"Silent Sky" at SPARC Theater

 

SPARC Theater production photo by Gregg Le Blanc | CumulusLight Photography

 

I knew nothing of SPARC Theater (other than they perform in a vineyard and used to be called the Livermore Shakespeare Festival) going into this. But I'm a fan of Lauren Gunderson's plays about women in science, but I had never seen Silent Sky, so it seemed like a good chance to see a play about astronomy in an outdoor theater.

The Play

There are a lot of common themes in Gunderson's works about women in science. Fundamentally, it has always been difficult for women to get a foothold in the field, despite great talent, interest, and initiative. And the story of astronomer Henrietta Leavitt is no exception. Although she loves math and staring up at the stars, she is stuck in rural Wisconsin with a conservative preacher father. Eventually, with some assistance from her sister, she applies for and is offered a job working as a computer for a professor of astronomy at Harvard.

Appropriately, we never actually see the professor. Henrietta works in a group of women (sometimes referred to as the "harem") who catalog the stars observed by the male astronomers. They get occasional visits (on his rounds) from the professor's assistant. It's a bit like the story in Hidden Figures, only a generation or so earlier, with women doing intense calculations but getting no credit, having no hope of advancement, and so on.

Eventually, having gotten permission to stay late and do extra work on her own (yes, really), Henrietta makes some intriguing discoveries about pulsing stars, and over time develops them into a publishable paper that becomes a useful tool for other astronomers doing work on things like measuring the distances between stars and calculating the size of the universe. Little stuff like that.

Needless to say, what recognition she eventually gets comes very late. And her personal life is a bit difficult as well. She is hard of hearing and a bit socially awkward, and really the only man in her life (now that she doesn't live with her father) is the professor's assistant,

The Production

I had pretty low expectations going in, figuring this is pretty much a community theater, fairly far away from the bulk of bay area theaters. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the cast members were familiar to me, and also many of the other artists. The theater itself is kind of minimal: there is a stage, with some lights, in the corner of a lawn near the winery's tasting room, with a covered area for dining and rows of folding chairs on the lawn. So it's not fancy, but it's not bad, either.

The lead role of Henrietta Leavitt is played by Elena Wright, a well-established local actor who I had last seen in The Language Archive at TheaterWorks Silicon Valley back before the pandemic. Radhika Rao (as Henrietta's sister, Margaret) and Mary Ann Rodgers (Annie Cannon) have both been in productions at Shotgun recently, and Emilie Talbot (Williamina Fleming) is very experienced and very solid with her Scottish accent. Jake Arky (Peter Shaw, the professor's assistant) gave me pause, but ultimately it became clear that he was accurately portraying a scientist who was himself quite awkward.

[Side note: Elena Wright does a lot of work as an intimacy director in many local theaters, so watching her Henrietta awkwardly flirting with Shaw was kind of extra ironic fun. Well done!]

The set by Malcolm Rodgers is pretty impressive for the outdoor venue. We were there on a windy, cool night, and the wind was making life difficult for various papers and notebooks on the set, but on the whole it was fine. There were definitely times when actors and crew were visible behind the scenes, which was only partially because of wind, but such things are difficult outdoors. There were definitely some issues with the microphones (and not all because of the wind).

On the whole, it was a solid production. Nothing very spectacular, but it's really not that kind of play. We got a good feel for the characters and their stories. If anything, I would have appreciated a little more time spent on the last bits, as we learn the outcomes for the characters; that part felt a bit rushed, which isn't kind at the end of a two-hour play.

The Bottom Line

It's a decent enough theater, and I thought the quality of the production was remarkably high. It was colder than expected outside, but there were blankets available, and the wines were rather tastier than I anticipated. Ticket prices seemed a bit high for the setting.

I'm sure I will keep an eye on what's happening in the future. Their next show this summer is Much Ado About Nothing, which is not my favorite Shakespeare play, so I don't know that I'll bother. But they do seem to do interesting things. Just have to see what makes sense for the long trek out there.

And again, the show has now closed, so I can't really recommend going. But SPARC seems like an interesting theater. And there is wine.

"In the Evening by the Moonlight" at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre

Lorraine Hansberry Theatre rehearsal photo

 I saw a couple of mentions of this show in the press, but mostly I picked up a card in the lobby of another theater--those things work! I've been wanting to see a production by the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre for a while, and this one looked really interesting. So off we went!

The Play

Three friends meet up at a concert in New York City in 1963. One of them is the performer that night, Nina Simone. Her friends are both writers and activists: Lorraine Hansberry and James Baldwin. The concert kind of blows up, Simone sends everyone home, and she and her friends stick around to discuss the state of the world. Eventually they decamp to Hansberry's apartment to continue the discussion.

And it's a broad-ranging discussion, as you would imagine among three of the leading lights among American black artists of the time. It's witty and charming and provocative. They talk about music and art and literature and the civil rights movement and surveillance by the FBI. It's all there.

Underlying all the chatter are the personal issues of each of the friends. Hansberry has advanced cancer, and will be dead within the year. Baldwin is primarily living in France, where he feels he can be a free man in ways he cannot in America. And Simone is frustrated to be pigeonholed as a jazz singer when she feels her training is much broader and deeper, that she is not appreciated as a classical musician. And all of them, of course, are living life as African American artists in a society that would prefer they keep their heads down and go along.

On the whole the script is nice: you definitely get a feel for the voices and personalities of the three characters. Unfortunately, it feels a bit contrived. This isn't how old friends talk to one another. In particular, they describe events in detail that the others know about perfectly well, rather than just referring to them. It's necessary for the exposition of the play for the audience, but it undercuts the characters. The lines are great, and suit the speakers. They just don't make sense in the context of a chat among old friends.

So if I may second-guess playwright Traci Tolmaire a little, what the play needs is some more characters, who aren't as intimately acquainted with the subjects and people and events as the three main characters. That would provide a reason for the exposition, and permit some interrogation. As it is, the script is interesting, but not compelling. The characters are strong, but the context is lacking.

The Production

In many ways the production saves the script. In lesser hands (and mouths), the script would fail to hold the interest of the audience for the full 90-95 minutes. Luckily, this production has some real stars in it. We can start with director Margo Hall (who is also the artistic director of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, the first woman to hold that position). Hall is a tremendous actor herself, but she is also a strong, experienced director, and she has made this a tight, well-paced show. She also gets credit as "co-creator" with playwright Tolmaire (who also portrays Hansberry), though I'm not sure what that entails. Suffice it to say that the creative team has taken an adequate script and made it a fairly compelling performance.

It also helps that all three actors are terrific. Tolmaire is an affable, yet restrained, Hansberry, struggling to keep writing as her cancer robs her of energy and focus, but still active in all the movements that are so important to her. Ryan Nicole Austin has a terrific voice and presence as Simone. And Rotimi Agbabiaka just nails the James Baldwin: listening intently, considering, and exploding with words (and always, always with a cigarette!). Truthfully, I came to the show mostly because I wanted to see Agbabiaka as Baldwin, and was not disappointed. And I was pleased to see that all the other performers were just as solid in their portrayals.

Although they make some efforts to change things up, fundamentally we spend most of the show in Hansberry's living room, and there's not much chance for the characters to move or interact much there. The design of the set itself (by Carlos Aceves) is pretty cool, featuring books like bricks in the walls, with printed pages as wallpaper--we know we're in the home of a writer who perhaps feels a bit trapped by the writing.

The Bottom Line

I'm very glad we were able to catch this show during its extension week. Sadly, it was the penultimate performance, so it's too late for me to recommend it in a timely fashion. But this was a very good production of interesting material. It was an important moment in history, and the three characters portrayed were pivotal people in it. I wish the script had gone a bit differently, but given what it is, this production was a wonderful way to present it.

If this is the kind of quality the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre puts out, I want to see more of it!

"Out of Character" at Berkeley Rep

 

Berkeley Rep production photo by Kevin Berne

Solo shows can be interesting, especially when they provide a kind of deep dive into the mind of the writer/performer. Former Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone has had a strong track record producing successful solo shows, many going on to Broadway. But the ones I've found most satisfying at the ones that really dig into the personal story of a writer/performer, such as those he did with Rita Moreno and Carrie Fischer. That pattern continues with his latest effort, with actor Ari'el Stachel.

The Play

I kind of hesitate to call something like this a "play", but there is a narrative structure to it, and Stachel invokes so many different characters that it feels much like a play at times. But really it's a personal narrative about his lifelong struggle with anxiety. It's a wide-ranging story, from a childhood bouncing among schools, never quite fitting into any of them, morphing his own character in various attempts, always thwarted by perceptions of him or his family (especially his Yemenite father).

The show begins with a recounting of the night Stachel won a Tony Award for his role in The Band's Visit. It appears he spent much of the evening hiding in the bathroom, mopping the profuse sweat from his face. As we learn throughout, sweat is a big feature of his life.

And so is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which was diagnosed when he was about five years old. He learned to give it a name so he could talk to it. That proves to be a mixed benefit, as the OCD proves to be a persistent foil in his life.

But it's a fascinating story, set largely here in the bay area where Stachel grew up, that sheds a lot of light on both his particular challenges and the way people with mental health challenges have to face the world and themselves.

Another theme running through Stachel's story is that of race. As a Jewish child of Israeli and Yemeni parents, Stachel always found it difficult to find a place where he really fit in, and he discusses numerous aspects of that, particularly surrounding the 9/11 attacks, which he noted were perpetrated by people who looked like him and his family. Even here in the supposedly enlightened bay area, he encountered a lot of issues around that, and more later in his career in New York. There is a lot to unpack here!

The Production

As with any solo show, it comes down to the performer, and Stachel is engaging and talented. His frank exposition of some very difficult incidents and relationships is disarming and captivating. You find yourself rooting for him, while occasionally watching an oncoming emotional train wreck with foreboding.

I also note that Stachel proved resilient in an unanticipated way, as a medical incident in the audience (quite near our seats, in fact) caused an unplanned 10-minute intermission only about 15 minutes into the 80-minute show. But Stachel took it in stride, improvised a recap when the show resumed, and then dropped right back into the script. Of course, he's a pro and should be able to handle such things. On the other hand, he's in the middle of telling us about his lifelong struggle with anxiety, so one could imagine this tripping him up. But it went smoothly.

Also refreshing is his ability to admit both great failures and ongoing shortfalls. He has obviously made great strides in dealing with his OCD and anxiety, but makes sure to express the ways that it continues to impact his life.

The Bottom Line

I thought the show was excellent. It's a real insight into a very talented but often troubled life, and the hometown connection makes it all the more relatable. It's not generally what I go to the theater for, but if I'm going to a solo show, it should be one with real insight and impact, and this has all that and more.

It's a terrific chance to see a very talented performer, up close and very personal, and the show is scheduled to run through July 30th at Berkeley Rep's Peet's Theater. Several of the shows have post-show discussions scheduled on various aspects of race, theater, and mental health, so check the website for those dates if you're interested.

"Hurricane Diane" at Aurora Theatre Company

Aurora Theatre Company production photo by Kevin Berne

 It only took five years (with an intervening pandemic) before Madeleine George's play Hurrcane Diane made it to a bay are stage. Long-time readers may recall that I saw this as a reading at Shotgun back in 2018, where I predicted we'd be seeing it on a local stage before long. Obviously everything takes longer in a world with a pandemic, so I'm glad to see this didn't get lost.

The Play

In the large, it's the same play as five years ago, though it has been tightened up some. It's still a modernization of The Bacchae, with Dionysus (or here, "Diane") gathering/seducing a group of acolytes to restore Earth to a primeval permaculture, starting with the residents of a Monmouth County, NJ, suburban cul-de-sac.

The Production

As usual, a high-quality production from Aurora, taking advantage of the intimacy of the 3/4 thrust stage. Director Jennifer King keeps things hopping in the simplified suburban home setting (designed by Kate Boyd), where a kitchen island stands for all the furnishings, and French doors open out to the suburban gardens, represented only by colored lights (designed by Kurt Landisman).

Diane (Stacy Ross) makes a big entrance as the smug, confident Dionysian goddess looking to put the band back together, as it were, recruiting some adherents so she can reclaim the planet before human destruction is irreversible. In turn, she visits and recruits Carol (Rebecca Schweitzer), Renee (Leontyne Mbele-Mbong), Beth (Gianna DiGregorio Rivera), and Pam (Luisa Sermol), who live in the four homes on the cul-de-sac, and who gather periodically for coffee and commiseration. Each are challenging and spectacular in their own ways.

Needless to say, Diane finds her job less easy than it was "back in the day", but it's really fun watching her work each of her candidates in various ways. Ross is a joy on stage, and she's obviously having a good time playing Diane with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek. All of the housewives are fun in various ways, with particular kudos to Rivera, whose Beth is somewhere between vulnerable and gullible, and Pam, who really bring the New Jersey to the role.

Through all of this, George's trademark dialogue rings very true, and it's fun to listen as well as to watch as things unravel.

The Bottom Line

I enjoyed the show a lot. It's well written (even better than I remembered from the reading) and the cast and staging are top-notch. The show runs through July 16th at Aurora's downtown Berkeley theater. I highly recommend it!

"Hamlet" at Marin Shakespeare Company

 You already know I'm a sucker for Hamlet. Not just my frequent-flyer status when Shotgun did their "Hamlet Roulette" several years ago, where I ended up seeing about 18 different variations on their version with actors drawing their roles right before curtain. But lately, of course, seeing The Motive and the Cue and Fat Ham have rekindled the old interest. Plus there is other personal connection here, so, more Hamlet!

The Play

As usual, I won't bother summarizing a classic play such as this one. But here I should note that this is a pretty unique interpretation of the play, as envisioned by Jon Tracy, the new artistic producer for summer shows at Marin Shakespeare Company. Jon is a friend of mine, and also a deep thinker about theater and such, so I was interested in seeing his take on this play. Among other things, he endeavors to make sure all the characters (except the ones he edited out) have real character, real stories. And he definitely gives agency to some of the characters who normally just seem to go along for the ride.

I don't want to spill the beans on some of the changes (though you can learn about a number of them in the mainstream press reviews), but suffice it to say that it's a unique and provocative take on Hamlet.

The Production

At over 2.5 hours, it seems a little silly to call this a "trimmed-down" version of the play, but it is very much that. Entire scenes and plot lines (Fortinbras? What Norwegians?) are excised, and other scenes are kind of mashed together, but for the most part it works, and it maintains the messages that Tracy and the company want to focus on. 

Several things I found very effective: Bookending the play with the grave digger worked really well (and it really helps when the grave digger (Lady Zen) has an amazing voice. Breaking Hamlet's many soliloquies into smaller pieces, interspersed with action that makes them clearer. And in one case, having Hamlet (Nick Musleh) share the soliloquy with Ophelia (désirée freda), making it much richer and also adding to our understanding of both characters and their relationship. And playing with expectations generally, especially around the way characters die. I mean, it's still Hamlet, and lots of them are going to die, but this version changes up the way some of those happen, and it works well.

Some things work less well. The set (by Nina Ball, of course) is quite simple, featuring a large table and some moveable chairs. But rotating the table between scenes is time-consuming and distracting. Also, since when does a king (e.g., Michael Torres as Claudius) move furniture? It makes more sense when Polonius (Richard Pallaziol) is staging a room for his boss or for some particular meeting or use. But other times it just makes no sense in the context of the play. And of all the adjustments to spotlight characters and their stories, Laertes (Rinabeth Apostol) comes out on the short end. If anything, I have less understanding of his behavior in this version than I normally do in Hamlet.

But overall I thought the production was good and interesting. It didn't feel like it went on for over 2.5 hours. It was fun and kept us thinking and talking about the production for days.

The Bottom Line

I think this is well worth seeing. If you're not well versed in Hamlet, some bits of it might be confusing, but the crowd we saw it with seemed very pleased, and we enjoyed it greatly.

The play runs through July 16 at the Forest Meadows Amphitheater at Dominican University in San Rafael. The Amphitheater is quite nice, by the way. This was my first visit, and one of the regular attendees pointed out lots of recent improvements to the amphitheater.

Well worth your time. Go see Hamlet!

"The Road to Mecca" at Z Below

 

Production photo by Kevin Berne

This show kind of sneaked up on us. I admit I don't pay close enough attention to what's playing at Z Space and Z Below, but when a friend mentioned that there was an Athol Fugard play going up at Z Below, it seemed like a great idea.I haven't seen a lot of Fugard's work, but I always find the stories fascinating, so this was an easy choice.

The Play

I didn't really know much coming into this, but the more I learned from the program and some online poking, the more interesting it became. Most specifically, finding out that the play was inspired by the life of an actual person was super intriguing!

So, we have an older (~70) woman living by herself in a small, remote town in South Africa in 1974. New Bethesda is a conservative, religious town mostly populated by Afrikaners, and Miss Helen has been something of an outcast in the community since her husband died and she started making art in her yard. The cement sculptures she populates her yard in are meant to indicate a move to "Mecca", or more broadly, "the East". No one in town knows quite what to make of Miss Helen or her Mecca.

Enter Elsa, a young British woman who was just passing through. She became friends with Miss Helen and appreciated her artwork, then moved on to Cape Town where she now teaches. The play commences with Elsa returning, unannounced, to Miss Helen's home, in response to a disturbing letter she has received from Miss Helen.

In the first act, Elsa and Miss Helen have a bit of a reunion interspersed with some verbal jockeying and difficult discussions. It appears the local church is trying to get Miss Helen to move to a retirement community for her own good, but Elsa suspects there is more to it, and that Marius, the pastor, is up to something.

In act two, Marius arrives on the scene and all three characters have some deep, difficult discussions. A lot gets dredged up from all of them.

It's not a big play, but it's deep, and the characters get well into the role of the individual versus the interests of the group, the rights of the indigenous "coloured" peoples, and much more. It's very personal for all of the characters, but with much wider implications. The interplay of "love" and "trust" is a big key to it all.

The Performance

The set is really evocative: an eclectic space with lots of candles and little art pieces in a fairly rustic home. The design by Erik Flatmo, lighted by Kurt Landisman, with props and set decoration by Leah Hammond, is really evocative. It's a small, homey space, but very particular to this character, Miss Helen (Wendy vanden Heuvel). Miss Helen has terrific rapport with Elsa (Kodi Jackman), though it's also very clear that there is much being left unsaid for much of the play. The staid, reserved Marius (Victor Talmadge) is both an outsider to the women's more familial relationship, but very much the establishment of the local community. It's a pretty complex dynamic for such a small set of people, but the actors do a good job with it. Director Timothy Near seems to have a good feel for Fugard and the South African culture, and it comes through in the performance.

Both vanden Heuvel and Talmadge have occasional difficulty with the Afrikaner accent, but both handle it well enough most of the time to keep it from being a distraction.

The Bottom Line

The material was dense and sometimes difficult, but ultimately it was a pretty gripping and emotionally interesting story. All three characters are interesting, and the production is visually appealing. All in all, it was a satisfying evening at the theater. Unfortunately, the show is closing on June 30th, so you've probably missed it. But it's worth keeping an eye open for shows at Z Space, and particularly those by Weathervane Productions, which presented this show.

"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at Oakland Theater Project

 

Oakland Theater Project production photo by Ben Krantz

This is a play I like, though it's often tough to watch. I saw it multiple times a few years ago at Shotgun Players, so got a good feel for the text. I really need to see the film version, given my recent exposure to Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in another context.

Anyway, this show falls in the category of plays that are rather unpleasant to watch, but the writing is so good and so insightful that it's worth watching four people's lives implode before you.

The Play

I don't have a lot to add to what I said about the play when I saw it at Shotgun in 2016, except to say that I appreciate the writing even more now. Edward Albee crafted this play brilliantly, and it still holds up now, sixty years later.

The Production

This being Oakland Theater Project, the house is small, so it's a pretty intimate experience. The set by Dina Zarif is simple, but evokes the atmosphere of a mid-century modern design. It's stark and white and rectilinear with steps and informal seating. And of course, the bar, right in the center. I quite liked the mirror behind the bar as a statement, both about the period and about the nature of the play.

Two things I note about the casting: One, during Albee's lifetime, he insisted that all the characters in the play were white, and therefore must be played by white actors. I gather his estate has eased up on that, as both of the men in this cast are black. I think that opens up the dynamics of the characters in interesting ways, and I'm glad to see that theaters are now allowed to explore these matters (and give the opportunity to play these amazing characters to actors previously excluded). Two, in the Shotgun production, all four actors were people I know quite well, so there was always some cognitive dissonance in seeing them play these quite extreme roles. Seeing the play again with actors I don't know, I had a different level of distance from them, and was able to interrogate the roles differently. So that was interesting.

All in all, I thought the play was well done. It's a very difficult text, but director Michael Socrates Moran does a good job of keeping the action where it needs to be. All four actors (Lisa Ramirez as Martha, Adrian Roberts as George, Wera von Wulfen as Honey, and William Hodgson as Nick) did a solid job, drifting steadily into intoxication. I've been really impressed with Roberts' work lately, having seen him in OTP's The Tempest last year (pre-blog revival) and mere weeks ago in Aurora's Cyrano.

The Bottom Line

I really like the play, and OTP's little black-box garage space works remarkably well for a show like this. I thought the production as a whole was quite competent, though some of my compatriots felt the costuming was not sufficiently accurate to the period. But that aside, I thought the interpretation of Albee's work was very solid, and on the whole well worth seeing.

OTP has been a very reliable source of quality theater in the east bay of late, particularly when Moran directs. I really look forward to their work, though I'm generally not enamored of the theater space.