Smile, you’re on Candida camera
A beautiful night at the Bruns Amphitheater is made even more so by something marvelous on stage.
That would be George Bernard Shaw’s Candida, a sharp early play (1894) that is concise, funny and, in this incisive production directed by California Shakespeare Theater Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone, surprisingly moving.
Moscone’s six actors inhabit the levels of Shaw’s play with dexterity. The broad, satirical comedy generates some hearty laughs as we delve into the emotional heart of London parsonage, home of the Rev. James Morell and his wife, Candida.
Shaw has everyone, from the main characters to the lively supporting crew of assistants and family members, tripping over their attitudes toward one another and the world at large.
Tell 'em that it's human Nature
If only the actual apocalypse were going to be so enjoyable.
Hand it to playwright JC Lee for making the end of the world – and after – so lyrical, so funny and so, well, human. That's one of the things I loved about Into the Clear Blue Sky, Part Two of the This World and After trilogy, which kicked off almost exactly a year ago with This World Is Good. There may be monstrous things happening in the world, things that would require millions of dollars worth of CGI to represent on a screen, but Lee's focus is essentially human and relatable.
And that's only appropriate when the topic at hand is the very survival of the human race. In each of his three plays, Lee creates a stage full of seekers, and for his final chapter, they are seeking the future, which is in clear jeopardy. In The Nature Line, Part Three of the trilogy, neither sex nor any human contact of any kind is allowed anymore. Women's wombs have become unable to handle the stress of pregnancy, so that duty now belongs to scientists who help the process along. “Aren’t you relieved to see a corporate model can survive the apocalypse?” asks a crisply dressed fertility nurse.
Taking (Rosen)Stock of comic Tigers and musical Night
In a recent email chat with playwright Kim Rosenstock (see full interview below), I asked her what Bay Area theatergoers might learn about her if they see both of her shows now on local stages – Tigers Be Still at the SF Playhouse and the musical Fly By Night at TheatreWorks. Her response: "It's probably better that I don't know the answer to this question."
So I will take it upon myself to answer the question for her.
First the easy answer: Rosenstock is smart and funny, and she's a talented, quirky writer. Based on the two shows available – her first in the Bay Area – she is interested in the lives of women in crisis and making choices to climb out of that crisis.
M M M My Verona: Rockin’ at Cal Shakes
Let it be known that the world premiere of California Shakespeare Theater's The Verona Project is a hell of a lot more fun than The Two Gentlemen of Verona, the Shakespeare play on which it's based. In fact, I can think of several Shakespeare plays I'd like to see turned into original rock concerts. Troilus and Cressida the Musical, anyone?
Amanda Dehnert has essentially reinvented Two Gents, which is thought to be Shakespeare's very first play, and actually made it interesting. She is the director, writer and composer of a high-concept show that takes elements of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, GrooveLily's Striking 12 and Berkeley Rep'sGirlfriend to become a presentational musical/rock concert with some story thrown in.
The result is a lovable, enjoyable if not always successful show whose rough patches actually add to the charm. There's nothing overly slick or polished about The Verona Project, and that's a good thing. The central idea is that a band called The Verona Project has created a concept album based on Two Gents and they're going to treat us to a concert performance of that album.
Oi! Dancing boy! The barnstorming brilliance of Billy Elliot
When Billy Elliot the Musical caused a sensation in London in 2005 and then swept the 2009 Tonys with 10 awards, you could be excused for wondering what all the fuss was about. Wasn’t this yet another in a seemingly endless and mostly unnecessary line of movie-into-musical transformations?
The answer in the case of Billy is a definite no. There has never been a musical quite like this before that blends politics and pathos, glitz and grim reality, corny schmaltz and genuine emotion. This is sophisticated stuff: an old-fashioned and new-fangled musical all jumbled up in one fascinating, enormously entertaining package. It’s a sad story with joyous highs and inspiring performances.
All that said, the musical is still not as good as the 2000 movie it’s based on (which is an absolute gem), but given that the movie’s creative team also worked on the musical indicates a pleasingly high level of integrity in the musical expansion of this story.
The touring version of Billy Elliot, the final show of the SHN season, opened Tuesday at the Orpheum Theatre for a three-month run, and it’s “cush,” to use the characters’ Northern England slang.
Mouse tales live again
About nine years ago, Trevor Allen lifted the veil on an operation so shrouded in secrecy and intrigue that the merest glimpse inside set people salivating. He revealed what it was actually like to be inside a costumed character in Disneyland.Oh, yes, This is deeply inside stuff. And sweaty. And hilarious. It's what you call a theatrical experience bursting with character.Allen's autobiographical solo show, Working for the Mouse, premiered at Berkeley's Impact Theatre in 2002 then transferred to San Francisco. Now Allen is reviving the show for Impact and his own Black Box Theatre at La Val's Subterranean.
A creature features in Aurora’s stunning Metamorphosis
You've heard that old trope about intense pressure turning a lump of coal into a diamond. Well what if that kind of pressure is applied to a human being? In Franz Kafka's opinion, the pressure of modern society will turn a person into, well, something horrific. Perhaps a cockroach or some other loathsome vermin, but a monster nonetheless. It's a sad and scary vision, one that is realized to its fullest potential in the Aurora Theatre Company production of Kafka's Metamorphosis.
Director Mark Jackson is something of a name brand in the Bay Area. You know his shows are going to be original, compelling and rigorously produced. He's a writer/director (occasionally actor) whose work you simply do not miss. The world of Kafka would seem to be a playground for Jackson's mighty theatrical imagination, and it's true. Jackson's Metamorphosis is as unsettling as it is poignant, as beautifully performed as it is fun to watch.
Titus serves up revenge, blood rare and steaming hot
Director Joel Sass has such a strong, infectious sense of storytelling that he even makes Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, proclaimed to be the Bard’s bloodiest play, enjoyable.
It’s not that the play, which has a single issue on its gory mind – the futility and waste of revenge – isn’t interesting. It’s compelling and hideous at the same time.
But what Sass does for the California Shakespeare Theater’s season-opening production of Titus – the first in Cal Shakes’ 37-year history – is heighten the theatricality of the tale, elevate it to grand and glorious storytelling rather than an endlessly horrific parade of one bloody special effect after another.
This is a muscular production of a tough play, mean in spirit and humor. If Shakespeare’s goal is to illuminate the way ego-driven revenge turns life into a cesspit for everyone involved, he certainly succeeds.
Tiny but terrifying: Go ask Alice
The legend of Tiny Alice looms large. Edward Albee’s notorious 1964 follow-up to his monster Broadway smash Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf baffled critics and continued to cause kerfuffles for years to come (especially when William Ball, in the early days of American Conservatory Theater played fast and loose with the script).
This is not one of Albee’s frequently produced scripts, and after seeing Marin Theatre Company’s riveting production, it’s easy to see why. This play is a monster. It’s not like Albee hasn’t created monsters before (he loves to rile the beasts in many ways), but this one is especially weighty.
But this is a challenging play to say the least. Act 1 is familiar territory as Albee introduces his players, his zest for zingers and a juicy central mystery. In Act 2, the ground begins to wobble, and by Act 3, the ground has given way altogether. The monster, perhaps literally speaking, is loose.
[title of show] = musical theater bliss
I can tell you that [title of show] is not for everyone, but I can also tell you that it's for more people than you might actually think. This meta-musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical (based on their real-life process of two guys actually writing this musical) is especially designed for people who love musicals. LOVE musicals.
There are enough obscure musical theater references to make any theater geek's head explode with delight, but they appear alongside jokes about obscure musical theater references and the utter nerdiness of true devotees. In other words, writers Hunter Bell (book) and Jeff Bowen (music and lyrics) are self-aware enough and sharp enough writers of comedy to include everybody in the joke.
The Bay Area has finally been graced with [title of show], and though my expectations were unusually high, the TheatreWorks production is even better than I had hoped for. The cast album is great (really great), but what's not on the recording is Bell's very funny, ultimately quite touching book.
Anna Deavere Smith: Easy to love
In the last year or so, Berkeley Repertory Theatre has offered an instructive survey of the solo show. Last summer, as part of the Fireworks festival, local favorite Dan Hoyle offered two of his pieces, both recounting his transformative travels. In that same festival, John Leguizamo went back to the well of autobiography for a high-energy, primarily comic show that ended up on Broadway.
Earlier this year, Mike Daisey, whom many would deem the reigning master of the monologue, offered two of his trenchant, highly charged pieces of theatrical journalism/activism.
And now we have Anna Deavere Smith returning after a too-long absence from Bay Area stages. More than any of these other solo performers, Smith raises the form to a fine art. She has the instincts and drive of a journalist, the performance style of a skilled thespian and the soul of a poet striving for grace.
Digging Blue Man Group's high-tech follies
In many ways, Blue Man Group is the modern equivalent of The Ziegfeld Follies — a lot of razzle-dazzle flash and sound, entertainment for its own sake. Instead of gorgeous gals with gams up to here, you get three bald dudes covered in shiny blue paint. And rather than singing and dancing, you get a thumping rock score, concert-style lighting and performance art on a grand, vaudevillian scale.
After more than 20 years of sit-down productions in New York, Chicago, Orlando and other such bustling tourist hubs, Blue Man is finally on tour and lands at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre as part of the SHN season.
Short sweet frolic on the PlayGround
In the spirit of PlayGround's annual 10-minute play festival, I'm going to attempt to write a 10-minute review.
The time is 10:40am. Start the clock.
The joy of a short play festival is the utter diversity in style, tone and voice. You can have what amounts to a sketch comedy bumping up against muscular drama, an intriguing fragment or a surprising burst of poetry. All of that happens and more in Best of Playground 15: A Festival of New Writers & New Plays at the Thick House. The seven plays presented represent the cream of the PlayGround playwriting process, which runs from October through March. A pool of 36 writers is given a topic and then asked to write a 10-minute play on a chosen theme. The best of those plays are given staged readings, and then the best of that bunch makes it to this festival.
Of the seven shows now on display, I can tell you my three clear favorites.
Feeling the Passion of Sarah Ruhl
What an interesting Sarah Ruhl moment we’re having.
Ruhl’s new version of Chekhov’s Three Sisters is getting a moving and lovely production at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. And her 2005 triptych Passion Play receives its local premiere courtesy of Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, a community theater producing shows in Berkeley since 1957.
Both productions allow Ruhl to explore, in her lyrical, passionate and quirky ways, what happens to people when dreams and reality, identity and illusion are at odds.
Russian dressing: The vintage charms of Silk Stockings
How in the world do you follow Strike Up the Band? 42nd Street Moon’s last outing was a spectacularly charming and tuneful production of a Gershwin show that has been unjustly sidelined by musical theater history.
The problem with doing such a bang-up job with Band is that there’s still a final show in the season with which to contend.
And may I say, the finale is no Strike Up the Band. But it’s Cole Porter, so all is not lost.
Silk Stockings, a 1955 musical adaptation of the Greta Garbo film Ninotchka, is a minor work with a wildly unfocused book and a hit-and-miss Porter score.
You don’t see a lot of Silk Stockings revivals, so we have yet another reason to celebrate 42nd Street Moon’s dedication to dusting off shows that we’d never otherwise get to experience.
Pants down, smiles up: you’ve been HughJacked
It was hot and steamy in San Francisco Wednesday. And the weather was nice, too. Hugh Jackman, that final Australian frontier of old-school razzle-dazzle entertainment, put on a show at the Curran Theatre.
And it’s about time. In the old days, Jackman would have starred in a weekly variety show on TV, had regular gigs at the Tropicana in Vegas and toured with his celebrity golf tournament.
These days, it’s much harder for an entertainer. Once you have your street cred and your bona fides – sci-fi/action movie star, romantic lead, beloved awards show host, Tony Award-winning Broadway star – you get license to do as you please.
So Jackman has his own show, and it looks and sounds an awful lot like the shows of your – and thank the heavens for that.
What’s up, glitter Lily?
Sitting at the computer, hands on the keyboard, I’ve been staring at the screen wondering where to begin describing and opining about The Lily’s Revenge at the Magic Theatre.
Adjectives don’t quite do it justice – much the way that a photograph of an oil painting never really captures the essence and vibrancy of the original work. And the usual critical jabber – Don’t miss it! Theater event of the spring! Unforgettably unique! – seem paltry as well.
It’s not that Lily, the brainchild of writer/performer Taylor Mac, is a landmark work in the canon of Western theater or the reinvention of the art form as we know it. But it’s something really special – a completely absorbing communal experience that turns out to be more than the sum of its abundant parts.
Of pleasures and Eccentricities
Oh, Alma Winemiller. If you had been able to shuck off the burden of having an insane mother and a stern Episcopalian priest for a father, you might have become the woman you were meant to be: Lady Gaga.
OK, that's an exaggeration, but poor Alma is just a heap of talent and emotion and expression aching for release in Tennessee Williams' Eccentricities of a Nightingale, a play with a convoluted history in the Tennessee Williams canon. The Aurora Theatre Company production of the play, directed with finesse and warmth by Artistic Director Tom Ross, makes a case for the play being if not alongside siblings like A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, then at least in an honorable spot somewhere just below.
Entrancing Exit at ACT
I think I'd like Canada's The Virtual Stage and Electric Company Theatre to mount every play I never want to see again. I'm convinced they could make it interesting and vital.
My interest in Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit was minimal when I first read it in college and has only waned over the years. The play is a mostly stale pile of ideas and philosophies instead of plot, characters as metaphors rather than people. Is it possible we've simply outgrown existentialism? Historically, the play remains interesting – especially in view of the fact that Sartre's musing on the tortures of hell debuted in Paris in 1944 during the Nazi occupation.
Director Kim Collier (co-founder of Electric Company) is clearly aware that No Exit has some interesting ideas, but is in need of some major goosing.
Enter technology.
Vodka, misery and beauty: family time with Three Sisters
Time aches in Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s elegiac Three Sisters. The past is where true happiness lived (in Moscow), and the future holds the promise of reviving that happiness (in Moscow). But the present (not in Moscow) is just a painful stretch to be endured and lamented.
That Anton Chekhov was a harvester of human souls, and the crop he tended was ripe with sorrow, loss and, perhaps worst of all, indifference. This is readily apparent in director Les Waters’ production of Three Sisters on the intimate Thrust Stage.
There’s warmth and humor emanating from the stage as we meet the soldiers, staff and sisters in a well-appointed country home, but once we get to know the characters a little bit, it’s one big stream of thwarted desire, boredom, frustration and self-delusion.
It sounds like misery, but between Chekhov and Waters, we’re treated to an exquisitely staged, deeply compassionate exploration of mostly unhappy people.