Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Opened July 5, Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, Orinda

Julie Eccles is Gertrude Chiltern and Stacy Ross is Laura Chevely in California Shakespeare Theater’s production of An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde. Photos by Kevin Berne

Ferocity marries wit in Cal Shakes’ lively `Husband’
««««

Nothing ages like happiness, or so Oscar Wilde tells us in An Ideal Husband. But you’ll be hard pressed to leave California Shakespeare Theater’s production without being happy for at least a few hours.

The combination of Wilde and director Jonathan Moscone, as we saw in the 2004 Cal Shakes production of The Importance of Being Earnest, is a potent one, and the marriage makes for an ideal Husband.

Moscone understands how to keep Wilde’s plates spinning. Over here, amid a swirl of “beautiful idiots,” as Wilde calls them, is broad, silly comedy with great comic one-liners dropping like rain at Wimbledon, and over here is a more serious drama about how the personal and political end up being the same thing.

It’s amazing that Moscone can get such big laughs and then delve so deeply into real-life emotions. Credit his superb cast for scaling the heights and depths so perfectly.

I have fond memories of Stephen Wadsworth’s production of An Ideal Husband at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 1995. That production, if memory serves, was all elegance and sharp angles. The wit sliced and the venom was toxic on contact.

Moscone’s production is funnier and more deeply felt – an even greater accomplishment when you consider he’s doing it outside. On opening night, the weather was glorious: warm and clear, with a pair of hawks squawking and diving over the stage.

But it was not easy to be distracted from the production. Annie Smart’s set (lit with precision by Scott Zielinski) adheres to the drawing room conventions of Wilde’s play but manages to open it up to indicate life beyond the area of central focus.

Julie Eccles, as usual, commands the stage as the virtuous Gertrude Chiltern, a woman who has put her politician husband (Michael Butler, below left) so high on a pedestal he has no choice but to come crashing down on top of her. It’s interesting to note that in the Berkeley Rep production 13 years ago, Eccles charmed as Mabel, the sparky sister-in-law who’s too smart for her own good.

As Gertrude, Eccles plays beautifully opposite Butler’s conflicted Sir Robert, a noble, upright politico with a dirty secret in his past. She’s even better opposite Stacy Ross’ Laura Chevely, a character whose very name oozes danger.

Mrs. Chevely, fresh from Vienna (and costumed by Meg Neville as something out of a gorgeous Klimt painting), wants to accomplish several things: to blackmail Sir Robert (she has an incriminating letter in her possession) and she wants another husband after the first two failed her. She’s one of those smart, dreadful people whom Wilde describes “treating life as sordid speculation.”

To read the complete review, please visit my Examiner.com theater page here.

An Ideal Husband continues through July 27 at the Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, just off the Gateway/Shakespeare Festival exit on Highway 24, one mile east of the Caldecott Tunnel in Orinda. Tickets are $32-$62. Call 510-548-9666 or visit www.calshakes.org for information. Cal Shakes provides a free shuttle to and from the Orinda BART station and the theater.

 
Elijah Alexander starred as Jack Tanner in California Shakespeare Theater’s Man and Superman last summer. This year he’s starring in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. Photo by Kevin Berne

He’s right on time for his interview – early even – and he’s in character.

“Oscar Wilde said that punctuality is a thief of time, and I’m trying to grapple with that,” says the ever-on-time Elijah Alexander. “People say you should always be fashionably late, but that’s impossible for me. Don’t know why. I’m always early. But right now I’m turning over a new leaf. Being late could stir things up a bit.”

Alexander is preparing for his third summer in the Orinda hills as a cast member of a California Shakespeare Theater show. Two years ago we were introduced to him in Amy Freed’s Restoration Comedy. Last summer audiences fell in love with him in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman. And this week he opens in Wilde’s An Ideal Husband playing a very Wilde-like Lord Goring.

After last summer’s Shaw marathon, which Alexander calls “to date, the greatest challenge of my career,” the actor is settling into his first-ever Wilde play. Like last summer, his director is Jonathan Moscone, Cal Shakes’ artistic director.

“Working with Jon last summer was the beginning of a very, for me, important working relationship,” Alexander says. “The Wilde is interesting because it is so unlike Shaw. I usually play the rogue. This guy is the mediator. He’s utterly honest but in an unassuming way. He’s less bold and less brash than the characters I usually play. He’s taking a backseat while others drive the action, speculating and commenting on a lot of it. He’s the one the other characters come to for support. It requires an ease…I mean, the guy is effete. Essentially, he’s the Oscar Wilde of the play.”

Born and raised in Michigan, Alexander set out to be in broadcast journalism with a side interest in criminal justice. Then, at the University of Michigan, an acting class changed the course of his life.

“I was a junior, and that class was a monumental moment for me,” Alexander says. “I decided to get trained and make acting my life. Got into Yale for grad school. It was all new to me. I came out of grad school having done 50 plays. I was so hungry for work I was constantly doing three plays at a time for three years. Then I moved to New York and got into the real world, where you’re lucky if you do maybe two plays a year.”

Busy most of the time – even in the real world – Alexander is between home bases. He has spent the last five years in Los Angeles doing the movie and TV thing. His biggest claim to fame is a small but juicy role in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the movie that brought Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt together.

“My first movie involved me working with Angelina Jolie for a month,” Alexander recalls. “I had US Weekly calling me, trying to convince me that gossiping about those people would actually be good for my career.”

After the ups and downs of L.A., Alexander says he’s looking for a new artistic home base. After Ideal Husband closes he’s off to the Utah Shakespeare Festival. After that, he’s thinking about settling in the Bay Area or Ashland, Ore., home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the country’s largest resident company of actors.

“Earlier this year, the writers’ strike decimated L.A. because everyone was so desperate for work,” Alexander says. “There was such a sense of fear, even in the audition room. I realized I’m going to go where the meaningful work is. We attribute meaning to things, so if it means I’m have to go on the road again, I will. The road brought me to here and now.”

An Ideal Husband previews today (July 2) through Friday (July 4) and opens Saturday (July 5). The show continues through July 27 at the Bruns Amphitheater just off the Gateway/Shakespeare Festival exit on Highway 24, one mile east of the Caldecott Tunnel in Orinda. Tickets are $32-$62. Call 510-548-9666 or visit www.calshakes.org for information.

For more of my interview with Elijah Alexander, visit my Examiner.com theater page here.

Watch Cal Shakes’ An Ideal Husband trailer here.