Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

Extended through June 28

Zoë Winters (left) is Jackie, James Wagner (center) is Dennis and Warren David Keith is Philip in the Magic Theatre’s season-ending production of Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck. Photos by davidallenstudio.com

Director Greco leaves dramatic stamp on sticky `Mauritius’
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Two little tiny pieces of paper cause a whole lot of trouble for the five characters in Theresa Rebeck’s Mauritius, a drama about – if you can believe it – stamp collecting.

Except the play isn’t really about stamp collecting. It’s about greed and ownership and, to a lesser degree, about family responsibility and the art of the grudge.

As she did in her hit play The Scene (seen in the Bay Area at SF Playhouse last season), Rebeck demonstrates a flair for vivid dialogue, with definite nods in the fragmented direction of David Mamet and Harold Pinter.

But Rebeck has more flair for comedy than either of those writers, which she amply displays in Mauritius, receiving its local premiere as the season-ender for the Magic Theatre.

By infusing her con-artist drama with some genuine emotion, Rebeck invites laughs and gives the game playing a comic edge that ultimately makes her more Coen Brothers than Mamet (thank the merciful heavens – one Mamet is quite enough).

With the quick movement of some furniture and the sliding of some panels, James Faerron’s nicely designed set flips us between the play’s two locations. The first is a stamp collector’s shop run by Philip (Warren David Keith) and inhabited by Dennis (James Wagner), a philatelist always on the con, and Sterling (Rod Gnapp), a stamp-loving gangster type (you can tell he’s a bad guy because he wears black and has ugly gold buckles on his shoes).

The second location is the cluttered home, where Jackie (Zoë Winters) lived until very recently with her cancer-stricken mother. With her mother gone, Jackie is sorting through the remaining personal effects with the not very helpful assistance of her older half-sister, Mary (Arwen Anderson, above left with Winters).

Conflict arises in the stamp shop and the home because of two little stamps worth millions of dollars. They’re referred to as the “one- and two-cent post office” issued by the British government on the tropical Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. They’re said to be the “crown jewels of philately” and it just so happens that Jackie has found both stamps in album that belonged to her late mother.

Mary (you can tell she’s a prig because she wears an ankle-length skirt and speaks to everyone as if she were the teacher addressing second graders) claims the stamps belong to her because they were her grandfather’s, and he was like a father to her.

Jackie has her own plans for the stamps and, with the dubious help of Dennis, sets off a series of events that lead to Sterling’s involvement and Philip’s interference. It seems there’s a years-old grudge between Sterling and Philip that involved an actual woman rather than stamps.

Beautifully played by Gnapp (right, with Winters), Sterling is a goon with intellect. He’s a gutter mouth and a soft touch where the Mauritius stamps are concerned. But Philip (believably drawn by Keith), is no patsy, and he will not see his status as King of the Stamp Nerds threatened.

At the middle of the melee is Jackie, embodied with wounded passion and vulnerable strength by Winters. This is a young woman who has been treated badly by life. Her home life was a disaster, her mother’s death was messy and her older sister is a creep. She sees the stamps as her ticket to a new life – wash the slate clean and start over again.

But that would be too easy. Everybody’s got a con (whether they know it or not), so Rebeck’s play keeps unfolding in surprising ways.

The first act of director Loretta Greco’s production is frustratingly slow — partly because Rebeck doesn’t do the Mamet-staccato dialogue all that well and partly because it’s hard to like anybody on stage — but things perk up dramatically in Act 2, though Rebeck disappoints in the end by too clearly delineating the villains who had previously shown more depth of character and had reasonable motivations.

Greco’s ensemble makes smart choices, especially when it comes to knowing how to play the drama and the tension against the laughs. Winters is especially adept at this particular game.

This has been a rocky season for the Magic, but it’s nice to see the season ending on such a solid note with a provocative, well-produced drama.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

The Magic Theatre’s Mauritius continues through June 28 at the Fort Mason Center, Building D, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street. Tickets are $40-$45. Rush tickets for people younger than 30, students, seniors and educations: $10 half-hour prior to performance, subject to availability. Call 800-595-4849 or visit www.magictheatre.org for information.

Opened Feb. 2, 2008 at SF Playhouse

The Scene makes a scene at SF Playhouse
Three stars Scene to be seen

By all rights, opening night of SF Playhouse’s The Scene should have been a disaster.

The company, which has really come into its own during this, its fifth season, had every reason to believe The Scene would in fact be a scene. They had imported a celebrity star in Berkeley native Daphne Zuniga, of “Melrose Place” fame. And they had a sizzling play from hot playwright Theresa Rebeck, who made her Broadway debut last year in the well-received Mauritius.

Then reality struck. Just days before Saturday’s gala opening-night performance, Zuniga contracted laryngitis and was under doctor’s orders not to perform. She missed Friday’s preview and was MIA for opening night.

Enter Nancy Carlin to the rescue. The veteran Bay Area actor, whose husband, Howard Swain, is also in the Scene cast, was already on deck to fill in for a few performances later in the run when Zuniga had scheduling conflicts. But she was hardly ready to step into the role yet.

So, Saturday night, artistic director Bill English made a pre-show announcement about Zuniga’s indisposition and warned us that Carlin would be carrying her script.

Turns out, Carlin was wonderful in the role of Stella, a bright, funny TV talk show producer who has been turned hard and cynical by her job, New York and life in general.

The theater’s electrical system, on the other hand, was less prepared than Carlin. The theater was plunged into blackout twice during Act 2.

The company (under the intrepid stage management of Nicola Rossini) soldiered on, and it’s a good thing they did. In spite of the sick star and the wonky wiring, The Scene is a terrific production of a sparky play that in many ways generates its own electricity.

The two-hour play begins and ends at swanky Manhattan parties (the slick, swiftly changing set is by English). At the first one, friends Charlie (Aaron Davidman) and Lewis (Swain) encounter what Rebeck calls a “scene machine,” which is a young person who thrives on the upper-crust party circuit.

This person is in the form of Clea (Heather Gordon, who also happens to be Miss Marin County 2008 and will compete for the title of Miss California in June), who keeps reminding us that she’s fresh off the bus from Ohio. Clea is a near-perfect specimen: gorgeous with impeccably cut long blond hair, a figure that doesn’t quit in her tight clothes and a brain that is far craftier than she’d like most of her acquaintances to know.

The first party scene sets up the impending disaster as Clea insinuates herself into Lewis’ and then Charlie’s life. She really is a monster — “some kind of succubus” as one character describes her — because she’s capable of being all things to all people. She can be genuine and artificial simultaneously, dumb blond-ish one moment and whip-crack smart the next. She’ll use sex to get what she wants and then verbally lacerate anyone who suggests she’s doing just that.

I can’t comment on Zuniga’s well-rehearsed performance, obviously, but I will say that Carlin is perfectly cast as Stella, Charlie’s wife, who turns out to be far more interesting than her hard, ultra-competent exterior suggests. Even in thrust into performance unready, Carlin was able to convey Stella’s depths, her humor and her soul-shaking hurt.

Davidman’s Charlie takes the biggest journey of the play, going from frustrated unemployed actor to — well, to say more would be to spoil the play’s trajectory. But he’s an intelligent man who takes responsibility for his choices, and he even tries to hold on to his integrity in a world that has no value for nor need of anything smacking of soulfulness.

The role of Lewis is the least flashy in the show, but Swain imbues it with great humor and warmth. Lewis does nothing the whole play but tell the truth — even if that means admitting his shallowness. He’s a good man, and with Swain in the role, there’s no doubt of that.

The play, well directed by Amy Glazer, really does belong to Gordon’s Clea, a repulsive, irresistible dervish who makes The Scene sexy and scary and something to be seen and savored.