Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. – Oscar Wilde

What a tumultuous year it has been here at Theater Dogs. Thank you for taking the ride.

The news is that I have jumped the fence, from writing about theater to working in theater. As the new communications manager for Berkeley Repertory Theatre, I find that I can no longer review Bay Area theater without feeling a nagging conflict of interest. So what’s a dedicated blogger to do?

Here’s what I have figured out for the time being – and this may evolve in time: I’m going to keep the blog alive with news, both local and national, as well as occasional reviews of theater-related music, books, TV and film.

Because I am a devoted fan of Bay Area theater, I will continue to see as much theater as I can, and when I see something wonderful, I will give it a shout out here at Theater Dogs. We’re not talking full-on reviews but boosts, encouragement to get out there and experience the best the Bay Area has to offer on its multitude of stages.

And I invite you to do the same. When you see something great, please drop me a line at theaterdogs@gmail.com. I’ll happily post your thoughts and keep the conversation about our vibrant theater scene alive.

And the first shout out goes to…

To get the conversation started, here’s what I enjoyed about the California Shakespeare Theater production of Noel Coward’s Private Lives.

First off, we lucked out and saw the show on a gorgeous summer night – warm, no wind, starry skies, in short, heaven at the Bruns Amphitheater.

I happened to catch Private Lives the same day I saw Sacha Baron Cohen’s Brüno, and I have to say, I was relieved to lose myself in the sophisticated humor of Coward after finding myself completely turned off by Cohen’s generally mean, uninspired and fruitless attempt to wring laughs from ridicule and dick jokes (and this from someone who still hasn’t stopped laughing over Borat).

What bliss to be immersed in the world of 1930s Coward, where adults with complicated romantic entanglements parry and thrust with words and wit, all the while looking glam and gorgeous.

I have a great love for all things Coward, and I must say it’s a delight to see the main characters in Private Lives, Amanda and Elyot, played with such warmth and passion by Diana Lamar and Stephen Barker Turner (above right, photo by Kevin Berne). The characters, originated by Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, can be played as brittle facades, but Lamar and Turner, under the direction of Mark Rucker, turn from icy Brits in formal wear into pajama-clad lust buckets with convincing glee.

Act 2, which takes place in Amanda’s Paris flat (the colorful set design is by Annie Smart), bursts with passion as Amanda and Elyot proceed to destroy the flat – and each other – all the while proving over and over again how impossible it will be to live with each other and how equally impossible it will be to part company.

Turner and Lamar have sizzling chemistry that flares and fires consistently and with ever-richer results.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Cal Shakes’ Private Lives continues through Aug. 2 at the Bruns Amphitheater, just off Highway 24 at the Shakespeare Festival Way/Gateway exit, one mile east of the Caldecott Tunnel in Orinda. Tickets start at $20. Call 510-548-9666 or visit www.calshakes.org for information.
Coming up at Cal Shakes:

Next up is Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days starring Marsha Mason, Aug. 12-Sept. 6.

Also the Cal Shakes costume department has just completed a huge reorganization of its inventory, and the result is tons and tons of costumes, wigs, and accessories, to be sold to the public at thrift-store prices for a few days only. Thirty-five years’ worth of hats, armor, capes, Renaissance and Tudor, unique modern pieces—a little bit of everything! Perfect for Burning Man costumes, Ren Faire, Halloween and what-have-you.

Here are the details: Cal Shakes Costume Shop Sale, Thursday, Aug. 6–Sunday, Aug. 9, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. at the Cal Shakes Rehearsal Hall, 701 Heinz Ave., West Berkeley (Just a few blocks west of San Pablo and north of Ashby). Call 510.548.3422 x131 or e-mail narnst@calshakes.org for information.

Spirits are blithe in Moon’s `High Spirits’
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What’s the point of reviewing a show just a few days before it closes? Not much from a commercial point of view.

But given the sudden interest in all things Noel Coward, I had to check out 42^nd Street Moon’s production of High Spirits, a 1964 musical based on Coward’s play Blithe Spirit. And I’m certainly glad I did – the show turned out to be one of Moon’s can’t-miss productions.

The show itself, with music, lyrics and book by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray, has some snappy (and forgettable) tunes and adheres closely to Coward’s original blueprint. But what makes this musical event stand or fall is its core quartet of actors.

If you happen to be in New York these days, you can pop in on the revival of Blithe Spirit and see Rupert Everett, Jayne Atkinson, Christine Ebersole and the redoubtable Angela Lansbury in the roles, and lucky you. But it’s hard to imagine that starry foursome being funnier or more charming than the 42^nd Street Moon crew.

Michael Patrick Gaffney (above, photo by Robert Millard) is Charles Condomine, a writer and widower working on a new book that involves a séance. To assure accuracy, he invites a medium named Madame Aracati to his home for an evening’s ghostly entertainment. On Broadway, Lansbury is said to be divine in the role, but 42^nd Street Moon has a real secret weapon here: Megan Cavanagh, in her second Moon outing. Cavanagh is a seasoned comic who knows better than to simply put on a kooky show as the bicycle-riding spiritualist.

Cavanagh is hilarious and heartfelt. Her big numbers, “The Bicycle Song” (cleverly choreographed by Tom Segal), “Go Into Your Trance” and “Talking to You” (an ode to a Ouija board) and “Something Is Coming to Tea,” are all show highlights simply because Cavanagh’s Arcati is so much fun to watch. We don’t believe for a minute that Arcati, as eccentric as she is, could be a phony. She’s much too sincere and has too much belief in her own gifts.

That’s a key to making sense of the silly plot. During the séance, much to the dismay of Charles’ second wife, Ruth (a droll Maureen McVerry, funny in a starched British way, pictured above with Gaffney), Arcati conjures the fleshy ghost of Charles’ first wife, the dashing Elvira, played with pizzazz by Dyan McBride.

These four performers, under the loving direction of Greg MacKellan are a joy. They have chemistry together; they sing, dance and act effortlessly; and they seem genuinely to be enjoying their time on stage.

McBride gets the show’s two standout numbers – “You’d Better Love Me” and “Home Sweet Heaven” – and she swirls around the stage in a lovely, flowy blue dress (Louise Jarmilowicz gets credit for the costumes). She even infuses a less interesting song, “Faster Than Sound,” with style and humor.

Musical director Dave Dobrusky lets the feel of the early ’60s strike a groove in his playing, and he gets stalwart support from Nick DiScala on saxophone, clarinet and flute. With only two players, Dobrusky and DiScala manage to provide varied and pleasant arrangements that go a long way in selling the songs.

In recent shows, 42^nd Street Moon, now in its 16^th year, has evolved from straightforward concert productions, with actors holding their scripts, to more fully staged, though still minimalist, presentations. The great thing is that the transition seems to be working. These aren’t big, splashy set- and costume-heavy shows, but the strengths of the shows themselves shine through and provide a showcase for some of our talented local musical theater performers.

Something to look forward to: The just-announced 2009-10 42^nd Street Moon season begins in September with Irving Berlin’s Call Me Madam starring New York cabaret star Klea Blackhurst. Harold Rome and Leonard Gershe’s musical western, Destry Rides Again, will star local light Connie Champagne and run Oct. 28-Nov. 15. Cole Porter’s Jubilee returns Nov. 25-Dec. 13 starring High Spirits cohorts Megan Cavanagh and Michael Patrick Gaffney. The Gershwins’ Lady, Be Good! Runs March 31-April 25 and Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s Very Warm for May runs, appropriately, May 6-24.

The new season kicks of the beginning of a multi-year celebration of composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Ira Gershwin. The new season will also introduce “salon evenings” honoring lyricists Dorothy Fields (Oct. 13) and Ira Gershwin (Jan. 28).

For information visit www.42ndstmoon.org.

Last week I interviewed Craig Jessup for the San Francisco Chronicle about his series of Craig Jessup Sings Noël Coward concerts at the Exit Theatre.

For whatever reason, the story failed to make it into last Sunday’s Pink section along with all of the other coverage of Coward’s surprisingly busy 110th birthday celebration.

The Chronicle did post my interview with Jessup online here.

Here’s the dish on Jessup’s remaining performances: Craig Jessup Sings Noël Coward is at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 8, and Sunday, April 12, at the Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson St., San Francisco. Call (415) 255-8207 or visit www.42ndstmoon.org.

First a disclosure: the following deals with one of my best friends, who happens to be a fantastic performer and a veteran of the Bay Area theater and cabaret scene.

One of the reasons Craig Jessup and I became friends in the first place was a shared love of Noël Coward. Craig was performing his cabaret tribute to Coward at the Mark Hopkins Hotel high atop San Francisco’s Nob Hill, and the match of singer and songs was impeccable.

As an actor of sophistication and good humor and a singer of power and subtlety, Craig is an ideal Coward performer. He brings the requisite comic skills to songs such as “I’ve Been to a Marvelous Party” and “(Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage) Mrs. Worthington),” but he’s got the emotional chops to really delve into the brilliance of Coward ballads such as “Come the Wild, Wild Weather” and my personal favorite, “If Love Were All.”

For Coward fans and those who still need exposure to the Master’s particular genius, Craig Jessup Sings Noël Coward is being revived for two shows only this Saturday, Dec. 6, at the 142 Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley. Ken Muir, one of the Bay Area’s best pianists and musical directors, is at the piano.

If all you know about Coward is the image of the cigarette-smoking sophisticate always ready with a zinger, you owe it to yourself to learn a little more about this prodigiously talented man who wrote music and lyrics, penned some brilliant (and not-so-brilliant) plays, wrote some hilarious books (novels, spoofs), painted some gorgeous pictures and acted and directed in the worlds of film and theater.

Perhaps because Coward did so much so well he’s taken somewhat for granted. His self-perpetuating public image also has something to do with that – he’s remembered more as a dandy than as the hard-working renaissance man he actually was.

Whatever, any time spent reveling in Coward’s world is time well spent. In addition to Craig’s show, you should check out the three-part documentary originally aired in 1998 that is now available on DVD from Kultur Video: The Noël Coward Trilogy. Director Adam Low takes an in-depth look into Coward’s work and his carefully cultivated public image. Then check out the BBC’s fantastic box set of Coward plays, The Noël Coward Collection.

At some point there will be a Coward renaissance. Until then, we have Craig Jessup Sings Noël Coward, which is an awfully good start.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Craig Jessup Sings Noël Coward is at 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6 at the 142 Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley. Tickets are $20-$35. Call 415-383-9600 or visit www.142throckmortontheatre.org.

Here’s Coward singing “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” from 1955:

And here’s Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in Act 1 of Private Lives:

As the California Shakespeare Theater heads into its final show of the season (Twelfth Night), artistic director Jonathan Moscone has announced next summer’s line-up.

The season will mark Moscone’s 10th anniversary heading Cal Shakes, and he will direct Romeo and Juliet and Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days starring Marsha Mason(right) in her Cal Shakes debut.

Mark Rucker, currently helming Twelfth Night, will return with Noel Coward’s Private Lives, and Aaron Posner makes his Cal Shakes debut directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Rucker is a familiar face at the Bruns Amphitheater (Richard III in 2007, Romeo and Juliet in 2001), but Posner isn’t as well known. He’s the artistic director of New Jersey’s Two River Theater Company, where he recently produced Macbeth, conceived and co-directed by Posner and Teller of Penn and Teller, with magic designed by Teller.

Cal Shakes has previously produced Romeo and Juliet in 1977, 1983, 1989, 1994 and 2001; A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1974, 1975, 1979, 1985, 1991, 1997 and 2002. Next season’s productions of Beckett and Coward mark the playwrights’ first appearances at Cal Shakes.

Here’s how the schedule shakes out:
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, directed by Jonathan Moscone – May 27-June 21
Noel Coward’s Private Lives, directed by Mark Rucker – July 8-Aug. 2
Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, directed by Jonathan Moscone – Aug. 12-Sept. 6
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Aaron Posner – Sept. 16-Oct. 11

Season subscriptions range from $224-$112. Call 510-548-9666 or visit www.calshakes.org for information.

Now this, dear boy, is exciting.

A heretofore “lost” Noel Coward play is having its U.S premiere courtesy of San Francisco’s Thrillpeddlers, the group that specializes in Grand Guignol theater (bloody fun theater — think Sweeney Todd) at their theater space known as the Hypnodrome.

The one-act is called The Better Half, and according to a press release, it “skewers the sexual mores of the British upper crust.”

Apparently a pair of Welsh academics unearthed this nugget of a play, which Coward wrote in 1921 at age 22, before his superstar status had caught up with his superstar opinion of himself. “His caustic wit was already fully in evidence,” said University of Glamorgan professor Dr. Richard Hand, who discovered the original manuscript (with his colleague, Michael Wilson) deep in the files of the Lord Chamberlain at the British Library.

“Coward wrote it for London’s Grand Guignol Company,” Hand explained, “which was the British version of France’s notorious Théâtre du Grand Guignol, which specialized in scandalous comedies and terror plays. It was performed in May 1922, but never again. And it never has been published in any form.”

Dr. Hand will be in attendance at the Friday, March 21 opening-night show to discuss the discovery of the Coward play as well as his new book, London’s Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horror.

Here’s Thrillpeddlers cofounder and artistic director Russell Blackwood: “It’s incredibly exciting, and due largely to our longstanding relationship with Richard Hand and Michael Wilson, that the Coward estate granted us the rights to stage the American premiere. And what’s even better is that the play is really good! According to Richard, the manuscript shows where the British censors struggled with cutting Coward’s more controversial innuendoes. But in the end it was so well written, and so funny, that they left it alone.”

The play is an unconventional comedy of manners depicting the sexual intrigues of an unhappily married couple, Alice and David, and the suggestion of David’s possible dalliance with Alice’s best friend, Marion. Alice Louise (Alice), Jonathan Ingbretson (David) and Alison Sacha Ross (Marion) portray the well-heeled but duplicitous troika.

The Thrillpeddlers are presenting the Coward play as part of Flaming Sin: London’s Grand Guignol. Also on the bill is The Old Women, or A Crime in a Madhouse, André de Lorde and Alfred Binet’s quintessential Grand Guignol shocker, which will comprise the “terror” portion of the evening. Set in a French insane asylum for women, the play was notorious for its unsettling mixture of suspense, gruesomeness, and farce. The latest version of this Thrillpeddlers staple is directed by Blackwood.

Please note: The Hypnodrome has also added two new “Turkish Corner” Shock Boxes, in which couples may bask in decadent languor while enjoying the show. Other Shock Boxes include “Heaven and Hell,” the “Pharaoh’s Tomb” and the “Padded Cell.” The theater’s popular private “Shock Box” seats offer the same opportunity for illicit trysting that was once a feature of the Parisian Théâtre du Grand Guignol-with added special effects as a nod to the 1950s horror movie gimmicks of William Castle.

Flaming Sin: London’s Grand Guignol is at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through May 3, 2008 at the Hypnodrome, 575 10th St. (between Bryant and Division), San Francisco
Tickets are $20 (and, er, $69 for Shock Box seats for two). Call 800-838-3006 or visit www.brownpapertickets.com for information. You might also want to check out www.thrillpeddlers.com and www.grandguignol.com

So many fine gift ideas, so little space. Let’s get started with some great theater books.

In the realm of books about theater, this year’s standout comes from San Mateo native Thomas Schumacher, who also happens to be the president of Disney Theatrical, the producer of such hits as The Lion King and Mary Poppins. Schumacher’s How Does the Show Go On? An Introduction to the Theater (Disney Editions, $19.95) is geared toward the young theatergoer (ages 9 to 12), but it’s a hugely entertaining look at the entire theatrical picture, from the beginning of a show to the most intricate details of daily production.

The Bay Area can’t get enough of the musical Jersey Boys. For the most avid fans, there is, of course, a coffee-table book. Jersey Boys: The Story of Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons (Broadway, $40) contains the show’s libretto, lots of photos and a thorough guide to the real Four Seasons and their Broadway counterparts.

You think you know everything about The Sound of Music? Think again. Author Laurence Maslon has assembled the ultimate look behind the scenes of the world’s most beloved movie musical. The Sound of Music Companion (Fireside, $40) covers every aspect of the show, right up to the British reality TV show that allowed viewers to vote on the actress who wound up playing Maria on London’s West End.

The hottest show on Broadway is the multi-Tony Award-winning Spring Awakening. Fans already have memorized the great cast album, so give them Spring Awakening (Theatre Communications Group, $13.95), the libretto (by Steven Sater) and a new adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s original play by novelist Jonathan Franzen (Faber and Faber, $11.70). Franzen hates the musical, by the way, so it’s interesting to see how the play and the musical diverge.

DVDs
This was the year of the movie musical — or maybe I should say the good movie musical. If your gift recipient loves musicals, make sure he or she has Hairspray (New Line Home Entertainment, $34.98 for two-disc version, $28.98 for single-disc), the joyous movie version of the Broadway hit; Once (20th Century Fox, $29.99), a fascinating and musically rich love story about an Irish street musician and an interesting woman he meets by chance; Colma: The Musical (Lionsgate, $27.98), a locally grown musical with catchy tunes and a better-than-average cast of characters. The best of the big-ticket DVD items this year is The Noel Coward Collection ($79.98 BBC/Warner), a veritable treasure trove of Cowardly delights. The set contains seven discs and runs some 19 hours (plus another 12 hours of bonus material that includes interviews, radio plays and more). The plays included are Private Lives (with the delectable Penelope Keith), Hay Fever, Design for Living, Present Laughter, A Song at Twilight, Mr. and Mrs. Edgehill and Tonight at 8:30.

This isn’t a CD, but while we’re on the subject of Coward, this year saw the release of a fantastic volume of Coward’s letters: The Letters of Noel Coward (Knopf, $37.50), edited by Barry Day. The beauty is that the book contains letters both from and to Coward, whose beastly wit entertains in every epistle.

CDs
The fine folks at PS Classics, the show-minded label that, in addition to turning out excellent original-cast albums, allows musical theater performers the chance to show their vocal stuff, have released some terrific new discs just in time for the holidays.

The best of the bunch is Lauren Kennedy’s Here and Now, a marvelous collection of show music and pop. Album highlight is Andrew Lippa’s “Spread a Little Joy,” followed closely by Jason Robert Brown’s “In This Room” and Adam Guettel’s “Through the Mountain” (from Floyd Collins). Kennedy’s voice is so vibrant — at times so Streisandian — it’s irresistible.

PS Classics also is offering two more Broadway divas: Tony Award-winner Victoria Clark (Light in the Piazza) with Fifteen Seconds to Love, a solid collection mixing standards (“Right as the Rain,” “I Got Lost in His Arms”) and newer material (Ricky Ian Gordon’s “The Red Dress,” Jane Kelly Williams’ “Fifteen Seconds of Grace”); and Andrea Burns (soon to be on Broadway again in In the Heights) with A Deeper Shade of Red, a set that mixes Joni Mitchell (“Chelsea Morning”) with Stephen Sondheim (“What More Do I Need?”) and Melissa Manchester (“Through the Eyes of Grace”) with Kate Bush and Rodgers and Hammerstein (“Man with the Child in His Eyes/Something Wonderful”).

PS Classics’ Songwriter Series with the Library of Congress’ latest offering is a doozy: Jonathan Larson: Jonathan Sings Larson. The composer of Rent, who died tragically the night before his show opened, is heard singing demos and performing live, and the disc paints an incredible portrait of an artist full of talent, humor and ambition. The accompanying DVD features four live performances from Larson’s gig at New York’s Village Gate.