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.

Love, peace, soul fill ACT’s joyous Hippest Trip

Posted on September 7, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: The cast of Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical dances up a storm on stage at American Conservatory Theater’s Toni Rembe Theater through Oct. 8. Set design is by Jason Sherwood, projection design is by Aaron Rhyne and lighting is by Jen Schriever. BELOW: Amber Iman is Pam Brown and Quentin Earl Darrington is Don Cornelius. Photos by Kevin Berne & Alessandra Mello

For more than three decades, “Soul Train” was the “hippest trip” on TV. Soul, R&B, funk, disco and hip-hop music combined with the latest dance moves from young Black Americans fused into one of the longest-running syndicated programs in television history. And now “Soul Train,” perhaps inevitably in our jukebox world, is the hippest trip in musical theater.

Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical had its world premiere Wednesday and kicked off the new American Conservatory Theater on stage at the Toni Rembe Theater. Clearly this is a show with Broadway in its sights, and the news on that front is mostly good. Hippest Trip explodes with energy and joy. The score contains about 30 songs (mostly snippets) from the “Soul Train” era, which ran from 1971 to 2006. Orchestrated and arranged by Kenny Seymour and played by a sizzling hot 12-piece band (under the music direction of Sean Kana), the song selections feel more appropriate here than they do in a lot of other jukebox musicals.

Many of the songs underscore ferociously entertaining dance numbers choreographed by Camille A. Brown (who is not afraid to get out the rollerskates), and that’s when this show is at its dazzling best. If The Hippest Trip was just this extraordinary ensemble dancing singing through the evolution of ’70s, ’80s and ’90s music the way TV audiences experienced it on “Soul Train,” the show would still be a blast.

But book writer Dominique Morisseau and director Kamilah Forbes have more on their minds than just a nostalgic trip through song and dance. Their focus is “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius, who went from being a low-level Chicago TV journalist to the master of the “Soul Train” empire. The first act chronicles Cornelius’ struggle to get something on the air to represent Black America beyond the death and devastation that seemed to be filling screens in the early ’70s. Modeled after Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand,” “Soul Train” quickly became a hit in Chicago, so Cornelius moved operations to Los Angeles and took his show into national syndication.

By the end of Act 1, we’re getting into more typical show biz bio territory, with success and ego threatening to overwhelm Cornelius’ integrity (he’d feed his dancers, but he wouldn’t pay them) and taking a toll on his wife and two sons, who remained in Chicago.

While the show pays attention to some of the star “Soul Train” dancers and the artists who spun their time with the show into full careers – Damita Jo Freeman, Jody Watley and Rosie Perez among them – Cornelius remains at the center. Act 2 documents his troubled family life, serious medical issues and his reluctance to share his empire with his son, Tony.

Scenes are fast and the pace is brisk in this 2 1/2-hour spectacle, but Morisseau, a noted playwright who also shaped Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations, manages to convey the weight of success and the toll it takes on a person even while fully representing the joy that Cornelius was so intent on documenting and sharing with the world.

Director Forbes revels in the fun of youth and the excitement of being on TV. She is ably assisted by the set (by Jason Sherwood), which turns the proscenium into an old-fashioned TV set and then sends those billowing steamy curls from the “Soul Train” locomotive into the theater in the form of wonderfully effective projection screens filled with the vibrant designs of Aaron Rhyne. I don’t usually dig projections on stage, but in a show about a classic TV show famous for replicating a dance club, the projections are perfect and seriously bolster the general feeling of elation that so often permeates the theater.

And here’s where we get into what might be addressed before heading to Broadway. To be clear, The Hippest Trip is a thoroughly entertaining experience full of sparkle and dazzle (just try to contain the exultation of costumer Dede Ayite’s creations). The parade of song, dance and fashion, combined with clips from the actual show, is simply splendid. And while Cornelius’ creation is justly celebrated and lionized, his life story feels fairly ordinary by show biz bio standards, so Morisseau pushes harder than she needs to convey a looming sense of his faults and the pressures he was under – as Cornelius says frequently, “You can let other people underestimate you, but you never underestimate yourself.” He was fighting to change the world but grew into a cranky old man who didn’t like disco or hip-hop and thought dancers with wild new moves were “weirdos.”

In the end, as much as I admired Cornelius, I found myself more interested in the dancers and the life of the “Soul Train” show itself. I kept wanting this Trip to erupt into a full-blown “Soul Train” dance party – and it felt like the opening-night audience, which happened to be one of the best-dressed audiences I’ve ever seen, wanted that, too. But it doesn’t really happen, even when the full-bore joy returns at the end.

Too many numbers are cut off or interrupted by dialogue. When the great Amber Iman, who plays Pam Brown, Cornelius’ most trusted associate, is singing a soulful song from 1990 (producers have asked we not divulge certain song titles to prevent spoilers), you do not interrupt her. The audience finally gets to let loose with their bottled-up hysteria after a New Jack Swing explosion of “My Prerogative” (that title we can share). But there should be many more ovations before that – the audience wants to pour love into this show and doesn’t get enough opportunity to do so.

What’s not to adore about this mighty, mighty cast? I’ve already noted that the ensemble is overflowing with talent, which is probably why their slice of the show (and a generous slice it is) packs such a wallop. Iman, who starred in the title role of Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Goddess, is a forthright stunner in an underwritten role. Quentin Earl Darrington as Cornelius gives us a human-scale impresario, a man who wants to be The Wiz but is really just the flawed, hard-working guy behind the curtain. Darrington has a beautiful voice that he gets to show off in the Al Green song “I’m So Tired of Being Alone” and then in a duet with Sidney Dupont, who plays Tony Cornelius. In smaller roles, Kayla Davion, Rich James, Cameron Hah, Jaquez, Mayte Natalio, Alain “Hurrikane” Lauture and Charlene “Chi-Chi” Smith are marvelous as some of the breakout “Soul Train” stars.

As with most jukebox musicals, pop songs that were never intended to bear the weight of musical theater storytelling are nevertheless asked to do so. There’s less of that here because so much of the music is for dancing, and when the pop songs become character songs, there’s a higher success rate than usual. Still, when an optimistic mid-tempo 1970 tune becomes an emotionally fraught duet, the cringe factor is only relieved by the stellar performances.

While there’s still polishing that needs to happen, The Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical barrels down the tracks with style, spirt and, as we might expect, abundant love, peace and soul.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical continues through Oct. 8 at American Conservatory Theater’s Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco. Running time: 2 hours and 35 minutes (including intermission). Tickets are $25-$140 (subject to change). Call 415-749-2228 or visit act-sf.org.

Tina: Do I love you? My, oh, my

Posted on August 3, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: Zurin Villanueva is Tina Turner in the North American touring production of Tina – The Tina Turner Musical playing the Bay Area at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre and San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts. BELOW: Villanueva as Tina performs as part of the Ike & Tina Tuner Revue. Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade, 2022

Any time spent reveling in the glory of Tina Turner is time well spent. Turner is a musical titan, a quintessential story of American turmoil and triumph, a performer of legendary power. Her death earlier this year at age 83 brought new reverence to her life and career, forever enshrining her as the true Queen of Rock’n’Roll.

There’s no shortage of documentation when it comes to Turner’s remarkable, turbulent life. Turner herself published several memoirs. Angela Bassett memorably portrayed Turner on the big screen in the 1993 bio-pic What’s Love Got to Do With It. And five years ago in London, Turner’s life story exploded onto the musical theater stage with Tina – The Tina Turner Musical using her songbook to tell her life story. Turner and her second husband, Erwin Bach, are credited as executive producers, so the show has the artist’s stamp of approval. After running on Broadway in 2019 (then closing for Covid, then reopening in 2022 for a few months), the show is touring the country. In the wake of Turner’s death, having her live again through her Broadway avatar is strangely comforting.

Anyone tasked with playing Tuner obviously has some mighty, mighty stilettos to fill. For the tour, now at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season before heading to the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, the role is shared by Naomi Rodgers and Zurin Villanueva. At Wednesday’s press opening, Villanueva proved to be an extraordinary force, with the voice and the long legs to admirably conjure Turner’s flair and ferocity as well as the acting chops to help convey her emotional and spiritual depth.

Shoehorning existing pop songs into a biographical musical rarely works well, and the method is only intermittently successful in Tina. The trio of book writers – Pulitzer Prize-winner Katori Hall, Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins – have taken the most conventional route imaginable. The show begins with promise as the barnburner “Nutbush City Limits” is re-conceived as a moody evocation of Turner’s small town Tennessee childhood, but then the mid-’80s B-side “Don’t Turn Around” becomes a duet for young Anna Mae Bullock (Turner’s birth name) and her grandmother (who raised her). The disconnect between the middling 1980s songwriting in the world of mid-1950s Tennessee is the first sign that the jukeboxing of Turner’s life will be less Jersey Boys or Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and more Summer: The Donna Summer Musical or Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical.

Some songs fit nicely into the storytelling: “Let’s Stay Together” is effective as a duet, “River Deep–Mountain High” dazzles in a straightforward recording session scene and “Tonight,” Turner’s 1986 duet with David Bowie, is intriguingly reimagined as a trio with Turner, her younger self and her grandmother. But others simply don’t work. “I Don’t Wanna Fight No More,” a new song Turner recorded for her bio-pic, is used as the dramatic Act 1 closer, and while Villanueva acts the hell out of it, the straightforward pop song is not the dramatic aria it needs to be in the moment of Turner’s escape from her abusive marriage and into the next, liberated phase of her life.

Other tunes, like “Private Dancer” and “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” are just plain awkward (what about her mother’s death is “life beyond the Thunderdome?”), while “I Can’t Stand the Rain” is just silly as Turner walks around London in the rain while the ensemble passes by with umbrellas. Apparently director Phyllida Lloyd used up all her good ideas in Mamma Mia!, a jukebox musical that, happily, doesn’t have to bother with real life.

Speaking of real life, it’s worth noting that slick musical theater is not an ideal medium for the depiction of spousal or child abuse. The very unreal singing and dancing contrasted with the very real violence toward women and children trivializes the former and undermines the pain and horror of the latter. For the sake of the dramatic arc, it’s understandable that the book writers would want us to know the nightmare of Turner’s marriage to Ike Turner so that her eventual escape and even more eventual emergence as one of the greatest rock stars of all time is fully felt.

Because Turner’s biography is so well known – try to find anyone who doesn’t hear the name Ike Turner and immediately think of him as an abuser – it’s a shame that the creative team didn’t find more creative, more inspired or more inventive ways to connect with Turner’s extraordinary journey. We whiz past all the signposts here as Turner rises, falls and then ascends to Olympian heights. But in splashing through these shallow, if flashy, waters, there isn’t much room for emotional connection.

After the curtain call, when all the biographical duties have been fulfilled, the show shakes off its narrative shackles and lets Tina be Tina. The mini-concert that ends the show is sublime. The whole enterprise comes to life in ways that have only previously been hinted at. For those rousing few minutes, Tina Turner is back with us, a flesh-and-blood survivor yet somehow, blissfully immortal.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Tina – The Tina Turner Musical continues through Aug. 27 as part of the BroadwaySF season at the Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco. Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com. The show runs Aug. 29-Sept. 23 at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 S. Almaden Blvd., San Jose as part of the Broadway San Jose season. Call 408-792-4111 or visit broadwaysanjose.com. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes (including intermission).

The never-ending misery of Les Misérables

Posted on July 8, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: The ensemble performs “One Day More” from the touring production of Les Misérables running at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre through July 23 as part of the BroadwaySF season. BELOW: Christine Heesun Hwang is an excellent Éponine. Photos byMatthew Murphy & Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

When the “new-and-improved” version of Les Misérables came through San Francisco 11 years ago in celebration of the never-ending musical’s 25th anniversary, the big news was that this thoroughly re-staged version had banished the famous turntable that kept the epic’s action spinning and, most famously, the barricade barricading. That version of the tour is back at the Orpheum Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season, and everything I said about that production then (read my review here) still stands. Happily, the highly annoying projections have been somewhat minimized, although the lighting in general seems so dim it’s like they’re trying to disguise any wear and tear on what is undoubtedly a worn and torn touring production. The version we saw in 2012 felt so much like a video game it was surprising the Playbill didn’t come with a joystick to help guide Jean Valjean through the sewers of Paris. This one feels slightly less so, but the projections are so anodyne they may as well not even be there.

I first saw Les Misérables in London in the fall of 1986. I had fallen in love with the two-cassette cast album, and from my seat in the Palace Theatre way (waaaaayyy) up in what the British call the “angels” seats (because you’re so close to heaven), the show I saw left me cold. I was at such a high altitude that I could see what was happening in front of and behind the barricade and could watch costume changes (Look! Fantine is changing her wig!) and other stage business that was best left unseen. A few months later, I splurged for an orchestra seat and liked the show better but still not as much as I liked simply listening to the score. Then, in 1989, I saw the touring production that spent many months at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre. I was in the second row, and it was Easter Sunday. It was like seeing an entirely different show. I loved it and then proceeded to see it at least five more times across the next two decades.

The tour I saw in 2012 and the current tour have convinced me that my time with Les Miz has come to an end. I’m back to feeling like I’m in the angels seeing something that is, essentially, empty spectacle that no amount of flash and volume can mask. The actors don’t act so much as indicate, and every song, from “I Dreamed a Dream” to “On My Own” to “Bring Him Home” is sung so forcefully and with the expectation of blowing the audience’s collective mind that there’s no room for the song to actually live and breathe. It’s like Broadway’s greatest hits of the ’80s as performed on – take your pick – “American Idol,” “The Voice” or “America’s Got Talent.” The acting makes the show feel even more like an opera because it’s all show-offy singing and cardboard characters.

Producer Cameron Mackintosh keeps the Misérables machine running, even if it’s probably best to let it rest so that fans can actually start to miss it before it comes back yet again. The show’s press release claims the 1985 musical has been seen by more than 130 million people worldwide in 53 countries and 22 languages. The original Broadway production ran for 16 years and there have already been two revivals: in 2006, only three years after the original closed, and in 2014.

Mackintosh also likes to celebrate the show’s anniversaries with lavish concerts that spawn TV specials and albums. He did that for the 10th and the 25th, and while the London production was temporarily moved out of its theater to make way for renovations, Mackintosh kept the show going in a concert version that kept getting extended (and was eventually televised). For these concerts, multiple old cast members show up, as do choirs and every stringed instrument in England. It’s somewhat ironic that as the touring show gets smaller, the concert productions just get insanely huge. Perhaps he’ll broadcast from space for the upcoming 40th anniversary. Or maybe craft an entirely, cost-saving AI company. Seriously, the Les Miz holographic experience can’t be far away.

It’s also ironic that the musical misery that pours forth from the show makes audiences so happy. For three hours, the audience applauds its way through the abuse of sex workers, abuse of children, murder of children, abuse of prisoners, corrupt policing, suicide, theft, psychotic vengeance, poverty, confusing (ultimately deadly) political ideology and performances that are all costumes and vocal chords rather than living, breathing humans. Side note: there’s an interesting lyric change in the current production when Théndardier is looting his way through “Beggar at the Feast.” The original lyric was: “Here comes a prince. There goes a Jew. This one’s a queer. But what can you do?” The new lyric replaces that last line with “I might try it, too.”

Through all the changes to the production, I try to remember what made me love Les Misérables more than 30 years ago, and I still get pangs of that affection in the big, flag-waving numbers “One Day More” and “Do You Hear the People Sing?” and in the finale when we hear the lyric, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” I understand the changes that have been made to make producing the show less expensive – I imagine we’ll even get a turntable-free production of Hamilton at some point. But I don’t need to experience Les Miz again until it is seriously revived in a whole new production. Maybe in 20 years or so when I’m in my 70s and some hotshot director has a new vision to crack open the show for a new generation. Undoubtedly, the ever-youthful Mackintosh will still be around to make sure that version runs for at least another half century.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Les Misérables continues through July 23 at the Orpheum Theatre, 1182 Market St., San Francisco, as part of the BroadwaySF season. Running time: about 3 hours (including one intermission). Tickets are $60.50-$225.50 (subject to change). Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com

A glorious journey Into the Woods

Posted on June 21, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: Stephanie J. Block and Sebastian Arcelus, a real-life married couple, are the Baker’s Wife and the Baker in the national touring company of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods. BELOW: David Patrick Kelly (left) is the Mysterious Man, Kennedy Kanagawa (center) is the puppeteer for Milky White the cow and Cole Thompson is Jack (of the beanstalk fame). Photos by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade

By all accounts, last year’s New York City Center Encores! production of Into the Woods, the beloved fairytale mash-up by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, was a special kind of magic. Director Lear deBessonet stripped away all the fairytale frippery and let the actors and Sondheim’s glorious score shine through. Even when the show transferred to Broadway and cast members started to rotate in and out, it seems the magic just couldn’t be dampened. Surely, when the production began its national tour, it would be rather less luminous version of itself.

Based on what is on stage at the Curran Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season, this Into the Woods is destined to be the version that makes musical theater audiences react like they’re at a Taylor Swift concert. At least that was the case at Tuesday’s opening-night performance. From the instant the curtain rose swiftly up to reveal a large slice of the cast, the audience roared its approval, and that roar only increased over the next few hours.

Everything about this Woods is so confident, clear and crisp that you merely need to exhale and be swept up in the swift moving joys of great actors, beautiful voices and a score that continually reveals treasures no matter how many times you’ve heard it. In short, this production – which is full of performers who also did this on Broadway – really is as delightful and as heart-expanding as we’ve heard it is.

At the center of the story is the Baker’s Wife and the Baker’s Wife’s Husband (aka The Baker) played by real-life marrieds Stephanie J. Block and Sebastian Arcelus, and they exemplify so much of why this production works so beautifully. They carefully tread the line between cartoonish and realistic. They get big laughs when they need to and just as easily trigger the tears. They are as warm and charming as they can be, but they’re also precise and magnificent when it comes to the music and the lyrics. They are simultaneously theatrical and relatable – we get that they’re storybook characters on a quest to kill the curse that has rendered them childless, but we also care about them.

Block’s full-body delight at her dalliance with a prince in the woods (“Any Moment” performed with the sterling Gavin Creel, who provokes full-body delight in the entire theater) is palpable, so it’s no surprise that her “Moments in the Woods,” which follows, is an emotionally complex (adultery is fun! or is it?), joyfully vigorous showstopper.

The way this show works its magic is also evident in Milky White, the cow belonging to and best friend of Jack (Cole Thompson, who will later tangle with giants at the top of the beanstalk. Sure, it’s a puppet (designed by James Ortiz) operated by a skilled puppeteer, but that doesn’t begin to convey how much emotion surrounds this cow with the sad, sparkly eyes. Kennedy Kanagawa masterfully manipulates the decrepit bovine, but his physical dexterity and expressive face complete the equation in ways that continually surprise and captivate. It’s a simple idea with a huge payoff.

Every detail has been attended to here, and the 16-piece orchestra (in full view on stage) conducted by John Bell ensures that Sondheim’s music is the life blood of the show. Lyrics are so clear that no whiff of enchantment, cynicism, despair, grief or arrogance goes unnoticed, and Bell keeps the show moving swiftly – not too fast but just fast enough that the fairytale glee of the first act lingers long enough to undergird the reality that intrudes in Act 2 (when the body count begins to rival a Shakespearean tragedy). With the orchestra on stage, this could come across as a staged concert, but it doesn’t. David Rockwell’s simple set – a few set pieces and just enough large birch tree trunks to convey a forest – relies on the sharp lighting by Tyler Micoleau and the simple costumes (by Andrea Hood) to add color and tone.

There is no shortage of standout moments and performances, but Creel as Cinderella’s Prince and his compatriot Jason Forbach as Rapunzel’s Prince, mine every last laugh out of their duet, “Agony” and its woefully domesticated reprise. David Patrick Kelly is a robust narrator and actually makes sense of the Mysterious Man, who is so moving on “No More,” a duet with the Baker. Katy Geraghty is the embodiment of innocence and experience wrestling under a blood-red cape as a tart Little Red Ridinghood. Diane Phelan‘s soprano soars on Cinderella’s “On the Steps of the Palace,” and Felicia Curry, filling in for Montego Glover as the Witch on Tuesday, electrifies on “Stay With Me” and the impossibly moving “Children Will Listen.”

Sophisticated and silly, sublime and deeply moving, Into the Woods – especially this Into the Woods – is the fairytale we most need to experience in all its musical theater glory.

The chances look small,
The choices look grim,
But everything you learn there
Will help when you return there.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods continues a brief run through June 25 as part of the BroadwaySF season at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes (including intermission). Tickets are $90-$299. Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com

Grungy glamour fills ACT’s new journey to Oz

Posted on June 8, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: Katrina Lauren McGraw (center) is Glinda, Chanel Tilgham (left) is Dorothy and Travis Santell Rowland is part of the lively ensemble in the American Conservatory Theater production of The Wizard of Oz. BELOW: Attempting an audience with the great and powerful Wizard of Oz are (from left) Beth Wilmurt (Ozian), Darryl V. Jones (Tin Man), Tilghman (Dorothy), El Beh (Guard), Cathleen Riddley (Cowardly Lion) and Danny Scheie (Scarecrow). Photos by Kevin Berne

We’re all friends of Dorothy now. At least that’s what if feels like in American Conservatory Theater’s Pride Month production of The Wizard of Oz now at the Toni Rembe Theater. Part Pride Parade, part homage to the 1939 movie, part glam rock/glitter grunge dime store spectacle, this Oz has a lot going on, including a lengthy running time that inches toward three hours.

Director/choreographer Sam Pinkleton throws abundant ideas into this well-loved, well-worn tale of Dorothy Gale and her trip over the rainbow – some are clever and exciting, others are not. The intention seems to be a homegrown Oz that feels rooted in San Francisco history, with a special interest in LGBTQ+ activism, Summer of Love hippy vibes and queer culture evocation. This may be a story that begins in Kansas, but it ends up in a fantasy world where the Wicked Witch of the West is like a country-western Karen, the Wizard feels like a Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie and Dorothy is a sweetly nondescript teenager in a Batman t-shirt. There’s even (at least on opening night) an appearance by the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band marching across the stage.

It feels like Pinkleton wants to whip up a tornado of fun – a new, slightly edgier take on a beloved story but told with just enough sincerity and heart to keep the traditionalists (reasonably) happy. The tornado, for instance, is now a dance piece in which ensemble member Travis Santell Woland wears football shoulder pads from which dangles a dense fringe of plastic caution tape and spins around the stage. There are tall fans, tossed confetti, a Twister game mat (very funny) and a lot of chaos, but not much storytelling about where Dorothy is in all of this. We know where she is because this story is in our DNA at this point, but the stage is more confusing than it needs to be.

There’s also a unique solution to the yellow-brick road. We never actually see it, but whenever the gang is “off to see the Wizard,” audience members wave the yellow paper napkins they find in their programs.

Set and costume designer David Zinn is clearly having fun with a non-traditional Oz. There are tinsel curtains aplenty, mirrors and multicolored Christmas lights. The challenge of Munchkinland is cleverly addressed (mostly with household objects and googly eyes), and when there’s a need for flashy costumes, like for Glinda (a marvelous Katrina Lauren McGraw in a cloud of pinks) or for residents of the Emerald City, Zinn delivers with some genuine glamor. His costumes for Dorothy’s trio of fellow travelers focus on the humans rather than the creatures. Danny Scheie as the scene-stealing Scarecrow, is outfitted in hippy-ish crochet and a hat that’s actually a crushed milk carton. Darryl V. Jones as the Tin Man might be confused for a leather daddy if leather came in silver. And Cathleen Riddley as the Cowardly Lion is less predator and more teddy bear with a tail.

The sound of the show also takes a turn from the traditional, and in place of the lush MGM orchestrations for the classic Harold Arlen/E.Y. Harburg score, we have electronic sounds as if from the early days of the Moog synthesizer. But when Chanel Tilghman’s Dorothy offers her lovely take on “Over the Rainbow,” we get cast members augmenting the on-stage five-piece band with cello, ukulele, violin and a surprise woodshed tool (that also happens to be surprisingly beautiful). I was kind of hoping at some point all that chilly electronica would erupt into a disco dance party, but that never really happens, although our time in Munchkinland comes close.

Working from a faithful 1987 stage adaptation of the movie by John Kane for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Pinkleton’s Oz feels less like an archetypal journey and more like an intermittent drag cabaret performed on the smaller proscenium with in the proscenium. I have to admit that as an adult, I find the plot rather tedious, and although this crew is exceptionally lively, I still found myself anxious to get to the “ignore that man behind the curtain” moment. There is surprising poignancy as Dorothy bids her Oz friends goodbye, but that may be borne more from familiarity than any deep feeling the production has earned.

Pinkleton throws a lot at this wizardly wall to see what might stick, and in the end, not much really does. It’s a vessel we all know and love dressed up and enlivened in some interesting ways, but once we’re back in Kansas, the memory of the dream feels disappointingly hollow. This Oz is fun. It’s fresh. But it’s ultimately frustrating.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
American Conservatory Theater’s The Wizard of Oz continues through June 25 at the Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco. Running time: 2 hours and 40 minutes (including one 20-minute intermission). Tickets are $. Call or visit act-sf.org.

Nightmare or revelation? It’s Cambodian Rock Band, and it rocks

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: The cast of Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band at Berkeley Repertory Theatre includes (from left) Joseph Ngo, Abraham Kim, Geena Quintos and Moses Villarama. BELOW: Ngo and Francis Jue. Photos by Lynn Lane/Berkeley Rep

Cambodian Rock Band is such a unique show that it’s hard to describe. It’s the most uplifting story about human atrocities you can imagine. You could say it’s a play with music, but the music – performed live by the cast – is such an integral part of the story (and the emotion of it all), that you could call it a concert with play. There’s genocide and the uplift of great live music.

Whatever it is, it’s powerful and moving and a joy (and, truth be told, a terror) to behold on stage at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre. The exuberant cast keeps up with every tonal shift, time shift and musical cue in playwright Lauren Yee’s compelling story, and the experience slams the audience this way and that in the best possible way.

The roots of Cambodian Rock Band go back to 2016 and to Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor new works program. From there, the show has been produced in a lot of places – Oregon Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Rep, off Broadway to name a few – and it’s that off-Broadway production from the Signature Theatre that is making the rounds of major regional theaters, including Berkeley Rep.

Director Chay Yew dexterously blends all the disparate elements of Yee’s script into something wholly original. The show begins as a rock concert circa 1975 in Phnom Penh. The five-piece band is Cyclos, and they’re caught up in the excitement of recording their first album. Then everything changes. The Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot comes to power, launching a horrifying reign that ultimately led to the death of an estimated 2 million Cambodians. Amid the totalitarian terror, education, music and art were outlawed, and those who practiced such dangerous trades were systematically dispatched.

From the opening concert, we bounce to Phnom Penh in 2008 and the first war crimes trial related to the Pol Pot regime. A young Cambodian-American woman, Neary (Geena Quintos) is part of the legal team bringing Commrade Duch to justice after his stint as director of the infamous S-21 prison, which is estimated to have slaughtered 20,000 people. When the prison was liberated in 1979, only seven people appeared to have survived. But, as Neary discovers, there is a possible eighth survivor, and she needs to locate him so he can testify.

Just as her trial is about to begin, Neary’s father, Chum (Joe Ngo) shows up and wants to bring her back to the U.S. He fled the Khmer regime and doesn’t want his daughter mired in all that horror from 30 years before. But she is insistent, and the father-daughter struggle will delve into some tangled family history that is played out in flashbacks.

To say that Ngo as Chum is extraordinary really isn’t saying enough. He is called upon to sing and play guitar in the band, play the young Chum navigating the nightmare of the Khmer Rouge and play the older Chum, a husband and father and American who would rather not re-live his Cambodian past. By turns funny, sympathetic and devastatingly dramatic, Ngo brings an astonishing level of energy and depth to his character’s remarkable journey.

Quintos as Neary is a defiant but sympathetic daughter following her own quest for justice, but she’s also a powerhouse singer in the band. Moses Villarama plays characters in both of the play’s eras and plucks a mean bass, while Abraham Kim wallops the drums (and some smaller roles) and Jane Lui tackles the keys (and prisoners at S-21).

Former Bay Area resident (but still Bay Area favorite) Francis Jue interrupts the opening concert to act as a sort of host for the evening and to guide us back and forth in time until he becomes a major player in the drama. Nobody can convey more charm or more menace than Jue, who is truly masterful in this show. And not for nothing, he plays a mean cowbell.

Unlike something like Life Is Beautiful the warmhearted(?) Roberto Benigni comedy(?) about the Holocaust, Cambodian Rock Band is not sappy or easy. Yee isn’t softening Pol Pot’s genocide in any way. The use of music – something the Khmer Rouge considered so dangerous they banned it – and specifically rock music (originals by the band Dengue Fever plus some vintage Cambodian surf songs and other period tunes) emphasizes the raging glory of humanity – and the human connection that art creates – even in the face of humanity at its very worst. An evening that begins as a concert ends as a transcendent event that feels enormous and full of hope.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band continues through April 2 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Running time: 2 1/2 hours (including a 15-minute intermission). Tickets are $21-$122 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.

SIX sicks sexy exxies on Henry for histo-remix

Posted on February 23, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: Olivia Donalson (center) as Anna of Cleves in the North American tour of SIX, part of the BroadwaySF season at the Orpheum Theatre. BELOW: The cast revives the six wives of King Henry VIII. Photos by Joan Marcus

If SIX, the peppy, poppy musical that attempts to “girl power” the six wives of King Henry VIII back into the spotlight, feels like an imaginative school project that has gotten way out of hand, well that’s pretty much what it is. Creators Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss began working on the show while they were still in college. The show, which brings back the wives as mock-Tudor versions of ’90s pop royalty such as Beyonce, Britney Spears, Ariana Grande and the like, made its debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017 and has taken its crusade to London’s West End and to Broadway, where the queens are still going strong.

There’s a lot of earnest good cheer and posturing in SIX, whose national tour has decamped to the Orpheum Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season. The women are all glammed up in sparkly outfits (by Gabriella Slade that are part disco armor, part regal finery. They strut and fret for about 85 rambunctious minutes on an illuminated set (by Emma Bailey with exceedingly busy lighting design by Tim Deiling) that feels very much like the Las Vegas version of Hampton Court Palace.

This college project that has turned into an international mega-hit is primarily a concert, complete with the all-women band on stage, that has the wives competing with each other to see who had the most miserable time being married to old Hank Eight. That’s an awfully thin thread on which to hang a show, but there it is – another singing contest full of vocal one-upsmanship in which you expect Simon Cowell to show up and scowl.

Since SIX opened on Broadway (right before the lockdown but resumed in the fall of 2021), I’ve encountered friends who absolutely loved the show and its fierce embrace of campy/poppy sensibility to reframe historical figures. Others absolutely loathed it and feel its shallow history lesson does nothing but offer empty feminism in an aggressively sparkly package.

I fall somewhere in between. I enjoyed the show and really enjoyed the audience enjoying the show. With co-creator Moss co-directing alongside Jamie Armitage and Carrie-Anne Ingrouille choreographing, all the dazzle goes down pretty easily. The Orpheum swallows too many of the lyrics to fully appreciate their sass or their cleverness, but we get the gist.

My favorite song comes from Anne Boleyn played by the perfectly named Storm Lever. The sorry-not sorry chorus of “Don’t Lose Ur Head” is a particularly insistent ear worm (though Anne’s beheading jokes grow tiresome). But my favorite queen is Anna of Cleaves as played by the fabulous Olivia Donalson. Her solo is preceded by a fun house music homage called “Haus of Holbein” that blends portrait painting by Hans Holbein the Younger with Tinder. But then Anna, who apparently wasn’t as pretty as her portrait suggested, disappointed Henry. He had the marriage annulled and set her up in her own palace with her own accounts. According to “Get Down,” Anna loved living the life of an independent former queen and makes zero apologies for her lack of misery.

By the end, when the women realize their silly contest continues to define them as Henry’s wives and not as distinct individuals, their epiphany doesn’t really get the song full of rebellion and verve it deserves. Rather, they get that tried-and-true finale cliché of a mega-mix (or mega-six, as the case may be), trotting out songs we’ve heard but in shorter versions.

SIX wants to entertain and it does (especially those with a fondness for ’90s pop). But it also wants to be taken a little bit seriously as an example (hello, Hamilton) of re-writing women and people of color back into the historical narrative. That is certainly admirable, but SIX mostly sashays around that throne rather than fully claiming it.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
SIX continues through March 19 at the Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco, as part of the BroadwaySF season. Running time is 85 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $66.50-$263.50 (subject to change). Call or visit broadwaysf.com. For every performance of SIX, a minimum of 20 tickets will be sold at $30 ($36, including fees) through Lucky Seat.

At Marin Theatre Company, these Supremes sing of Justice

Posted on February 22, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: The cast of Justice: A New Musical at Marin Theatre Company includes (from left) Karen Murphy as Sandra Day O’Connor, Stephanie Prentice as Sonia Sotomayor and Lynda DiVito as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. BELOW: DiVito as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Photos by Kevin Berne

We are told in Marin Theatre Company’s Justice: A New Musical, now continuing its world premiere (after its debut at Arizona Theatre Company), that power should be shared. But to share it, you must first have it.

And power, at Tuesday’s opening night performance, was a tricky proposition. With cold winds howling through Mill Valley (and much of the Bay Area), the lights in the theater flickered a bit just as the audience was being welcomed to the show. And then the emergency lights clicked on. The power was out just long enough for the tech crew to have re-set the whole shebang and run through a full battery of tests. Then, once the show began, the same thing happened. Power out, emergency lights on, intrepid actors halted mid-song. The outage was short lived, but someone announced that the show would not go on and they’d be happy to re-ticket us in the lobby. But wait! The show WILL go on! Book writer Lauren Gunderson and composers Kait Kerrigan (lyrics) and Bree Lowdermilk (music) jumped up on the stage to discuss how they came to write a musical about the first three women on the Supreme Court bench.

There’s nothing like live theater and the enthusiasm with which theater folk carry on the “show must go on” tradition. Even with the winter winds still blowing, the show resumed where it had left off and carried on to its semi-hopeful, semi-terrifying conclusion about the state of the court moving forward.

The notion of a musical about Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsurg and Sonia Sotomayor doesn’t exactly seem like a natural fit – it somehow feels too light or too silly to do justice (ahem) to the gravity of what these women have accomplished (and in Sotomayor’s case, are still accomplishing). So give full credit to Gunderson, Kerrigan and Lowdermilk as they quickly establish that the show will be respectful, emotional and enjoyable without being (too) preachy.

To say that Justice is like a feature-length “Schoolhouse Rock” is not a diss. The show is less about the workings of the Supreme Court and more about how O’Connor, the first woman in the court, and then Ginsburg, forged an unlikely friendship (Repbulican-Democrat, Episcopalian-Jew, Texan/Arizonan-Brooklyn Baby) and paved the way for Sotomayor and others (Ketanji Brown Jackson is named; I can’t recall if Elena Kagan is name dropped; and the other one is definitely not mentioned by name).

At only 90 minutes, Justice covers a lot of ground, from 1981 when O’Connor took her seat, to present day, and we see a lot of the American dream/nightmare cross the stage. While the world is turning, we also come to know the O’Connor, Ginsburg and Sotomayor a bit – their personal lives, their quirks, their judicial passions. What makes it all work is not necessarily Gunderson’s vivacious book or Lowdermilk and Kerrigan’s pleasant if not always distinct songs. It’s the powerful women playing these powerful women.

The voices, the dignity, the humanity – it’s all on full display in the strong, beautiful performances by Karen Murphy as O’Connor, Lynda DiVito as Ginsburg and Stephanie Prentice as Sotomayor. I would say that DiVito has the toughest job to do if only because Ginsburg is such an icon (which is, in fact, addressed in one of the songs), but she brings the requisite intelligence, wit and charisma to make a singing Ginsburg (who did, after all, love opera and Barbra Streisand) entirely plausible.

My issue with director Ashley Rodbro’s production is that it doesn’t support its superb actors nearly enough. The cumbersome, unattractive set – think a high school production of Sweeney Todd set in a marbled bathroom – just gets in the way and makes unnecessary work for the actors. At one point Rodbro has actors spinning parts of the set during a song, and it’s beyond distracting. There are hints of projections, but they’re ineffectual and unnecessary (there are actual stars and stripes projected at various times as if we need reminding we’re in America).

And the music. Ugh. From what I can tell in the scant program, there are two keyboard players, and that explains why the faux-symphonic accompaniment sounds so dead. When it’s just piano-like keyboard, we’re fine. The actors are so good they don’t need bells and whistles. They’re brining the power and emotion, and the lackluster accompaniment too often tries to stifle them.

The production simply does not rise to the level of the performers, and that’s a shame. We learn a lot about these women and the often sorry state of our union over the course of Justice, and it’s actually interesting to see these justices bond through song. Had the power actually gone out at the theater, I suspect that if the three actors simply sang and performed the show on their own without the ineffective staging, we’d have been taken right to the heart of this piece and been stirred deeply by these women’s stories, the extraordinary work that has been done and the seemingly impossible work yet to do.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Justice: A New Musical by Lauren M. Gunderson, Bree Lowdermilk and Kait Kerrigan continues through March 12 at Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. Running time is 90 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $25-$65. Call 415-388-5208 or visit marintheatre.org.

On Wednesdays we wear pink and kvetch about Mean Girls

Posted on February 2, 2023 by Chad Jones

ABOVE: The cast of the Mean Girls national tour includes (from left) English Bernhardt as Cady Heron, Jasmine Rogers as Gretchen Wieners, Nadina Hassan as Regina George and Morgan Ashley Bryant as Karen Smith. BELOW: Based on the 2004 movie, Mean Girls explores the highs and lows of high school life. Photos by Jenny Anderson

The burns from the Burn Book are splashed all over the stage when you walk into the Golden Gate Theatre to see the national tour of Mean Girls (part of the BroadwaySF season). Some of the burns are sort of clever, “if corn flakes were a person.” Or another poor dude gets “You could live off the food in his braces.” There are a few of those awful slams that only one girl can perpetrate on another, including “Needs super jumbo tampons.” And then there’s the ultimate burn, the one we all fear to our core. Just a simple “Who?” scrawled over a photo.

High school is awful. The original Mean Girls Burn Book arrived in those (hardly) innocent pre-internet days of 2004 when the movie came out. Fast forward more than a decade to the inevitable musical adaptation, and the Burn Book bullying is no longer contained within the walls of a suburban Illinois high school but rather available for viewing on every screen in every corner of the world.

All to say there’s something retro about Mean Girls, even in its new musical form, and that’s not a bad thing. Tina Fey wrote the original screenplay and starred as one of the beleaguered teachers, and now she makes her debut as a Broadway book writer with the same story, which was inspired by Rosalined Wiseman’s 2002 nonfiction exploration Queen Bees and Wannabes.

Fey knows all the ins and outs of the plot, which remains the same: after growing up home-schooled in Kenya, new girl Cady Heron arrives in the U.S. and begins a stint in a public high school so, in her words, she can become socialized. That means quickly learning the high school caste system, from stoners (rich and poor but taking the same drugs) to obnoxious jocks to sexually active band geeks to math nerds (DO NOT fraternize here or risk certain social death), etc. At the top of the food chain are “The Plastics,” a trio of terror with supplicants Gretchen Weiners and Karen Smith supporting their queen mean girl, Regina George.

Cady is too smart for all this social nonsense – she’s a math prodigy and in Africa she was dealing with actual apex predators – but she wisely acknowledges the “need to belong that roars within us all” and unwisely falls into scheming and social climbing and ultimate disaster.

Fey’s smart, funny book is really the star here, though composer Jeff Richmond (Fey’s husband) and lyricist Nell Benjamin (of Legally Blonde fame, which feels very on point here) work hard to give this story a musical heartbeat and not just stick songs into a brand-name story. Within the realm of movie-to-musical adaptations, it sits comfortably in the middle of Beetlejuice/Carrie (at the bottom end) and Little Shop of Horrors/The Producers/A Little Night Music (at the top).

Director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw brings the same comically fluid pace he brought to The Prom (a similar but better show in almost every way) and to The Book of Mormon. It’s a breakneck 2 1/2 hours with little room for actual emotion and barely time for characters to register in any meaningful way. Oddly, it’s one of the supporting players, Gretchen, who gets the most active inner life. Her song “What’s Wrong with Me” is a standout, and it’s a shame that Cady, the protagonist, can’t fails to get the same traction.

If anything, the show is too slick and efficient for its own good. Scott Pask’s set is essentially blank surfaces to be filled with the hyperactive projections by Finn Ross and Adam Young. The actors are often in competition with the visuals, and they don’t always win. The brightness of the backdrops makes it feel everything is happening in front of a giant screen saver, and that never helps warm a cold tale about mean people. For all the burning here, the show never really heats up.

Among the energetic cast members, standouts at Wednesday’s opening-night performance were Cady’s first friends in the new school, fringe dwellers Janis (Adriana Scalice, filling in for Lindsay Heather Pearce) and the “too gay to function” Damian (Eric Huffman). Also stellar was Mary Beth Donahoe filling in for Jasmine Rogers as Gretchen Wieners, the mean girl you actually root for. Some of the evening’s best laughs come from the underplayed mean girl, Karen (Megan Grosso filling in for Morgan Ashley Bryant), who is a lot smarter than she thinks.

Too often in the sound design stage voices were rendered shrill and over-miked to almost painful levels. That’s the kind of mean nobody needs.

What is the kind of mean people need? Apparently the kind that eventually helps everyone learn a lesson and become better people. The underlying message of Mean Girls – to be kind (to yourself and others), to be authentic, to be fearless – resonates, especially as it relates to young women. That is true of the movie as well, and it’s hard to say if the musical has amplified or improved that message in any meaningful way beyond simply re-telling it in an entertaining way. Sometimes you aim for “fetch” and end up with “feh.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Mean Girls continues through Feb. 26 at the Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco, as part of the BroadwaySF season. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (including intermission). Tickets are $66.50-$184.50 (subject to change). Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com.

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