TheatreWorks delights with devilish Angels

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Chad Jones

Rebecca Dines is Jane and Sarah Overman is Julia, best friends whose marriages are boring them to tears. In Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels, a TheatreWorks production at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, the bored wives get up to some drunken mischief. Photos by Kevin Berne

Boredom, desire and champagne make for a potent cocktail in Noël Coward’s 1925 comedy Fallen Angels, now receiving a lively production from TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.

Director Robert Kelley delivers an elegant outing for this zesty comedy that keeps its focus on two live wire ladies – Jane and Julia, best friends since grammar school. Living the easy life with their lackluster husbands is taking its toll on their vivacity, and when left to their own devices, they manage to stir up a whole lot of excitement with the help of a man from their past (a cameo by the ever-dashing Aldo Billingslea.

I reviewed the production for the San Francisco Chronicle. Here’s an excerpt:

If Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz had been born into London’s upper crust, they might have resembled Julia and Jane, besties since childhood and now five years into their respective marriages to wealthy ninnies. Julia (Sarah Overman) is frank with her husband, Fred (Mark Anderson Phillips), over breakfast: “We’re not in love a bit,” she says. Ever-sensible Fred replies that they’re in love in a different way, a way full of affection and “good comradeship.”
Jane (Rebecca Dines) has a similar conversation with her Willy (Cassidy Brown); and when the two men go off for a short golf holiday, the women decide to inject some much needed passion and excitement into their lives. “To put it mildly, dear,” Jane says, “we’re both ripe for a lapse.”

Read the full review here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels continues through June 28 in a TheatreWorks production at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. Tickets are $19-$74. Call 650-463-1960 or visit www.theatreworks.org.

Gently with a chainsaw: Heathers really sings

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Chad Jones

Jessica Quarles (right) is Veronica Sawyer in the Ray of Light Theatre production of Heathers: The Musical at the Victoria Theatre. Below: Jordon Bridges is JD, the bad (very bad) boy in Westerberg High. Photos courtesy of Ray of Light Theatre

Funnier and feistier than the movie on which it’s based, Heathers: The Musical is an exceedingly successful screen-to-stage adaptation, and San Francisco’s Ray of Light Theatre is just about the perfect company to produce it.

Heathers, which features a score and book by Laurence O’Keefe (of Bat Boy and Legally Blonde fame) and Kevin Murphy, (Reefer Madness, “Desperate Housewives”), is dark and damaged in all the right ways. But the musical amps up the fun factor with the ideal amount of camp. It winks and nods to the 1989 movie but lets the story be the story, with all its attendant snarkiness, teen angst, murder and sincere hope for a more beautiful life.

All of that lands right in Ray of Light’s wheelhouse. Hot on the heels of shows like Carrie: The Musical and Yeast Nation (from the Urinetown team), ROL is emerging as the city’s best source of edgy musicals performed with seemingly depthless raw energy and talent the likes of which other theaters must surely envy.

The young and exuberant cast and the wicked, tuneful show combined with an opening-night audience overflowing with audible adulation made for a kind of pop-rock musical nirvana. This kind of show too grungy, fun and primal for Broadway-type houses, but the Victoria Theatre is the perfect raw nerve kind of a place for this sort of musical to really take flight. There’s a bit of that “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show!” energy backed up by the talent and panache to make the $25-$36 ticket price one of the best deals in town.

From the first number, “Beautiful” (which depicts an Ohio high school experience that is anything but), it’s clear that the show and the production are going to hit the right notes of humor and horror. And leading lady Jessica Quarles is a showstopper in multiple ways: her voice, her performance and not least of all, her pitch-perfect channeling of Winona Ryder’s Veronica Sawyer while avoiding slavish imitation.

Within that one number, we’re immersed in the toxic world of a high school full of bullies and the bullied and the three queens who rule it all: the Heathers (Jocelyn Pickett as Heather Chandler, Samantha Rose Cardenas as Heather Duke and Lizzie Moss as Heather McNamara). In their primary colors, ‘80s shoulder pads and big hair (costumes by Katie Dowse), the Heathers pop and lock with bitchy authority in Alex Rodriguez’s delightful choreography. They’re fierce and they know it.

Once Veronica falls in with these popular mean girls, it’s only a matter of time before her heart and their viciousness will battle to the death, but when Veronica meets the enigmatic, trench coat-wearing JD (Jordon Bridges), that death becomes more than metaphorical.

As the body count begins to rise, the tone of director Erik Scanlon’s production shifts just enough to make the insanity of Westerberg High School and its seeming wave of student suicides both believable, funny and sad.

The Act 2 opener is set at the funeral of two brutish jocks (Paul Hovannes as Kurt and Nick Quintell as Ram), who are believed to have killed themselves as part of a gay love pact. The song, “My Dead Gay Son,” is performed by their dads (Mischa Stephens and Andy Rotchadl), and it is hilarious, sweet and surprising – easily one of the best Act 2 openers in recent memory.

Heathers: The Musical has all the pop hooks and renegade spirit of a big hit, a sort of full-throated revenge fantasy for anyone who has lingering high school damage, which pretty much means all of us.

[bonus interview]
I talked to leading lady Jessica Quarles (who plays Veronica Sawyer) about her experience with Heathers: The Musical for a story in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the interview here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Ray of Light Theatre’s Heathers: The Musical continues through June 13 at the Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St., San Francisco. Tickets are $25-$36. Visit www.rayoflighttheatre.com.

SF Playhouse’s Stupid Bird f##king soars

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Chad Jones

Nina (Martha Brigham) and Conrad (Adam Magill) prepare to present a play for family and friends in the San Francisco Playhouse production of Stupid Fucking Bird by Aaron Posner. Below: An Act 2 fast forward takes us four years ahead into the lives of characters played by (from left) Joseph Estlack, El Beh, Charles Shaw Robinson, Carrie Paff and Johnny Moreno. Photos by Jessica Palopoli

In Aaron Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird, an energizing riff on Chekhov’s The Seagull, a playwright laments that what he’s written is just another play where nothing real happens. You can’t really say the same thing about Posner’s play.

Bird doesn’t change the world, as the fictional playwright at one point says that theater should aim to do, but it does rattle the theatrical cage and clears away some musty clouds that hover over business as usual. It’s irreverent, gutsy, funny and even moving – everything you want Chekhov to be but so rarely find in his productions. Posner has his characters refer to what he’s doing as a “deconstruction” and a “rip-off” of Chekhov, but what he’s really doing is finding the essential heart of the original and providing new-and-improved access for a contemporary audience. In interviews, Posner repeatedly refers to Chekhov’s work being a “playground” that appeals to him, and that feels just right. Different rides – a slide, a swing, a merry-go-ground – providing different sensations but all immersive and contributing to an overall experience.

On the set of the Playhouse’s Bird there’s not one but two swings: one from a pier over a lake and one a more traditional push or pump variety. We’re at the lake house of a famous movie/stage actress, the ideal playground for the lovelorn, which pretty much everyone is here.

Posner follows the Chekhov blueprint like someone who knows and loves his Chekhov but is ready to do his own thing. He gathers seven people, some related by blood, some by choice and others by longing. Emma (Carrie Paff) is the vain star, and Trig (Johnny Moreno) is the world-famous writer who now shares her bed. Emma’s son is the tortured Conrad (Adam Magill), who is deeply, painfully in love with his lovely neighbor, Nina (Martha Brigham, a radiant blend of Julia Roberts and Lili Taylor both in looks and talent). Nina does not return his affections, but she does get swept up into the celebrity and literary genius of Trig, thus compounding Conrad’s misery.

The all-in-black Mash (El Beh) has been pining for Conrad for years, but he’s too caught up in Nina to notice, so Mash works out her longings with sad songs played on the ukulele. Dev (an endearingly understated Joseph Estlack) loves Mash and lets her know it, but he’s not the dramatic sort. He doesn’t moon and swoon and self-flagellate (he mishears that word as “self-flatulate” and wonders how that even works). Unlike the other divas who surround him, he’s a grounded, funny guy. He’s aware he comes across as sort of a boob, but the advantage to that is people underestimating just how much you notice going on around you. There’s another person on the periphery of the drama, Emma’s doctor brother Sorn (Charles Shaw Robinson), a man who plays a mean clarinet, longs for a monthlong hug (from whom remains a mystery) and reviles his chosen profession: “All those sick people!”

Once all of this is set up, Posner wastes no time bashing through the fourth wall, allowing his characters to share with the audience that they are well aware they are in a play and that they are watching the audience almost as much as the audience is watching them. From that point on, the vibe in the theater changes. The artificiality is acknowledged and toyed with, and that suddenly, somewhat mysteriously makes the characters and their situations more real and more interesting. While Conrad at first bemoans the state of theater (“the one we’re doing this play in seems all right”) and how it’s essentially boring and not enlarging people’s minds or hearts and so we need new, new, new forms. There’s a petulant, whiny tone to some of this, but by play’s end (which takes us four years into the future), it’s not new forms he seeks but doing the traditional thing better. After all, he reasons, certain elements like protagonist, antagonist, climax, denouement and catharsis have been around for thousands of years for a reason.

Is Posner doing the traditional thing better? Yes. With the help of director Susi Damilano and her exceptional cast, he pushes us to think about what we’re experiencing and then challenges us to truly feel what we’re experiencing. He allows each character to be more interesting than we might have imagined, and though Act 2 feels less successful than the first and finding an ending proves elusive, he takes us to a place that feels more alive, more thoughtful and, ultimately, more soulful than we might be used to going. That’s pretty f##king amazing.

[bonus interview]
I talked to Stupid Fucking Bird playwright Aaron Posner for a story in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the interview here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Aaron Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird continues through May 2 at the San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., San Francisco. Tickets are $20-$120. Call 415-677-9596 or visit www.sfplayhouse.org.

Sublime stories from Word for Word and Alice Munro

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Chad Jones

Jeri Lynn Cohen is a homemaker who wants an office of her own in which to write in Word for Word’s Stories by Alice Munro: “The Office” & “Dolly.” Below: Howard Swain and Sheila Balter are a couple addressing the end of their lives and dealing with their past in “Dolly.” Photos by Mark Leialoha

Any celebration of Alice Munro merits attention, but when that celebration comes from Word for Word, the ever-astonishing local company that transforms short fiction into brilliant theater with complete fidelity to the original text, attention must not only be paid but also reveled in and savored.

Word for Word brought a Munro story to life in 1999 (“Friend of My Youth”), and the intervening years have brought more acclaim for the Canadian writer and a Nobel Prize for literature. Now that she is rightly revered for her masterful prose, Munro is given a full Word for Word evening in Stories by Alice Munro: “The Office” & “Dolly,” a sort of career bookend with one story from her first collection, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) and her most recent, Dear Life (2012). What’s clear is that Munro started out with a gift for clarity, precision and astonishing insight, and that gift only intensified with time.

The first story, “The Office,” feels somewhat autobiographical as Munro’s protagonist is a homemaker who also writes but is embarrassed to call herself a writer. What she really wants is an office, a writing space of her own. A man’s work outside the home has its traditional, respected place in society, but a woman’s place, the home, is ruled by children, and the though of a mother removing herself from them behind a closed door is perceived as unacceptable. So this mother, this wife, this writer (Jeri Lynn Cohen), heads downtown to find herself a room of her own.

She finds the perfect spot, formerly occupied by a chiropractor, and quickly sets up her minimal furnishings – table, typewriter, hotplate, kettle, instant coffee and mug. Her separate, simplified space turns out to be too good to be true. There’s a man, the landlord (Paul Finocchiaro), who feels no compunction about invading her space and squandering her time. He refuses to accept that she doesn’t want a touch of color in the room – a rug, new paint, a plant, a plush chair because women want those kinds of things – and turns himself into a nuisance.

There are likely many actors who could convey the flustered frustration and inner turmoil of the protagonist, but I can’t imagine anyone better than Cohen, who manages to be heartfelt and funny and misanthropic all while conveying a desperate need to create in solitude. This is a woman operating on multiple levels. There’s the polite citizen attempting to navigate home life and an attempted professional life, and then there’s the sharp, enraged, wildly intelligent woman inside reacting to everything around her. Our view of this woman is so thorough (through Munro’s prose and Cohen’s superb performance) that humor is abundant and laughs are hearty.

And that’s an amazing thing to me. I’ve read most of Munro’s work and relished it, but I don’t recall laughing out loud often. But in both “The Office” and “Dolly,” the second story, the humor is deeply satisfying and quite audibly appreciated by the audience. It’s a laughter of recognition, and that’s always the best kind.

Both of these stories deal with the inner lives of smart, complex women dealing with seemingly ordinary problems, but Munro can take us deeper in the space of a sentence. There’s also a link between the stories when it comes to writing. In “The Office” the woman can’t quite own up to being a writer. And in “Dolly,” a man, a horse trader by profession, also works as a published poet. But for him, too, writing is a little shady. When you’re working with horses, you’re obviously, he says. But when you’re working on a poem, you just look idle.

There’s a woman writer in “Dolly” as well. After a career in the classroom, she has taken to writing books rescuing certain Canadian writers from obscurity. The teacher/writer (Sheila Balter) and the poet (Howard Swain) are in their later years. He’s in his early 80s, she’s about a decade younger, and they casually but efficiently discuss the details of their joint suicide. But then life, in the from of an old flame named Dolly (Susan Harloe) shows them they’re not quite as tapped out as they thought.

As in the first story, the actors here, under the expert direction of Joel Mullenix, revel in the kind of humor that not only elicits laughs but also deepens our connections to the characters. Balter is especially good at conveying the emotional turmoil of a woman who is surprised to find herself in the kind of upheaval she would have never expected at this stage in her life. And Harloe and Swain convey the power of a years-old connection with a mix of joy and confusion and, ultimately, nonchalance.

This set of stories delivers exactly what we’ve come to expect from both Munro and Word for Word: brilliant prose and beguiling theatricality. It’s the perfect combination.

[bonus interview]
I wrote a cover story for the San Francisco Chronicle’s 96 Hours section on Word for Word’s Stories by Alice Munro: “The Office” & “Dolly”. Read the feature here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Word for Word’s Stories by Alice Munro: “The Office” & “Dolly” continues through April 12 at Z Below, 470 Florida St., San Francisco. Tickets are $35-$55. Call 866-811-4111 or visit www.zspace.org.

Disney’s Newsies seizes its musical day

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Chad Jones

The Broadway touring company of Disney’s Newsies, a flop movie musical that found new life on stage, lands at the Orpheum Theatre as part of the SHN season. Below: Dan DeLuca (center) is Jack Kelly, the leading newsboy with dreams of Santa Fe in Newsies. ©Disney. Photos by Deen Van Meer

Newsies that unlikely Broadway hit that started out as a flop movie musical, isn’t so much about groundbreaking theater as it is a sterling example of how efficient Disney can be at creating solid, broadly appealing entertainment.

The Broadway production closed last fall, but the tour dances on. If ever there was a show meant for the road, it’s Newsies, a high-energy, stick-it-to-the-man ode to unions of all kind (labor, romantic, brotherly). Now at the Orpheum Theatre as part of the SHN season, Newsies is the definition of crowd pleaser.

You can feel the machinery working here as Harvey Fierstein amps up and fills out the bare-bones movie screenplay about New York news boys who rebelled against money-grubbing Joseph Pulitzer in 1899. He dutifully provides a strong, intelligent young woman (absent from the movie), raises the dramatic stakes for the leading characters and does his best to make the boys themselves more than their identifying features (Crutchie has a crutch, Spot has a big arm mole, Specs wears…well, you get it). Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Jack Feldman tinker with the movie songs (which are quite good) and a few more, the best of which is the lively “Watch What Happens.”

Director Jeff Calhoun adopts a strategy of speed and motion to keep Newsies leaping through its 2 1/2 hours. There’s hardly a dull moment (except maybe for Pulitzer getting a shave), and much of the show’s entertainment value comes down to the choreography by Christopher Gattelli. These aren’t really news boys, after all. They’re Broadway dancers, and boy oh boy (oh, boys!) do they get to demonstrate their talent. From the gymnastics of “Carrying the Banner” and “Seize the Day” to the tap of “King of New York,” these young men are fountains of twirling testosterone. Acrobatic, graceful and aggressive, these dancers are the show’s motor, and though the plot of the little guys against the big bazillionaire bully has its moments, it’s the sheer joy that comes through the dancing that makes Newsies memorable.

Dan DeLuca makes for a charismatic leading man as Jack Kelly, the de facto unionizer of the Newsies, and what’s a downtrodden hero without a pipe dream? For Jack, that translates to dreams of life out West in Santa Fe. DeLuca has a strong voice tinged with modern pop stylings. He and Stephanie Styles have a nice chemistry, which helps tone down the schmaltz in their duet, “Something to Believe I,” one of those love songs where they actually have to stop singing so they can kiss. Twice. Styles’ best moment is “Watch What Happens,” which, in addition to being an ode to journalism (yay, newspapers!), captures youthful, if naive, enthusiasm: “Their mistake is they got old. That is not a mistake we’ll be making. No sir, we’ll stay young forever.”

Youth itself is practically a character on this stage. “Newsies” revels in the idealism and, especially, the energy of youth. That’s why the anthems – “Seize the Day,” “Once and For All” – have such power. It’s like Les Miz lite with less flag waving and more dancing on newsprint.

The only really disappointing thing about Newsies is its ending. After all those stirring anthems, the strike is resolved and their are reprises of “Seize the Day” and “King of New York.” No powerful ballad or chorale to capture the moment or perhaps consider the future. Of course the finale/curtain call is overloaded with more hyperkinetic dancing, which is fun, of course, but by this time in the evening, we’re craving something more than melodrama, leaps and a relentlessly cheerful ensemble.

It’s all slick and efficient and impeccably performed – entertaining to be sure, but sometimes big, bold headlines aren’t enough.

[bonus interview]
I interviewed composer Alan Menken and cast member (and Bay Area native) Julian DeGuzman for a feature in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the story here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Newsies continues through March 15 at the Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco. Tickets are $45-$250. Call 888-746-1799 or visit www.shnsf.com.

Hébert’s moving Tree explores family’s tangled roots

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Chad Jones

Jessalyn Price (Cathleen Riddley) and her son, Leo (Carl Lumbly), share a rare moment of lucidity in Julie Hébert’s Tree at San Francisco Playhouse. Below: Didi Marcantel (Susi Damilano, left) and JJ Price ( Tristan Cunningham) admire JJ’s portrait of her grandmother. Photos by Jessica Palopoli

I reviewed Julie Hébert’s drama Tree at the San Francisco Playhouse for the San Francisco Chronicle. Here’s a sample:

Director Jon Tracy’s powerful and poignant production feels grounded in reality of the siblings and their fraught, fractious attempts at a relationship, but in the realm of the parents, there’s a lyrical quality filled with love and sadness that elevates the play from kitchen-sink drama to something more.

Hébert is not just interested in airing family secrets or opening up a discussion about how people of different races deal with one another. Through the character of Didi especially, she’s exploring a child’s desire to truly know a parent. The father Didi meets in Jessalyn’s letters is so unlike the man she grew up with she feels compelled to learn more about this virtual stranger so filled with passion, humor and love. She wishes at one point that she could have been that man’s daughter.

Read the full review here.

[bonus interview]
I interviewed playwright Julie Hébert for a feature in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the feature here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Julie Hébert’s Tree continues through March 7 at San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., San Francisco. Tickets are $20-$120. Call 415-677-9596 or visit www.sfplayhouse.org.

Kathleen Turner kicks ass in Red Hot Patriot

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Chad Jones

EXTENDED THROUGH JAN. 11!

Kathleen Turner stars in Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, a one-woman show about the Texas journalist and satirist Molly Ivins, the woman who coined the nickname “Shrub” for George W. Bush. Photoscourtesy of kevinberne.com

The moral of the story seems to be: if you’re going to kick some political ass, make sure you’re wearing red cowboy boots – and it helps to have a brain, a fire in your belly (fueled, no doubt, by some hooch) and a sense of humor fueled by a larger-than-average intellect.

It seems Molly Ivins had all of the above, at least the Molly we meet in Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins now on stage at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre (grammatical question seeing as how we’re dealing with a journalist: why the hyphen in the adjectival phrase “kick-ass” describing wit but not in “red hot” describing patriot?).

Ostensibly a one-woman play about Texas’ leading red-haired liberal crusader with a typewriter, the play stars Kathleen Turner as Ivins, and just for theatrical kicks, we have a silent Michael Barrett Austin making occasional appearances to deal with copy coming across the AP teletype machine (an antique with metaphorical significance). Ivins, who died after a fight with breast cancer in 2007, is at her desk (there’s an armadillo on it) trying to write an obituary for her father, whom she calls “The General,” even though he’s not dead yet. She and The General have never seen eye to eye about anything (he’s a Republican, for instance), so the words are not coming easily. But playwriting sisters and journalists Margaret Engel and Allison Engel, working with director David Esbjornson actually have Molly in a sort of netherworld where solo shows can take place without the audience wondering too much why this person is talking to them and why she happens to have a slide show filled with personal photos projected on the back wall.

Turner, who is in much better form here than she was last time we saw her on a local stage in the low play High in 2012, is delightful here, all grit and guts and guffaws. Molly is a great character and her humor and activism happen to jibe with Turner’s own, so there’s a very grounded sense of self here that lends an air of authenticity. Turner even looks a little like Ivins, which makes the slide show not as odd as it might be.

Turner’s Ivins essentially takes us through her life as a reporter, columnist and author, all the while sticking it to the establishment and trying (in vain) to alert the world that people with the last name Bush should not be allowed to run the country. There are, of course, many hearty laughs at the expense of Texas politicians but also many pithy observations about the field of journalism itself, a fading art Ivins practiced with her own special genius. I know we’re supposed to come away from this play feeling like we should honor Molly’s memory by getting involved in a cause of some kind, but what I found inspiring was her affection and passion for writing and journalism – that words matter.

Speaking of words, the play itself doesn’t skirt darkness – Molly’s drinking, her cancer, her father – but the play is not edgy. The corners are all rounded for our protection (or Molly’s). Molly isn’t necessarily polite, but the play is. Still, we get a strong sense of her and why her work matters and is worth our attention. Even if the play isn’t quite the raw and raunchy and rebellious drama it could be, it’s a moving memorial to a one-of-a-kind American who was unafraid to be a frickin’ pain in the ass to people in power.

[bonus interview]
I interviewed Kathleen Turner for a story in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the feature here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins continues an extended run through Jan. 11 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $29-$89 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit www.berkeleyrep.org.

Cirque’s Kurios: Happy, happy, joy, joy

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Chad Jones

An acrobatic act called “Banquine” is part of the latest Cirque du Soleil touring show, Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities, written and directed by Michel Laprise and running through Jan. 18 under the blue-and-yellow-striped tent in the parking lot at AT&T Park. Below: A prelude to the act “Rola Bola.” Photos by Martin Girard shootstudio.ca

In the realm of Cirque du Soleil, the first time is the best. My first Cirque show, Quidam was at Oakland’s Jack London Square in 1997. I thought I’d never see anything as good, and in a way, I was right. My first exposure to the particular world of Cirque – spectacle under a blue-and-yellow-striped tent filled with costumes, lights, music and acrobats designed to dazzle, distract and delight – was among my most powerful theatrical experiences (yes, circus is a very specific kind of theater) ever, and I immediately fell in love with Cirque.

Thirty years after it was formed, the Montréal-based Cirque is still going strong. They preside over a worldwide empire and have long set the standard for “new circus” (circus mercifully free of animals). Every year or two, a new touring Cirque production rolls into the Bay Area, and there was a period there (Kooza, Ovo, Dralion, Varekai) when the shows were interchangeable: fun (to a degree), filled with obtuse, artsy worlds, vague storytelling, bouncy music and a reliably thrilling act or two. The clowns could pretty much be counted on to be awful, but there was usually enough there to compensate.

Beginning with Totem (themed as vaguely indigenous peoples) in 2011 and with last year’s Amaluna, the Cirque brain trust seemed to be making an effort to stretch the bounds of their product and refresh it. In this anniversary year, that effort fully pays off in Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities now in the parking lot behind AT&T Park into the new year.

Written and directed by newbie Michel Laprise, a longtime Cirque newbie enjoying his first run under the big top, Kurios is simply delightful, with the key word being “simply.” In many ways, this is a low-tech circus with much more emphasis on personality and charm than on artsy spectacle and cold thrills.

The opening number is the perfect example of what Kurios gets right. On a set that marries a steam-punk vibe with the inside of a giant clock (design by Stéphane Roy), a jumble of performers spill out. There’s a juggler juggling hands. There’s a llama head on a stick. There’s an airplane. There’s a guy who looks like he’s wearing a diving bell (we find out what’s inside later on, and it’s fantastic) and there’s general merriment and mayhem. Surely it’s all carefully choreographed, but it has a spontaneous, genuinely fun feel to it, and it sets the tone for an irresistibly playful 2 1/2 hours.

Kurios may be the least pretentious Cirque show of all time, which is quite an accomplishment, unless that is, you read the press notes, which attempt to explain this merry universe. For instance, the guy in the diving bell is Mr. Microcosmos, and then there’s Mini Lili, who “represents Mr. Microcosmos’ unconscious mind, his intuitive self, his fragile and poetic side.” You get none of that from the show, but both characters are wonderful anyway.

Among the stand-out acts are “Rola Bola” in which James Eulises Gonzalez Correa balances on precarious stacks of things like balls and boxes and is raised higher and higher into the air with no safety net below him. Act 1 includes a truly surprising act: a funny clown! David-Alexandre Despres presents the “Invisible Circus,” which is exactly what it sounds like. There’s a high-wire act, a high diving act and even a lion (Felipe) who escapes, and it’s all charming. Despres returns in Act 2 with an audience member whom he takes on a date and introduces to a dinosaur and a cat with hilarious results. All praise funny clowns.

Things really take off in Act 2 with the bouncing men of the “Acro Net,” a sort of giant, stage-wide trampoline that inspires airborne wonder and high-energy clowning. I wasn’t thrilled with the yo-yo act, but I did enjoy the “Theater of the Hands,” which involves some very clever hand puppetry caught close up on video and projected onto a screen above the stage.

The finale, “Banquine,” involves 13 acrobats throwing each other around, stacking each other up and generally torturing gravity, and it’s a fittingly thrilling way to close this “cabinet of curiosities.”

It’s so nice to see Cirque taking itself less seriously and letting its audience have fun without that feeling that you’re just missing what it’s all really about. Cirque du Soleil learned how to put the “irk” in new circus, but with Kurios it seems they’re just as happy to bring back the light of the sun.

[bonus interview]
I talked to Kurios writer/director Michel Laprise for a feature in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the story here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Cirque du Soleil’s Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities continues through Jan. 18 at AT&T Park, parking lot at Third Street and Terry A. Francois Boulevard, San Francisco. Tickets are $53-$135. Call 800-450-1480 or visit www.cirquedosoleil.com.

Party People at Berkeley Rep: Necessary

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Chad Jones

EXTENDED THROUGH NOV. 30

Steven Sapp (right) as Omar leads an ensemble cast in UNIVERSES’ Party People, a fusion of story and song that unlocks the legacy of the Black Panthers and Young Lords at Berkeley Rep. Below: J. Bernard Calloway (left, asBlue), Mildred Ruiz-Sapp (Helita, background), and C. Kelly Wright perform in the extraordinary historical musical number that opens Party People. Photos courtesy of kevinberne.com

There are ovations and there are ovations. The opening of an envelope gets a standing ovation these days, so the stand and clap doesn’t really mean much anymore. But at the opening night of UNIVERSES’ Party People at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the audience was instantly on its collective feet at show’s end, applauding thunderously, shouting and hooting. The appreciative cast bowed, expressed gratitude and exited the stage. The house lights came on, and still the clamor continued. A few audience members exited the theater, but mostly the noise grew in intensity until the surprised cast had to return to the stage and bow yet again.

It seemed a fittingly over-the-top reaction to an ambitious, over-the-top show that leaves you feeling moved by the wheels of history and the vagaries of the human heart.

Party People was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as part of its American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle and had its premiere there in 2012. Created by UNIVERSES, a creative and social force comprising Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz-Sapp and William Ruiz, aka Ninja, and director Liesl Tommy (who is also Berkeley Rep’s associate director), the show is ostensibly about the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, two revolutionary groups born of the tumult of the 1960s that aimed to change the world and, in the face of powerful opposition, ultimately failed in their mission.

What’s extraordinary about Party People is how powerfully it works on its own terms. It can be kaleidoscopic and collage-like as it blends music (original compositions by Broken Chord) and video (live and recorded, beautifully designed by Alexander V. Nichols) and self-conscious art making with concise and incisive history lessons and, perhaps most importantly, human-scale stories that, individually and collectively, bring it all together and connect the audience to the past, present and future of this country.

That’s not to say that Party People is perfect – it seems unlikely that something this sprawling, rambunctious, fiery and beautiful could be. Some of the dramatic monologues are too long and don’t connect as powerfully as they might, but missteps are rare in this 2 1/2-hour fantasia on race, revolution and justice. From the extraordinary opening musical number that creates historical context for this intertwining story of the Panthers and the Lords, we become caught up in the flow of revolutionary zeal – free meals for kids, education reform, fighting police brutality and racism, recovery programs – and quickly see how egos and conflicts and violence can explode the truest of intentions.

On an urban two-level set (sturdy and graffiti covered design by Marcus Doshi who also designed the dazzling light show) covered with video monitors, we slip in and out of the present, where two children of the movement, Malik ( Christopher Livingston) and Jimmy (Ruiz), are processing their complicated legacy in a multimedia show. It’s opening night, and they have invited a wide assortment of personalities from back in the day, some of whom bring troubled and troubling histories with them.

Tension and conflict run high as these former revolutionaries (some are still active, even if only in their own minds) take an uneasy stroll down a memory lane littered with ideals and betrayals, rage and regret. This mash-up of nostalgia and minefields can veer to the melodramatic, but then real fire bursts forth as when C. Kelly Wright as Amira, a former Panther and wife of a Panther wrongly convicted and imprisoned for the murder of a police officer, lashes out at Malik and Jimmy and their generation of naval-gazing, Internet-obsessed “revolutionaries.” But then Malik lashes right back, and it becomes clear that the generation gap is a major force affecting communication and perception in this particular crowd.

So many sections of the show stand out, not the least of which is an incredible monologue by Sapp as troubled former Panther Omar accompanied by the other men in the cast exerting themselves in a powerfully athletic (and seemingly exhausting) display of the choreography by Millicent Johnnie. There are also some gorgeous voices to be savored here from Ruiz-Sapp, Amy Lizardo, Reggie D. White and Sophia Ramos.

As relevant and as thought-provoking as it is, Party People is also mightily entertaining. Humor, music and dance go a long way toward keeping this narrative afloat, even when the weight of history and sacrifice bear down heavily. These may be some of the most invigorating sad stories you experience. History is not over-explained, and nothing is emotionally tidy. We don’t get a concisely wrapped up ending, but we do feel like connecting with the past makes for a more powerful present and, in glimmers, a more hopeful future.

[bonus interview]
I interviewed UNIVERSES member Steven Sapp about creating Party People for a story in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the feature here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
UNIVERSES’ Party People continues an extended run through Nov. 30 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $29-$89 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit www.berkeleyrep.org.

Ideation redux: still smart, thrilling, funny

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Chad Jones

The team – (from left) Carrie Paff, Mark Anderson Phillips, Michael Ray Wisely and Ben Euphrat – deals with a surprise personnel issue in the SF Playhouse main stage debut of Aaron Loeb’s Ideation. Below: Superstars of management consulting, Brock (Mark Anderson Phillips, left), Sandeep (Jason Kapoor, center) and Ted (Michael Ray Wisely), return from a job in Crete, which they found full of cretins. Photos by Jessica Palopoli (photo of Aaron Loeb by Lauren English)

In November of last year I reviewed a play by Bay Area playwright Aaron Loeb, and I loved it. That play, Ideation, was part of San Francisco Playhouse’s Sand Box Series, an incubator for new works. For a new play, Ideation was in remarkably good shape and went on to win the Glickman Award, which is given to the best play to have its world premiere in the Bay Area.

Knowing a good thing when he saw it, SF Playhouse Artistic Director Bill English, decided to open his 12th main stage season with Ideation – same director (Josh Costello), same sterling cast (Ben Euphrat, Jason Kapoor, Carrie Paff, Mark Anderson Phillips and Michael Ray Wisely).

The results are just as they should be. Loeb has tweaked the play a bit. The ending has more punch, and both the thrills and the laughs have been punched up a few notches. It’s one of the best plays you’ll see about paranoia and how quickly the seemingly “normal” can become abnormally scary.

I stand by my original review (read it here) and feel like improvements have been made (including a slick set by English) that make Ideation the must-see play of the fall.

I wrote a tiny feature on Ideation for the San Francisco Chronicle (read it here), but Loeb submitted himself to an email interview what was too good not to share. So here is the interview in its entirety.

Q: What inspired you to write Ideation?
A: I was inspired by my work in tech (video games, specifically) and also my wife’s work as an international human rights lawyer at the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco. I had just started working with former management consultants for the first time in my life and I was entranced by their language and their thinking process. I was amazed by the way they could take any problem and break it down into its component parts, then relentlessly problem solve until they made progress.

At the same time, my wife was in the midst of leading a civil suit against the former defense minister of Somalia, filed by victims of the genocide and crimes against humanity in Somalia and Somaliland in the 80s. I learned in her preparation and work on the case about the systematic and methodical ways in which the crimes were planned.

Somehow, the two things became connected and I was writing a play about management consultants working on something possibly terrible.

Q: How (if at all) has Ideation changed since its Sandbox premiere last year and how have you approached this second production?
A: I’ve done some significant rewrites to Ideation – though they might not be noticeable to everyone. I’ve strengthened the relationships of the characters and clarified the build-up to the ending of the play. Some of the changes are based on feedback I received from the first run. Some of it is to resolve issues I was never completely happy with.

There was a section in the middle of the play that I always felt was a bit too circular (as in, the characters discuss a problem once, then they discuss it again, just 10 percent more intensely). I’ve flattened out that circle now so that it’s a steady progression.

A lot of the changes are in the construction of the play, not in any of the story elements. The biggest changes are in Hannah’s character to make it clearer who she is and to strengthen the fact that this is her story.

One of the things I’m so happy about in this next production is that the artistic team has remained intact. Carrie Paff, Mark Anderson Phillips, Michael Ray Wisely, Jason Kapoor and Ben Euphrat are all recreating their roles from the first run and Josh Costello is directing once again. Bill English is designing the set this time, but also serves in his ongoing capacity as my unerringly honest reader; we’ve done three world premieres together and now have a shorthand that is pretty irreplaceable.

Because it’s the same team together again, we have the chance to go deeper than we did last time. It’s a rare, rare opportunity.

Q: What did winning the Glickman Award for Ideation mean to you?
A: Any time you win an award with the pedigree of the Glickman, it means a lot. Angels in America won the Glickman with its world premiere. It’s an award with an incredible history, and it means the world to me to have been honored in such a way.

That said, the part of winning the Glickman I will always remember is the award ceremony at the annual Theatre Bay Area conference. Because this is an award bestowed by local theater critics, at the ceremony three of the judges of the award – Robert Hurwitt, Sam Hurwitt and someone calling himself “Chad Jones” (if that is his real name) – presented the award and each spoke about my writing. They didn’t talk about Ideation only, but about all of my plays.

I don’t know any of the three men very well personally (I’m Facebook friends with two of them, but you could count the hours I’ve spent with the three on one hand), but each of them spoke about my work with such clarity, it was as though we were old friends.

What a remarkable thing, I thought. I’ve had a years-long conversation with each of them through the theater.

This is only possible in a community. The play was born here in the Bay Area (as part of Just Theater‘s Play Lab), then developed at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, then premiered at SF Playhouse, then embraced by the Bay Area’s top critics.

As a writer, it is possible to feel terribly alone most of the time. You wonder if anyone will ever hear you. Winning the Glickman, I felt the embrace of my entire community, which was particularly gratifying because it gave me an opportunity to publicly thank everyone who helped me bring the play to life.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Ideation continues through Nov. 8 at the San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., San Francisco. Tickets are $20-$120. Call 415-677-9596 or visit www.sfplayhouse.org.

Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

San Francisco Bay Area On Stage: Reviews and More

Category Archives: San Francisco Chronicle