenomenal thing to experience. This is an unusual play in that it feels complete yet unfinished because, somehow, it’s still going on. The play lingers in memory to be sure, but it feels these people are still out there affecting each others’ lives in ways they’ll never know and just trying to make it through another day.

[bonus interview]
I talked to rising Bay Area director Jon Tracy (and the people who love him) for a feature in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the story here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Linda McLean’s Any Given Day continues an extended run through April 29 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street, San Francisco. Tickets are $20-$60. Call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org.

2011 in the rearview mirror: the best of Bay Area stages

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2011

Let’s just get right to it. 2011 was another year full of fantastic local theater (and some nice imports). Somehow, most of our theater companies has managed thus far to weather the bruising economy. May the new year find audiences clamoring for more great theater. (Click on the play titles to see my original reviews.)

1. How to Write a New Book for the Bible by Bill Cain
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Directed by Kent Nicholson

Only a few days ago I was telling someone about this play – my favorite new play of 2011 and the most moving theatrical experience I’ve had in a long time – and it happened again. I got choked up. That happens every time I try to describe Cain’s deeply beautiful ode to his family and to the spirituality that family creates (or maybe that’s vice-versa). Nicholson’s production, from the excellent actors to the simple, elegant design, let the play emerge in all its glory.

2. Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris
American Conservatory Theater
Directed by Jonathan Moscone

Because I interviewed Norris for the San Francisco Chronicle, I wasn’t allowed, at the playwright’s request, to review the production. Well, to heck with you Mr. Pulitzer Prize-winning Norris. This was a genius production. A great play (with some wobbly bits in the second act) that found a humane director and a cast that dipped into the darkness and sadness under the laughs (Rene Augesen in particular). How do we talk about race in this country? We don’t. We just get uncomfortable with it. This is drama that positively crackles – you can’t take your eyes off the stage and find there are moments when you’re actually holding your breath.

3. Bellwether by Steve Yockey
Marin Theatre Company
Directed by Ryan Rilette

Horror is hard in a theater, but Yockey came close to scaring the pants off his audience in this chilling, utterly compelling world-premiere drama about children disappearing from a suburban neighborhood. And the paranormal aspects weren’t even the scariest things – it was the humans being disgustingly human to each other in times of stress that really worked the nerves.

4. The Lily’s Revenge by Taylor Mac
Magic Theatre
Directed by Meredith McDonough, Marissa Wolf, Erika Chong Shuch, Erin Gilley, Jessica Holt and Jessica Heidt

The sheer scope, ambition and feel-good communal aspect of this massive undertaking makes it one of the year’s most disarming experiences. The charms of Mac, who also starred as Lily, cannot be underestimated. Kudos to the Magic for staging what amounted to the best theatrical open house in many a season.

5. The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
California Shakespeare Theater
Directed by Shana Cooper

I debated which Cal Shakes show I should include on this – it was down to Moscone’s Candida, which featured a luminous Julie Ecclesin the title role. But I opted for this high-octane production of a really difficult play. Leads Erica Sullivan and Slate Holmgren brought not only humor to this thorny comedy but also a depth of emotion I hadn’t ever experienced with this play. Director Cooper worked wonders with this Shrew, making it feel new and relevant.

6.The Companion Piece by Beth Wilmurt
Z Space @ Theatre Artaud
Directed by Mark Jackson

The combination of Wilmurt and Jackson is irresistible (Shameless plug! Read my San Francisco Chronicle interview with Jackson and Wilmurt here). Always has been and probably will be as long as they want to keep creating theater together. This vaudevillian spin featured laughs and songs and the most exquisite dance involving wheeled staircases you can imagine. That dance was easily one of the most beautiful things on a Bay Area stage this year.

7. Exit, Pursued by a Bear by Lauren Gunderson
Crowded Fire Theater Company
Directed by Desdemona Chiang

Fresh and funny, Gunderson’s spitfire of a play introduced us to a playwright we need to be hearing from on a regular basis.

8. Phaedra by Adam Bock
Shotgun Players
Directed by Rose Riordan

Every time Bock comes back to the Bay Area he shows us yet another facet of his extraordinary talent. This spin on a classic allowed Shotgun to wow us with an eye-popping set and a central performance by Catherine Castellanos that echoed for months afterward.

9.Lady Grey (in ever lower light) by Will Eno
Cutting Ball Theatre
Directed by Rob Melrose

I can’t get enough Will Eno. Whether he’s the Brecht of our generation or an absurdist spin on Thornton Wilder, I find him completely original and funny in ways that are heartbreaking. This trilogy of plays from Cutting Ball was uber-theatrical and highly enjoyable. As was Eno’s brilliant Middletown, which I saw at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company directed by Les Waters (Berkeley Rep’s soon-to-be-former associate artistic director who’s heading to Kentucky to head the Actors Theatre of Louisville).

10. Strike Up the Band by George S. Kaufman (book) and George and Ira Gershwin (score)
42nd Street Moon
Directed by Zack Thomas Wilde

42nd Street Moon shows have delighted me for years, but I can’t remember having this much fun at the Eureka in a long, long time. The laughs were big and genuine, and the score was sublime. The whole package was so appealing it’s a shame the production couldn’t move to another venue and keep the band marching on.

HONOR ROLL

The Wild Bride by Emma Rice and Kneehigh
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Directed by Emma Rice

This extraordinary show would have been at the top of my Top 10 list had it originated in this region or even in this country first. But as it’s a British import by a genius theater company, it can be content to live in the honorable mention category. The really good news is that Berkeley Rep has extended the show through Jan. 22. Start your new year right and go see this amazing piece of theater.

Of Dice and Men by Cameron McNary
Impact Theatre
Directed by Melissa Hillman

Nerds are people, too. This sharp, savvy and very funny show takes a very specific world – Dungeons and Dragons gamers – and makes it instantly recognizable because it’s so very human.

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Aurora Theatre Company
Directed by Mark Jackson

The physicality of this production is what lingers in memory, specifically Alexander Crowther’s transformation into a spider-like creature crawling over the wonderfully askew set. Director Jackson does wondrous things with actors and stages.

Spring Awakening by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik
San Jose Repertory Theatre
Directed by Rick Lombardo

This is not an easy musical to pull off, not only because the original Broadway production was so fresh and distinct. It’s tricky material performed by young material who have to act and rock convincingly. Lombardo’s production didn’t erase memories of the original, but it staked its own claim, and the young cast was bursting with talent.

A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee
Aurora Theatre Company
Directed by Tom Ross

Being so close to Albee’s drama in the intimate Aurora proved to be an electrifying experience as we began to feel the tension, the fear and the barely concealed sneers of the upper middle class. Kimberly King’s central performance was wondrous.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Nicest unscripted moment: Hugh Jackman ripping his pants and changing into new ones in full view of the audience on opening night of Hugh Jackman in Performance at the Curran Theatre. He’s a boxer brief guy. And a true showman.

Biggest disappointment: Kevin Spacey hamming it up so uncontrollably in the Bridge Project’s fitfully interesting Richard III. Spacey is a fascinating stage presence, but he’s so predictably Kevin Spacey. His Richard III offered no surprises and, sadly, no depth. If Richard was really the kind of guy who would do Groucho Marx impressions, he probably wouldn’t be the Richard III Shakespeare wrote.

Second biggest disappointment: ACT’s Tales of the City musical. Upon reflection, it just seems all wrong. Good idea to turn Armistead Maupin’s books into a musical. But the creative team was simply too reverent, too outside the time and place.

Magic sends tingles through Chafee’s Body

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Lilli played by Lauren English, Renee played by Rebecca Dines

Body checks: Lauren English (left) is Lili and Rebecca Dines is Renee in the Magic Theatre’s revival of its 1993 hit Why We Have a Body by Claire Chafee. Below: English’s Lili converses with Maggie Mason’s Mary. Photos by Jennifer Rei

 

“Once you start to ask,” Eleanor says, “there are more questions than answers.” Not a surprising statement in a play whose title, Why We Have a Body promises an answer to an implied question. And as Eleanor warns us, once those questions start forming, the answers, they keep multiplying.

Claire Chafee’s wonderfully enigmatic play is back at the Magic Theatre to open its 45th anniversary season with a look backward before heading into a season of newer plays. Body is being called a “legacy revival” because it was a huge hit for the Magic in 1993, running for six months and winning a passel of awards. What a welcome return it is.

In the nearly two decades since the play’s premiere, it has lost nothing in its sense of humor, sense of mystery and sense of, well, sensuality.

Chafee’s is an intellectual world – people living in their heads, in their pasts (the phrase “when I was a child” crops up a lot), in a perpetual state of perplexity – but that world is sliced through by a sharp comedy derived from family fractures and psychological scars. One of Chafee’s best lines comes when sisters Lili (Lauren English) and Mary (Maggie Mason) are on the phone talking about dreams. Mary has had another one of her feminist nightmares. “Like the once where you’re in a big circle and you have to come to a unanimous decision?” Lili queries.

Mary played by Maggie Mason and Lilli played by Lauren English

Though the play moves mostly in one direction, there’s a fragmented sense to this story of a mother (Lorri Holt) driven to remote stretches of the planet, while her daughters are left to try and figure out there thorny adulthoods for themselves. Lili is a private detective who helps women whose husbands are cheating on them. Mary is a criminal. She holds up 7-11s, obsesses about Joan of Arc and has the power to send faxes telepathically.

Mary is a singular person in every sense. She’s on her own in the world, perhaps mentally ill but very self-sufficient. Lili, though independent, buckles under the pressure of wanting and needing someone to love. The women she has loved have, as her sister, points out, are “busy not noticing her.” But she has recently met a rather extraordinary paleontologist on a plane. Renee (Rebecca Dines) is married but separated from her husband.

The scene on the airplane between Lili and Renee – so perfectly performed by English and Dines – is incredibly sexy, as is the following scene when a nervous Renee comes to Lili’s home and ends up presenting a paleontological slide show of her childhood.

Director Katie Pearl’s 90-minute production flows beautifully with the help of Marsha Ginsberg’s gorgeous white set, which represents airplanes, wild rivers in South America, the open desert (a pile of dirt is brought in to help manage that one), a Mexican beach and an airport bar among other locations.

I found myself longing for the character of Eleanor to be more involved in the play. She seems to be a short story circling a novel, an influence on everyone involved but not really present. Sharply etched by Holt, Eleanor is reacting to the limitations of her own upbringing. She’s out in the world with no plans to return home. “I was never told that you have to look for your life,” she says. “That some of aren’t born into our lives, we have to go and look for them. As if they’re taking place without us.”

The fine quartet of actors skillfully mine the humor and the darker, dramatic places to create characters that you care about – enough anyway to feel pangs when they do, which is fairly frequently.

It all seems to boil down to something Mary says to her older sister, who is not having enough fun. “You gotta just enjoy the human dilemma, Lili. That’s why it’s here.” That could be an answer to why we have a body. It could just as easily tell us why we go to the theater, but for some of us, they’re one and the same thing.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Claire Chafee’s Why We Have a Body continues through Oct. 2 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street, San Francisco. Tickets are $30-$75. Call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org.

What’s up, glitter Lily?

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The Lily's Revenge
Taylor Mac (center) is Lily in The Lily’s Revenge at the Magic Theatre. Here in Act 1, “A Princess Musical” directed by Meredith McDonough, he is surrounded by The Marys (from left) Jason Brock, Amy Kossow and Dave End. Below: In Act 3, “A Dream Ballet,” directed and choreographed by Erika Chong Shuch, Bride Love is played by Rowena Richie and her flower girls are (from left) Erin Mei-Ling Stuart and Ara Glenn-Johanson. Photos by Pak Han

Sitting at the computer, hands hovering over the keyboard, I’ve been staring at the screen wondering where to begin describing and opining about The Lily’s Revenge at the Magic Theatre.

Adjectives don’t quite do it justice – much the way that a photograph of an oil painting never really captures the essence, vibrancy and presence of the original work. And the usual critical jabber – Don’t miss it! Theater event of the spring! Unforgettably unique! – seem paltry as well.

It’s not that Lily, the brainchild of writer/performer Taylor Mac, is a landmark work in Western theater canon or the reinvention of the art form as we know it. But it’s something incredibly special – a completely absorbing communal experience that turns out to be more than the sum of its abundant parts.

There’s a definite party vibe on all floors of Building D in Fort Mason Center. The Magic usually occupies space on the third floor, but for this epic, with five acts, nearly 40 actors and musicians and a running time of about 4 ½ hours, the company has spread out all over the building.

The main floor, when you enter, is where you pick up will call tickets and, if you’re in the mood, order the box meal you’ll receive between Acts 1 and 2 (price is $15 and the meal includes a sandwich, chips, a cookie, piece of fruit and a non-alcoholic beverage). You pass by what is usually a meeting room, but if you poke your head in, you’ll see it’s a ginormous dressing room for the large cast and their outsize costumes. The sounds of giggling and vocal warm-ups trickle out of the room.

As audience members gather outside the Magic’s auditorium, free red wine and coffee (usually available between Acts 1 and 2) are offered to bolster excitement and perhaps provide some added stamina. This is the start of a long haul.

When it’s time to enter the theater, Kat Wentworth as the Card Girl, bangs a gong and gives us instructions. One key thing to note: she requests that for the first two (of three) intermissions, keep all mobile technology off and interact with fellow audience members instead. During the final intermission, communication with the outside world is actively encouraged.

Once inside the theater, you’re strapped in for the ride (metaphorically speaking), and though you could conceivably jump off during an intermission, that would be a mistake – if only because the intermissions contain entertainments as varied and as fun as the show itself.

Five acts, six directors (one for the intermissions), nearly five hours and a cast larger than some operas. Those are the basic parameters. Each act is performed in a different style – musical theater, dance, verse play, film and camp-drag extravaganza – and each time you come back into the theater, you’ll find it in a different configuration (and you won’t be sitting in the same seat or near the same people). Huge kudos to the directors for their outstanding and varied work: Meredith McDonough, Marissa Wolf, Erika Chong Shuch, Erin Gilley, Jessica Holt and Jessica Heidt.

The Lily's Revenge

In terms of the show itself, here’s a little of what you can expect. You will be dazzled by Lindsay W. Davis’ costume designs. He turns the botanical world into a glitzy hot house of roses with killer thorns, a sunflower queen with the most regal headgear this side of African royalty, a pile of dirt that becomes a gorgeous glamazon gal, an infectious disease with staggering member and so, so much more. There’s beauty, humor and dazzle in the pageantry of Davis’ marvelous creations.

You will fall under the spell of Taylor Mac, whose script is so smart, so funny and so incredibly rich with delights that you may be a little resentful to find that he’s also a consummate actor/comedian/singer. He stars as Lily, a potted plant from a home in Daly City who’s being taken to see his first play. At first, he looks like an asparagus crossed with Claudette Colbert, but then you fall for this budding thespian and love him, petals and all. Captivated by the magic of the theater, Lily works his way into the narrative (with the help of Time played by the wonderful Jeri Lynn Cohen) and becomes the hero: a plant who longs to be the groom to the beautiful bride (a silvery voiced Casi Maggio).

There’s a scene in Act 1 when Lily becomes so caught up in the rush of being a theatrical diva that he envisions an entire theater career in one glorious monologue. I immediately wanted to hit rewind and watch him do it again. But there’s no time in a 4 ½-hour show for revisiting. The show must move on.

And so it does. The villain of the piece is The Great Longing, a red velvet theatrical curtain played with bravura gusto by Mollena Williams, and her mission is to keep the world mired in nostalgia and, as we hear over and over again, “institutional narrative” aka the romantic illusion of weddings.

From act to act, we check in on Lily’s journey to woo the bride away from her human (and barely dressed) groom (Paul Baird) and his quest to free Dirt (Monique Jenkinson, also known as Fauxnique and this show’s very busy, very creative makeup designer) for reasons that are too complicated to go into.

In fact, the plot is filled with absurdity as it weaves metaphor and myth and fable in ways that would please John Waters and Joseph Campbell. But as silly as things get, there’s always depth to Mac’s writing and especially to his performance as Lily, a character you immediately love and trust. Then, when Mac sings (the delightfully tuneful score is by Rachelle Garniez and Mac), time stops, and so does the show. A ferociously captivating singer, Mac has a voice that gives you shivers, makes you smile and makes you sad – all at the same time. Magnificent.

I can honestly say that I did not look at my watch once while I was on the Lily’s Revenge ride. I was exhausted by the end – the final scene, in which Mac’s charms are stripped down to their bare essentials and as powerful as ever, had me all emotional – but I loved every minute.

This is a completely unique theatrical experience, one that the Magic should take full credit for orchestrating with panache. This could have been one giant, spangled chaotic mess, but it’s a triumph. It’s an extraordinarily wonderful event infused with utter absurdity and artistic genius.

There’s so much more to the show that I haven’t even begun to touch upon, but I’ve said enough. You should just go experience The Lily’s Revenge for yourself. It’s community theater in the truest sense – created, performed and enjoyed by an open-hearted, appreciative community that is created in a mere 4 ½ hours.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge continues through May 22 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street. Tickets are $30-$75. Call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org for information.