Summer’s a bummer in all but music

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Dan’yelle Williamson (Diva Donna, left), Alex Hairston (Disco Donna, center), Olivia Elease Hardy (Duckling Donna) and the company of Summer: the Donna Summer Musical at the Golden Gate Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season. Below: The three ages of Donna in various shades of blue. Photos by Matthew Murphy for Murphymade

For a terrible show, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical is fairly enjoyable, and that is for one reason alone: the music. As jukebox musicals go, this one is toward the bottom of the list, which is surprising given that director and co-writer Des McAnuff has two shows much (much) higher on that list: Jersey Boys and Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations.

Summer suffers from the bane of the jukebox musical: forcing innocent pop songs into being show tunes that are meant to convey something meaningful about plot or character. When “Dim All the Lights,” a groovy tune about gettin’ down and dirty, is sung at a funeral, we know we’re in trouble.

If Summer had a knowing sense of humor, such moments might play better. For instance, in the completely tone-deaf (emotionally not musically) scene involving cartoonish domestic abuse set to “Enough Is Enough,” Donna fights back, and one of her weapons happens to be a coffee table book about Barbra Streisand. Say what now? Joke or bad idea? Hard to say, but probably the latter.

Like The Cher Show, another jukebox bio musical that never quite connected on Broadway, Summer represents the late Donna Summer with three actors portraying her at different times in her life. There’s Ducking Donna, a young girl from a big family in Boston played by De’Ja Simone filling in for an ailing Olivia Elease Hardy. Once young Donna drops out of high school and heads to Europe, she becomes Disco Donna played by Alex Hairston, who is really the most interesting Donna as she goes from unknown to big star. And sort of lording above them all is Diva Donna played by Dan’yelle Williamson, who serves as our guide through this “concert of a lifetime.”

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If this really were a concert, things would be so much better. The Donnas could talk about life moments and sing the songs surrounded by the mostly female ensemble working through Sergio Trujillo’s rather uninspired choreography and wearing the glittery costumes by Paul Tazewell. You could also keep most of Robert Brill’s set (especially the gigantic Studio 54 disco ball), even if the design leans too heavily on over-active video screens, and Howell Binkley’s concert-appropriate colorful lighting could stay as well. Great voices, enjoyable songs, flashy lights and colors – that’s really all we need to be happy.

The book by McAnuff, Robert Cary and Colman Domingo does Summer (or anyone in her life) no favors because it’s shallow, cheesy and unreliable. All of these things may have happened to Summer in exactly this way, but because of the way the show puts her biography across, it all feels like gloss and shine with no relationship to reality. If Summer really did engage in a pitched battle with her record company, we never really know the details beyond the fact that the fight fits nicely with her song “She Works Hard for the Money.” And Diva Donna’s attempt to explain her “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” comment, which hurt and alienated her gay fan base, by singing “Friends Unknown” as a tribute to those lost to AIDS feels more like a PR move than a deeply felt moment. More shine over substance.

All we really need here is for the three talented leads to perform Summer’s hit parade. There are delicious moments of pure performance – “MacArthur Park,” “On the Radio,” “Heaven Knows” – but they get derailed by the storytelling. When we finally get an unbridled, “Last Dance,” it feels like the party has begun at last, but then the show is over. In real life, Donna Summer was hot stuff and we loved to love her, baby. But on stage she’s another casualty of the empty-calorie cash grab known as the jukebox musical.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical continues through Dec. 29 at the Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco. Tickets are $56-$256 (subject to change). Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com

Of mice and music: Berkeley Rep’s Despereaux charms

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Dorcas Leung (Despereaux) with (back, l to r) Ryan Melia (Librarian), Betsy Morgan (Queen Rosemary), Matt Nuernberger (Botticelli) and Curtis Gillen (Most High Head Mouse) in Berkeley Rep’s production of PigPen Theatre Co.’s The Tale of Despereaux. Below: Despereaux (center) and the hardworking ensemble raise the roof of the Roda Theatre. Photos courtesy of Kevin Berne/Berkeley Repertory Theatre

There are so many charming, astonishing, inspiring moments in PigPen Theatre Co.’s The Tale of Despereaux you have to stop logging them and simply realize that, from beginning to end, this is exactly the show we need this holiday season.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre has a long tradition of bringing inventive, highly theatrical shows to its stage this time of year (the wondrous shows of Mary Zimmerman and Kneehigh come immediately to mind), and this year, we get a wildly wonderful Despereaux from PigPen Theatre Co., a group of friends who met and began making theater and music at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in 2007.

And while it’s easy to see why the handmade quality PigPen’s exuberant storytelling is so well suited to the stage adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s Newberry Award-winning 2003 novel. But this production is a little fancier than that. It’s financed by Universal Theatrical Group, the stage arm of the movie studio that made the 2008 animated Despereaux novel, and it’s co-directed by PigPen and Marc Bruni, who also helmed the Tony-winning Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.

The stage Despereaux, which is acted, played and sung entirely by the 11-person ensemble, had its premiere last summer at San Diego’s The Old Globe, and one would guess that a new musical this good will go on to a long life wherever it wants to go.

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Like the novel, this musical is about finding the courage to be the one who makes a difference, fights for justice and overcomes preconceived notions of who someone should be. In this particular story, the hero is a mouse with giant ears (not Mickey, that’s a different movie studio) who, inspired by the story of a knight’s quest, determines to bring light back to the now-darkened kingdom where he and his family live.

Young Despereaux (played with verve by Dorcas Leung) lives in castle clouded with grief. Years before, the queen’s heart stopped at the sight of a rat in her soup. Since then, rats and soup have been forbidden, and the sad king (Arya Shahi) and his daughter, the Princess Pea (Yasmeen Sulieman), live a quiet, isolated life. They don’t throw parties or have feasts, so the crumb quotient for the castle’s mice population is alarmingly low, though the red-eyed rats that inhabit the castle’s darkest, dankest basement don’t seem to be suffering near as much.

One visit to the castle’s library and an encounter with the tale of a brave knight (Dan Weschler) is all it takes to ignite Despereaux’s warrior heart and a desire to fulfill his destiny as a hero. But first he must deal with the mice, who fear any change to the status quo, and the nasty rats in the basement, especially their leader, Roscuro (John Rapson, deftly capturing the light and dark of chiaroscuro). He breaks rules and tries to keep the faith that what he’s doing is right and just (not an easy task).

From beginning to end, this 90-minute treat is chock full of appealing songs with a Celtic pulse, performed with gusto by the ensemble. The voices are glorious (especially Sulieman’s princess, Betsy Morgan’s Miggery Sow and Rapson’s Roscuro), and the stage is alive with beautiful images. There’s a strong theme of light and dark built into the story, so the lighting by Donald Holder takes on significance beyond the beautiful way it illuminates the rough-hewn timber and crockery of Jason Sherwood’s castle set.

At the opening-night performance (Monday, Nov. 25), Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre was filled with children, and it’s a testament to the performers on stage (and to the parents) just how well behaved the audience was. Director Bruni and his ensemble manage to keep up the pace of the show without ever making it feel rushed. There’s time for ballads and introspection and shadow puppetry. And it’s absolutely enchanting the way the company uses stuffed mice and rats to convey the size difference between the animal characters and the human characters, all the while keeping us emotionally invested in every inter-species interaction.

The Tale of Despereaux is neither corny nor sappy the way entertainment aimed at all ages can sometimes be. Rather, this is rich, emotional, rewarding theater that pulls us all into its story of the littlest guy choosing to make the biggest difference.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
PigPen Theatre Co.’s The Tale of Despereaux continues through Jan. 5 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $10-$100 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit www.berkeleyrep.org.

Identity crisis renders Anastasia dull, derivative

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Lila Coogan is the central character in the national tour of Anastasia at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre. Photo by Matthew Murphy, Murphymade Below: Coogan’s Anya awaits her fate with Stephen Brower (bowing) as Dmitry. Photo by Evan Zimmerman, Murphymade

As much as we might like to think that the future of Broadway looks like Hamilton or Hadestown, I’m pretty sure the future looks more like Anastasia, the inconsequential musical based on the 1997 animated film (in turn based on the 1956 movie starring Ingrid Bergman) that is now touring the country. Given how uninspired this show is, the fact that it ran for two years on Broadway is surprising, but perhaps lukewarm rehashes are just what audiences want. There seems to be an endless supply.

The one bold feature of the show, the single element that seems to give the show life and a reason for being, is its heavy reliance on giant screens as set pieces. There are a few actual backdrops, but projection designs do most of the work, and it’s an element that to me feels like cheating. I’d rather have too little than too much in design, a reason to ignite the imagination rather than have video game-like images sliding past my eyeballs for 2 1/2 hours. That high-tech gimmickry is the only thing that indicates this musical emerged in the 21st century.

The touring production now at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre employs that flawlessly executed video design, but it overwhelms the actors, who are already struggling to make something of the halfhearted book by Terrence McNally and the surprisingly limp score by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. This musical team wrote the songs for the animated movie, and several of those songs, including the Oscar-nominated “Journey to the Past,” are highlights here. But the songs they’ve created to beef up the story are, for the most part, forgettable. Only a few of the new numbers come close to something interesting, and two of them involve the complicated feelings Russians have about their homeland and its turbulent politics. The first, “Stay, I Pray You,” is a wistful goodbye song at a train station as conflicted citizens reflect on their need to flee and their sadness at doing so. The other, “Land of Yesterday,” is sung by nostalgic Russian expats at a Russian club in Paris who delight in celebrating and bemoaning their homeland (while dancing and drinking vodka).

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The bulk of the over-abundant score is bland except when it’s outright awful (ie, all the songs for Gleb, the bad guy Bolshevik). How is that possible from the team that created Ragtime, Once on This Island and A Man of No Importance, all gorgeous, poignant shows with emotional scores and catchy songs?

Director Darko Tresnjak, aside from relying too much on the big screens, seems content with skimming the surfaces of the execution of the Romanov family, Anastasia’s mysterious survival and the non-suspense of wondering if “Anya” really is the lost princess. There’s a love story that feels about as authentic as Russian salad dressing, and there’s a surprisingly bold rip-off of “The Rain in Spain” when two con-artists attempt to school a street sweeper in the ways of royalty so they can pass her off as the long-lost princess. During “Learn to Do It” I kept expecting Dmitry and Vlad to shout, “By George I think she’s got it!”

Amid all the derivative drivel, there’s a surprising bright spot in Act 2 when two secondary characters, Vlad and Lily, decide they’re doing a sketch on “The Carol Burnett Show,” and for the length of “The Countess and the Common Man,” it feels like we’ve entered another realm entirely, one where entertainment actually matters and the skills of the performers (Edward Staudenmayer and Tari Kelly) are put to effective use. Otherwise, we have sweet-voiced leads Lila Coogan as Anya-Let’s-Just-Call-Her-Anastaisa and Stephen Brower as Dmitry being sincere and feisty with 0% substance and just as much romantic spark.

What does this musical have to say to us? Try not to die when your family is executed? Amnesia is totally reversible? We all have conflicted feelings about our homeland? Digital sets are awesome? Princess dresses are pretty? Anastasia is the kind of theatrical venture that seems like an amiable cash grab: professional and (c)harmless and, except for the producers, completely unnecessary. As I said, the future of Broadway.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Anastasia continues through Sept. 29 at SHN Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco. Tickets are $56-$256 (subject to change). Call 888-746-1799 or visit www.shnsf.com.

Come to the Cabaret at SF Playhouse

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The Master of Ceremonies (John Paul Gonzalez) performs with the Kit Kat Dancers in Cabaret at San Francisco Playhouse. Below: Sally Bowles (Cate Hayman) contemplates her future with Clifford Bradshaw (Atticus Shaindlin) in tumultuous Berlin in the 1930s.
Photos by Jessica Palopoli


San Francisco Playhouse’s Cabaret is, to put it simply, a wow. A big, debauched, delightful wow. Everything in director Susi Damilano’s production just clicks. The look, the feel, the sound of this John Kander and Fred Ebb classic are all securely in place, so this well-constructed musical (Damilano is using the 1998 Broadway revival as her base) can connect directly with its audience.

This is the second time the Playhouse has done Cabaret. Co-founder and artistic director Bill English directed a strong production in 2008 at their tiny former theater on Sutter Street (read my review here). Two of the actors from that production return to the new one in the same roles. Louis Parnell is even better and more sensitive as Herr Schultz, and Will Springhorn Jr. is once again Ernst Ludwig, one of those fine German citizens who turns out to be monster.

Damilano (also a Playhouse co-founder and its producing director) has a much bigger stage to work with than English did 11 years ago, and she and set designer Jacquelyn Scott make the most of it with a two-level structure that shifts easily from being the stage of the Kit Kat Klub (the epitome of early 1930s Berlin decadence) to the rooming house where newly arrived American writer Clifford Bradshaw (Atticus Shaindlin) is going to finally find something worth writing about. The stage even has room for a few cabaret tables, so audience members are able to get very up close and personal with the exuberant cast.

There’s not a sour note in this production (not counting the Nazis – Nazis are always the sourest of notes in any form), from the lusty ensemble executing Nicole Helfer’s clever sensual/vulgar choreography to the hot, hot band led by Dave Dobrusky (with a special shout-out to drummer Geneva Harrison for giving the show its driving pulse).

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It’s all top-notch, but the pinnacle here is the star-making performance by Cate Hayman as the Toast of Mayfair, Sally Bowles. Her program bio yields some interesting facts, not the least of which is that she just finished her junior year of college at Carnegie Mellon University. Also of note is that this is her THIRD production of Cabaret in a year (although in the last two she played the aggressively amorous Fräulein Kost). The bio doesn’t mention that Hayman is a Marin native who won a $15,000 Beach Blanket Babylon scholarship in the voice category in 2016. After experiencing this performance, it’s easy to see why Hayman is an award winner. She is polished and assured but vulnerable and fully present. Her Sally is a pragmatist who gauges her debauchery almost as a means of survival. This Sally is less of a kook and more of an artists whose capacity for hurt and damage is more than she can bear. This comes through powerfully in “Maybe This Time,” but then in Act 2, when Hayman dives into the title song, the stage ignites, and we hear the song as if for the first time.

Unlike the 1972 film, which scrambled and chopped the original stage production, Cabaret is not only the story of Sally and Cliff and the Kit Kat Klub shenanigans. It’s also a love story between two older people: landlady Fräulein Schneider (Jennie Brick) and Jewish grocer Herr Schultz (Parnell). They get five numbers in the show, which makes them central characters. In addition to dealing with aging, loneliness and romance, they’re also up against the rise of Nazi power and a growing tide of antisemitism. Parnell and Brick are wonderful together, and Brick’s performances of “So What” and the especially daunting “What Would You Do?” are poignant and nuanced. With such strong actors in these roles, the show feels more balanced.

In many productions, the role of the Emcee tends to overwhelm the proceedings, but here, John Paul Gonzalez is less of a show-off and more part of the ensemble. It’s only in Act 2, when he delivers a stunning “I Don’t Care Much” that we get something more from the character than just brash sexuality.

Sadly, it seems a musical about the rise of Fascism will never seem quaint. When, at the end of Act 1, a group of Berliners joins in on the Nazi propaganda tune “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” it feels strangely familiar and more than a little unsettling. Cabaret has been kicking around for more than 50 years now in various forms, and it has never felt so relevant. There’s so much to enjoy in it and yet so much to fear.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret continues through Sept. 14 at San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., San Francisco. Tickets are $35-$125. Call 415-677-9596 or visit www.sfplayhouse.org.

Vivacious Aztec tunefully reclaims, re-writes Latinx history

EXTENDED THROUGH JULY 21
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(front) Yani Marin as Colombina; (back row, from left) Angelica Beliard (Ensemble), Maria-Christina Oliveras (Ensemble), Jesús E. Martínez (Ensemble) and KC de la Cruz (Ensemble) in the world premiere of Kiss My Aztec! at Berkeley Rep, directed by Tony Taccone and co-written by Taccone and John Leguizamo. (Photo by Kevin Berne) Below: The ensemble of Kiss My Aztec (photo by Alessandra Mello)

After 33 years at Berkeley Repertory Theatre – 22 as artistic director – Tony Taccone is taking a final bow with Kiss My Aztec, a world-premiere musical that serves as a fitting farewell. Hatched from the fervid mind of John Leguizamo, the show hits a lot of Taccone hot spots. It attempts to stick it to the white man (in this case, the Spanish conquistadors who colonized, destroyed and attempted to erase Aztec civilization) while re-writing history with a focus on those who should have had a hand in recording it in the first place. It’s a sprawling, inclusive, celebratory explosion of energy that continually lobs truth bombs at its audience through crude, incisive, often hilarious lines and lyrics.

“The original sin of the nation you’re in is white people in boats.” That’s from the rousing opening number performed by an ass-kicking 11-member ensemble. The choreography by Maija Garcìa immediately lets us know we’re in for a show where everything goes. Urban, modern, traditional, Latinx – it’s all here, and it’s all exciting. Set designer Clint Ramos (who also designed the costumes) largely gets out of the way of the story by letting his actors climb on, around and under a basic two-level scaffolding structure surrounded by brick walls covered in colorful murals.

Based on a screenplay by Leguizamo and Stephen Chbosky, Kiss My Aztec is an imagined tale of Aztec revenge. In the book by Leguizamo and Taccone, it’s the mid-16th century, where people speak with a hint of Shakespeare along the lines of, “Thou shall shuteth thy pie hole.” Though Cortes has successfully vanquished, pillaged and enslaved the Aztec civilization, a small tribe plots revenge on the Spanish ruler. In this version of history, the Aztecs are successful and very much part of the ongoing and successful effort to make the world more brown.

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This historical revision happens with the kind of musical irreverence you might find in shows like Monty Python’s Spamalot or The Book of Mormon. There’s a lot of slicing and sassing of the patriarchal conquerors, but there’s also a lot of love for the downtrodden and the wronged. The score, with music by Benjamin Velez and lyrics by Leguizamo, Velez and David Kamp, is all over the musical map. There’s rap and hip-hop, Broadway love song (albeit performed by lovers who are chained up and just out of each other’s reach), samba, tango, gospel and just about anything else you can think of. In spite of, or perhaps because of, that variety, the score is eminently enjoyable. There’s a song late in Act 1, “The Abstinence Song,” that is perhaps the catchiest, with its refrain of, “Keep it in your pants and dance.” And the aforementioned love song, with the chains inspiring the lovers to sing “just a few inches more,” is cleverly titled “Chained Melody” (sure to be a hit for the Unrighteous Brothers). The only song that didn’t fully work for me was the Act 2 opener, “Dark Meat,” which is funny for a verse and then tiresome.

The central characters here are Aztecs Columbina (Yani Marin) and Pepe (Joél Pérez). She’s a warrior trapped by her father’s limited idea of what women can do, and he’s a gentle soul who would rather practice sock puppetry than pick up a sword. They’re destined for each other, but first they have to prove themselves by infiltrating the Spanish citadel, capturing the viceroy’s giant ruby pendant (that and a blood moon figure largely in a prophecy) and guiding the Aztecs to victory. Columbina’s big double-negative statement of defiance is “Don’t Tell Me What I Can’t Do,” and Pepe’s is the charming “Punk-Ass Geek-A.” They both get to be heroes, but it’s clear that Pepe is the most Leguizamo-like, a rolling ball of comic electricity and eccentricity whose charms are impossible to resist.

Within the Spanish court, the viceroy Roderigo (Al Rodrigo) is miserable. He loathes his gay son, Fernando (Zachary Infante), who is secretly in love with a Catholic priest, Reymundo (Chad Carstarphen), decked out in his Inquisition-red robes. Their down low duet, “Tango in the Closet,” is a hoot.

Many performers are double cast in fun ways. Carstarphen, for instance, is the gay priest and also the noble but beleaguered El Jaguar Negro, leader of the Aztec resistance. And Infante makes a second appearance as a Sebastian, a wacky bit of inbred Spaniard royalty with his own fizzy dance club number, “New Girl, New World.” Desiree Rodriguez also makes a strong double impression as an Aztec and as Pilar, daughter of the Viceroy who wants to mess with her father in a big way.

This is the kind of highly carbonated musical that makes audiences happy – makes them feel smart and entertained and progressive – and it looks like a joy to perform. This production heads to the La Jolla Playhouse this fall, and who knows where beyond that. It’s not a revolutionary show, but it’s part of a class of musical comedy that’s actually funny as well as heartfelt, relevant and full of catchy tunes. There’s a fair amount of snark and cynicism in the show’s humor, mostly to underscore the idiocy of our current political climate, especially in respect to brown people here, there and everywhere. But ultimately, this is a big, juicy Kiss that inspires celebration and hope, even amid oppression, darkness and abominable leadership.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Kiss My Aztec by John Leguizamo, Tony Taccone, Benjamin Velez and David Kamp continues an extended run through July 21 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $40-$115 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit www.berkeleyrep.org.

Carole King and all that is Beautiful

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Sarah Bockel is Carole King in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, part of the SHN season at the Golden Gate Theatre. Below: Bockel’s Carole confers with (from left) Alison Whitehurst as Cynthia Weil, Jacob Heimer as Barry Mann and Dylan S. Wallach as Gerry Goffin. Photos by Joan Marcus

Almost six years ago, a Broadway-bound musical had its world premiere at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre, and though there were a few issues, the show looked like a bona fide hit. Sure enough, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical became a smash on Broadway, winning a Tony Award for star Jessie Mueller and continuing to draw a cheering audience more than five years later.

Read my original review here.

There’s one simple reason Beautiful is a hit, and that reason is Carole King. The show is at its best when it’s tracking her brilliance and her rise from co-songwriter of a bazillion 1960s hits to legendary singer-songwriter in her own right. Happily, the show is at its best for much of its 2 1/2-hour running time. The only time the enterprise flags is when we get too caught up in a ’60s musical revue cycle and lose track of Carole’s quest to become so much her authentic self that she becomes a legend (that’s not really her quest, but it’s exactly what happens). Sure, there’s a lot of feel-good nostalgia here, but we also get a powerful story of self-actualization that feels real and not just the standard Hollywood cliché.

Now Beautiful is back in San Francisco, this time at the Golden Gate Theatre as part of the SHN season. Since the show’s debut here, it has become funnier, livelier and more polished, all good things for slick Broadway musical biography. But the one constant is the warmth of the characters and the way that warmth makes them feel genuinely connected. Sarah Bockel as Carole has to go from smart-beyond-her-years 16-year-old peddling songs at the Brill Building to Grammy Award-winner performing at Carnegie Hall a little more than a decade later. It’s an evolution Bockel makes with believable grace and goofiness. Like Mueller before her, she’s not exactly imitating King, but she’s giving us enough King-ness to satisfy our craving and remind us that we’re watching a version of what happened to a still-living, still-performing, still-beloved artist.

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As Gerry Goffin, the handsome writer King marries and churns out hits (and children) with, Dylan S. Wallach has charm and complication to spare. We can see why Carole is so attracted to him, and we can feel just how heartbroken she is when he breaks out of the marriage and begins suffering from unnamed traumas (unnamed other than “nervous breakdown”). Rather than focus on the drama of a youthful marriage and its eventual dissolution, the plot here revs up a competition between Carole and Gerry and their closest friends (and office neighbors), Cynthia Weill and Barry Mann (played, respectively, by Alison Whitehurst and Jacob Heimer). Moving the emotional storytelling to the back burner for a portion of Act 1, book writer Douglas McGrath gives us the Battle for the #1s, with a nonstop stream of hits like “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “Up on the Roof,” “On Broadway,” “The Locomotion,” “One Fine Day” and “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling.”

It’s fun, but the glittery revue quality wears a little thin. We’re eager to get back to Carole, so director Marc Bruni refocuses the story in Act 2 as Carole’s marriage is falling apart and the music industry is changing faster than you can say Liverpool.

Beautiful began as a way to celebrate the life and work of King (even though the story stops short just as Tapestry is taking over the world) and has become a living monument to her greatness. She was a skilled songwriter in the ways of the old school, but she, like the world, evolved. She got ahead of the sound and managed to meld song craft and modern sounds in a way that remain fresh and vibrant. This musical and its success was that little push King needed to remind us how essential she is to the 20th-century pop-culture pantheon. May Beautiful continue burnishing King’s iconic status and keep us excited and interested every time she (or her avatar) begins playing that piano.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical continues through July 9 at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco. Tickets are $56-$226 (subject to change). Call 888-746-1799 or visit shnsf.com.

Hamilton continues to dazzle in new #AndPeggy tour

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The cast of the #AndPeggy tour of Hamilton, at the SHN Orpheum Theatre through Sept. 8, includes, from left, Rubén J. Carbajal as John Laurens, Julius Thomson III as Alexander Hamilton, Simon Longnight as Marquis de Lafayette and Brandon Louis Armstrong as Hercules Mulligan. Photo by Joan Marcus

If anything, the current company – known as the #AndPeggy company – of Hamilton now at the SHN Orpheum Theatre through Sept. 8, is even better than the one we saw at the same theater in 2017. Maybe it’s because this company got to perform for three weeks in Puerto Rico with the show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, reprising the lead role. Or maybe the Hamilton machine, with productions in New York, Chicago and London and with two other tours (currently in Tampa and Cincinnati), has just become so incredibly efficient that it has collected all the best performers in all the land(s).

You might expect that a property that burns as hot and bright as Hamilton does in our pop culture would crest and fade at some point. That may happen, but not yet. The custodians of this extraordinary musical are taking awfully good care of it and are not only preserving but also expanding on the work of Miranda, director Thomas Kail, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler and orchestrator/arranger Alex Lacamoire. What that team created and what continues to unfold on stage is absolutely remarkable.

This is the third time I’ve seen Hamilton (original cast on Broadway, the first national tour launch in San Francisco in 2017 and now #AndPeggy company), and I feel like I could see 50 more times and still not absorb everything happening on that stage. It’s so easy to get caught up in the story of Hamilton and Burr weaving their narratives through the birth of a nation and tangling in their final dual that you don’t always notice what’s happening on the periphery in Blankenbuehler’s incredibly rich work for the ensemble or how Kail’s staging makes such effective use of the two turntables that you fall into the seamless flow of scene after compelling scene. [Just how intricate is the staging? Read this fascinating piece on the dancer who is known as #TheBullet.]

Miranda and company revolutionized musical theater by a) making the racial diversity of the cast so important that it seems there’s no other possible way to make good theater, b) merging history with the present in such a way as to make both more alive and more intricately connected that many of us realized and c) fusing hip-hop, rap, pop, R&B and musical theater in ways that are so vibrant and rich that other contemporary scores seem bland by comparison. All of that becomes even clearer on repeated viewings (and listenings, though the cast album only tells half the story because the visuals are so powerful).

Happily, Hamilton seems far from becoming a museum piece or something that can only be in the mold of the original production. In the performances especially, actors are given enough space to put their own spin on the characters. That’s where the #AndPeggy company really shines. Starting with Julius Thompson III as Hamilton, the performances are fresh and focused, and the chemistry among all the major players is electric.

Thompson brings all kinds of youthful enthusiasm to young Alexander, newly arrived in New York from the West Indies, one more immigrant who will get the job done (that lyric still gets a round of applause). He’s brash and confident and terrified and insecure – a sure recipe for success. As Hamilton makes friends and moves up through the ranks in the Revolutionary War, Thompson expands in the role, and by the time Hamilton is a battered politician, philandering husband and grieving father, there is a depth and ache that comes from maturity and harsh experience. Through it all, Thompson’s voice is glorious (all love to Miranda, but his distinctive voice is not his strongest suit).

Donald Webber Jr. as Aaron Burr is sly and quiet at first. He embodies Burr’s “talk less, smile more” philosophy, but when it comes to Burr’s ambition, which seems constantly thwarted by Hamilton, the actor releases a powerful fury. His “Wait for It” is the best I’ve heard, and his “The Room Where It Happens” dazzles in its show-stopping desperation.

We saw Isaiah Johnson as George Washington last time around, and he’s even better now. When Washington decides to step down from the presidency and enlists Hamilton’s help in writing his farewell address, it’s a moving moment. But Johnson lifts the number – “One Last Time” – higher and digs deeper, making it a show highlight.

This is basically a whole show of highlights, so there are too many to mention here. Just know that “The Schuyler Sisters” (played by Julia K. Harriman as Eliza, Sabrina Sloan as Angelica and Darilyn Castillo as Peggy) is as snazzy as it needs to be; King George III (Rick Negron) is as diabolically funny as he needs to be; and the boys – Brandon Louis Armstrong as Hercules Mulligan/James Madison, Rubén J. Carbajal as John Laurens/Philip Hamilton and Simon Longnight as Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson – are a boisterous, funny, obstreperous and loyal.

I see something new and hear something new every time I see the show, and one thing that must be said about this company (and perhaps the sound system at the Orpheum) is that their diction is superb. Approximately 10 bazillion words fly by in this 2 1/2-hour show, and I heard more of them than I ever had before, which was thrilling. Miranda has become so famous for so many things at this point it’s nice to be reminded just what an inventive, intelligent and emotional composer he is.

Hamilton succeeds in abundant ways, but the thing that really got me this time was how our smart, squabbling founding fathers were really just winging it. Doing the best they could, relying on their educations, brandishing their egos, but never possessing absolute answers. The nation was a work in progress then and remains so today. That’s comforting…and terrifying. In Hamilton it would seem there is room enough for us all to figure it out. If only reality reflected one of our great works of art.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Hamilton: An American Musical continues through Sept. 8 at the SHN Orphem Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco. Tickets are $111-$686, subject to change. Call 888-746-1799 or visit www.shnsf.com.

Daily #HAM4HAM ticket lottery
At each performance of Hamilton 44 tickets are made available at $10 each. Use the Hamilton app or visit hamiltonmusical.com/lottery to enter and to read all the details.

Well, well helloooo, Dolly!

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Betty Buckley won a Tony Award singing “Memory” in Cats but is probably best known as the tenderhearted stepmother on the TV show “Eight Is Enough.” Buckley returns to the musical theater stage as Dolly Gallagher Levi in the national tour of Hello, Dolly! running through March 17 at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre. Below: Buckley as Dolly and Lewis J. Stadlen as Horace Vandergelder with the company. Photos by Julieta Cervantes

I didn’t always get Hello, Dolly! partly because I didn’t think there was anything to get. I just thought I didn’t like it much. Sure, the Jerry Herman score is irresistibly cheerful, but I was always resistant to the Carol Channing clown show that so defined the musical from its inception in 1964 through Channing’s last tour in the mid-‘90s.

I saw the late Channing in her final tour and enjoyed her verve and comic skill, but the show was like an archival print you appreciate for its historical value more than it was a vital piece of musical theater. Then I saw the 2017 Broadway revival starring Bette Midler directed by Jerry Zaks. That bright, ebullient production was a whole different experience. The joy factor was enormous, the performances were warm and funny and Herman’s score was sheer delight from beginning to end. I’ve never experienced an audience so enraptured with a show that their collective adulation became a character in the show. It’s like the entire audience was enraptured and subjected to repeated fits of ecstasy. There was weeping and cheering and cheering on top of cheering.

That production reminded me that this musical has its roots in Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, his second attempt at adapting a European play for American audiences. The first, 1938’s The Merchant of Yonkers flopped, but he revisited the play in 1955 as The Matchmaker, which was a hit and later served as the basis for Michael Stewart’s book for Hello, Dolly!. All those wonderful Wilder qualities – reminding us to live not merely inhabit our lives, to connect with other people, to trust more and worry less – were bursting out of the musical, which in itself provided a reason to revel in the present moment.

The Broadway revival has spawned a national tour with the marvelous Betty Buckley as Dolly, and while the erstwhile star of Cats, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Sunset Boulevard may not be the first person you think of when you think of musical comedy, she attacks the material as a serious actor and delivers a deeply felt performance full of life and love.

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The production, now at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre, retains the colorful zest of the Broadway production, from the cheerfully old-fashioned sets and Easter egg-colored costumes by Santo Loquasto to the choreography by Warren Carlyle (inspired by the original staging by Gower Champion) that embodies the ideal combination of charm, athleticism and beauty in musical theater dance.

Buckley’s Dolly Gallagher Levi has to make us care about her in several ways. We have to empathize with her grief. She has, after all, spent the last decade mourning the loss of her great love, her husband Ephraim Levi. And we have to give ourselves over to the philosophy she has adopted for herself, which is that everything will work out just fine. She may seem a little kooky or daffy in her meddling and the way she posits herself as an expert at everything, but she does all of that wisely. She simply trusts that good intentions and allowing for the best in people will yield the best possible result. Buckley succeeds beautifully on both counts. She’s warm and funny and, in her monologues to her husband (taken right from Wilder), quite affecting. As a singer, Buckley is having fun with the Herman score. She can deliver the comic goods (“So Long Dearie”) and the belt (“Before the Parade Passes By”) in equal measure, all the while making it entirely her own.

Of course Dolly is the fulcrum of the farce, but surrounding her is a delicious assortment of comic performances. Lewis J. Stadlen is appropriately gruff as Yonkers unmarried half-a-millionaire Horace Vandergelder, but he’s also just sweet enough to make you want him to end up with the scheming Dolly (she wants him for his money so she can spread it around). His is a classic style of musical theater comedy, and it works perfectly here. His chemistry with Buckley delights, especially in their turkey-beet-giblet dinner scene at the Harmonia Gardens.

As Vandergelder’s employees, Nic Rouleau and Jess LeProtto playing Cornelius and Barnaby respectively find that nice balance – as so much in this production does – of comedy and humanity so that when their big day in New York yields true love for both, we’re giddy right along with them. Rouleau has a spectacular voice, and LeProtto is a deft physical comedian. As Irene and Minnie, the women who conquer the hearts of the Yonkers clerks, Analisa Leaming and Kristen Hahn have gorgeous voices and admirable comic chops. Like Barnaby and Cornelius, they are breaking out of their usual roles and diving into adventure with gusto.

The lavishness of the production, the energy of the choreography and the sweetness of the story all combine perfectly in Act 2 as Dolly prepares, in her words, to rejoin the human race, and makes her grand entrance at the top of the stairs at the Harmonia Gardens. The waiters have preceded her entrance with a dazzling “gallop,” and Zaks’ and Carlyle’s staging of the title song reveals one delight after another as Buckley sets out, or so it seems, to charm the entire planet.

There’s a refrain running through Hello, Dolly! that the world is full of wonderful things. This heartfelt, buoyant production – a vivid reminder of why it’s so beloved – is most certainly one of them.

[bonus interview]
I interviewed Betty Buckley for a story in the San Francisco Chronicle. You can read the story here. Several paragraphs didn’t make the final edit and are included below:

The revival, Buckley says, feels connected to the original source material, Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker” (which is actually a re-write of his earlier play, “The Merchant of Yonkers”).

“I am a Wilder devotee,” Buckley says. “In college, I played Mrs. Antrobus in his ‘The Skin of Our Teeth.’ There I was this budding feminist, a charter subscriber to Ms. Magazine, and I was thrilled to have words for all these feelings I had growing up about the hypocrisy I saw around me, the inequity between men and women. And the reaction to these Wilder monologues I was speaking as this character were just visceral and emotional. It was such an enlightening experience for me. I will be forever grateful to Thornton Wilder.”

Many of Dolly’s monologues in the musical, Buckley points out, are pulled directly from Wilder’s play. “Here’s this beautiful, joyous musical, but within it is a message about the truth vs. the cultural notion of patriarchy and people who are focused on money and hardness learning more about their humanity and human connection,” Buckley says. “Dolly is a sage widow who has been retired, making a living catch as catch can, and she has intuitive gifts about life, love and connections. She decides to come back to life after 10 years of grieving, and she helps people remember where their hearts are. This story is so resonant and timely.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Hello, Dolly! continues through March 17 at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco. Tickets are $56-$256. Call 888-746-1799 or visit www.shnsf.com

Aside from dancing, Berkeley Rep Square is far from paradise

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(front row, l to r) Hailee Kaleem Wright (Ensemble), Karen Burthwright (Ensemble), and Sidney Dupont (William Henry Lane); (back row, l to r) Chloé Davis (Ensemble), Sir Brock Warren (Ensemble), Jamal Christopher Douglas (Ensemble), and Jacobi Hall (Ensemble) in the world premiere of Paradise Square: A New Musical at Berkeley Rep. Photo courtesy of Alessandra Mello/Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Below: (l to r) Jason Oremus (Ensemble) and Jacobi Hall (Ensemble), and the company of Paradise Square. Photo courtesy of Kevin Berne/Berkeley Repertory Theatre

There are actually two competing musicals in Paradise Square: A New Musical now having its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. One of them is much better than the other.

Incredibly ambitious and overstuffed, Paradise Square wants to create excitement about a particular moment in American history with a wonderfully diverse cast and a score that blends show music, traditional music and contemporary sounds (sound familiar? can’t blame producers for not wanting to throw away their shot). But this show, many years in the making, is still fuzzy, unfocused and only intermittently interesting.

In telling the story of the Five Points, a 19th-century New York slum inhabited primarily by Irish immigrants and African Americans, Paradise Square complicates its storytelling by weaving in the life of composer Stephen Foster, whose music provides a base for the score crafted by Jason Howland and Larry Kirwan (the guy who had the idea to create this show in the first place) with lyrics by Nathan Tysen. Foster’s music became synonymous with minstrelsy, so putting his beautiful melodies in service of a story about, as they call it in the show, “race mixing,” is in theory an interesting idea. But in fact, those melodies are obliterated, blasted and torqued beyond recognition much of the time. When we finally get to a straightforward “Beautiful Dreamer,” it’s like we’ve arrived at a clearing full of light after slogging through a dense, dark forest.

Rather than giving us one central story to care about, book writers Kirwan, Craig Lucas and Marcus Gardley give us a handful, none of which are terribly compelling. They also give us dance-offs. In a story that should be rife with tension – racial tension, labor tension, political tension, Civil War draft tension, runaway slave tension, violent mob tension – the greatest intensity and satisfaction comes from three primary dance contests. The first is between a newly arrived Irish immigrant (A.J. Shively as Owen) and a fugitive slave (Sidney Dupont as Will Henry). Owen is doing Irish step dancing and Will Henry is doing Juba-style dancing. Both are electrifying. In Act 2, we get an official dance contest in a neighborhood bar, with the cash prize enough to buy your way out of the draft ($300). The contest begins and ends, but wait! We need a do-over, so Will Henry and Owen can compete head to head once again (and for a solo dance contest, they sure do a lot of singing and dancing with their squads).

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The dancing throughout the 2 1/2-plus hours of Paradise Square is routinely fascinating, often thrilling, which is exactly what you’d expect from choreographer Bill T. Jones. The problem is that the sharply etched choreography feels like it’s for a different, much more sophisticated show. If Paradise Square wanted only to dance, that would be just fine.

Director Moisés Kaufman simply cannot pull it all together. There are some powerful vocal performances from his nearly 30-member cast, but too often the acting is hammy and melodramatic (mostly the fault of the wobbly book). Actors feel like they’re creating tableaux more than they are playing actual people.

The show’s ending is a complete cop-out as the historical trappings fall away and the actors address the audience directly so they can tell us what happened to the characters after the chaos of the story comes to its conclusion. One of the things they mention is that the “race mixing” of the Five Points, primarily between Irish immigrants and African Americans, resulted in a new dance form called tap dancing. Why, oh why is this not part of this show, which just happens to be a musical wherein the best thing about it is the dancing? We see and hear tap dancing only once in the show, and it’s during a flashback to slaves being whipped on a plantation. Talk about a missed opportunity.

The presence of Foster as a character (appealingly played by Jacob Fishel) and as the basis for the show’s score should be more interesting than it is. He was coopting black music and turning it into popular song, which was in turn coopted by the racially repugnant minstrel circuit. One of the black characters gets to go on a tirade about how much she hates Stephen Foster to Stephen Foster, and it just feels irrelevant when the city is just about to explode into the deadly Draft Riots (oh, but wait, can the riots hold on a sec because we also need to do the big dance contest!).

Musicals are beastly contraptions that go wrong far more than they go right. In Paradise Square we’re told there was a time when people lived briefly in a time and place where race mattered less than character, but even the evidence we see of that seems fraught and far from idyllic. So the loss of this brief flash of semi-harmony – what we’re told was a glimpse of the future that has yet to come – doesn’t feel like much of a loss. As a result, Paradise Square doesn’t really feel like much of a show. Not yet anyway.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Paradise Square: A New Musical continues an extended run through March 3 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $40-$115 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.

Humans at their best in joyful Come From Away

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The First North American Tour Company of Come From Away, part of the SHN season at the Golden Gate Theatre. The musical tells the story of 7,000 passengers stranded in a small Newfoundland community in the days after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Photos by Mathew Murphy

To commemorate a massive event, you can hang a plaque and make a speech. Or, if you’re a theater aritst, you create something so vibrant, so moving, so powerful that it will become a living memory rather than simply a remembrance.

That’s what Come From Away is: a testament to the horror of humanity – the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – and of the boundless kindness and compassion of humanity in the way a small Newfoundland community fostered 7,000 stranded air travelers for five days in the wake of the attacks.

You have to wonder why some stories are forced to be musicals, while others, like Come From Away, are born to be told in song. The events of 9/11 and its aftermath are already such a heightened experiences. Life was vibrating on a whole different level in those terrifying, maddening, heartbreaking days, so it makes sense to revisit that time with music, a language that goes beyond words and deals directly with emotion. In this particular story, a community of 9,000 people, which just happens to have one of the world’s biggest airports (from the days when jets had to refuel before continuing on to Europe) suddenly becomes a community of 16,000 people, and nobody knew how long these folks, who are “come from away,” would be stranded. So the town of Gander and its neighboring communities pulled off an extraordinary feat of hospitality, providing shelter, food, drink, phones/Internet, clothing and entertainment for people from around the world, many of whom did not speak English. Nothing tells the story of community and creating community better than singing – voices joined to create a big, emotional, often joyous sound. This is a story that needs to sing, and composers Irene Sankoff and David Hein (who also wrote the book) have done a beautiful job giving the story heart and melody and a propulsive Celtic pulse that keeps the 100-minute show moving at an extraordinary (but never rushed) pace.

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Already a long-running hit on Broadway, Come From Away is now making its way around the country. The touring company at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre is extraordinary. A dozen performers play the passengers and the townsfolk with astonishing ease and remarkable versatility with just the shift of an accent or a small bit of costume (designs by Toni-Leslie James). The clarity of the storytelling never fails to delight, and credit must go to director Christopher Ashley and musical stager Kelly Devine for keeping the action in constant motion but never making it feel slick or mechanical.

There’s a danger when dealing with kindness of dipping into sentimentality, a lapse Come From Away never makes. The Newfoundlanders, who sound a bit like the Irish of Canada, are depicted as characters full of pride in their rocky, rural outpost where everybody knows everybody. There’s some of “Northern Exposure” quirkiness to them, but what really comes through is salt-of-the-earth people who, when called upon, provide extraordinary service in an international emergency.

This is such an ensemble show it’s hard to single out performers because each is vital to the whole, a constant stream of movement to create a sense of place (stuck in the airplane for 28 hours, at a scenic overlook, in a grungy bar) with only chairs, a turntable in the floor of Beowulf Boritt’s set and the occasional neon sign to create some beautiful stage pictures as one scene seamlessly blends into another under Howell Binkley’s ever-shifting lights.

The closest we get to a central character is American Airlines pilot Beverly Bass played by Becky Gulsvig, a strong leader show is, unbeknownst to her passengers, shaken to her core that the thing she loves most in the world – airplanes and flight – have been used as a bomb. Gulsvig is stellar, and her big solo, “Me and the Sky,” is a show highlight. Each cast member has multiple memorable moments, whether it’s Christine Toy Johnson as Texan Diane and Chamblee Ferguson as Brit Nick falling in love despite their (or maybe because of) their most unusual circumstances or Nick Duckart playing the cranky half of a gay couple and an Egyptian chef named Ali who finds himself the object of other passengers’ fear and anger.

There’s a marvelous moment when James Earl Jones II as Bob muses that when people ask him about his ordeal and his time in Gander, they wonder if he’s OK. His response, which is tinged with guilt, is that he was more than OK – he was the best he’s ever been. That captures the spirit of this story: how something horrible became something positively life-changing because people shared their better selves with one another.

There’s an amazing amount of humor in this sad, uncomfortable story – of course there’s a moose joke – and that doesn’t at all detract from how moving it can be. There’s also a simple scene of prayer, where Christians sing a hymn, a Jewish man sings in Hebrew, a Muslim man prays and others join in their own ways. Not many musicals this side of Fiddler on the Roof attempt to find beauty and solace in depicting spirituality, but then again, not many musicals have the heart-bursting power and foot-stomping joy of Come From Away.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Come From Away continues through Feb. 3 at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco. Tickets are $56-$226. Cal 888-746-1799 or visit shnsf.com.