"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.

"The Wizard of Oz" at ACT

 

ACT production photo by Kevin Berne

Normally I wouldn't go far out of my way to see a production of The Wizard of Oz. It's a well-worn story that has become almost a parody of itself, so one must tread carefully. But this production featured a bunch of my friends in the cast, as well as a number of other well-known and respected local actors, so it seemed like it ought to be fun.

The Play

Really? Am I going to summarize L. Frank Baum's classic story (adapted by John Kane for the Royal Shakespeare Company) here? If you don't know the story in some form, you probably have no business reading this. Dorothy and her little dog, Toto, run away from home in Kansas just as a tornado hits, transporting them to the land of Oz, where Dorothy makes friends and enemies on her way to solicit assistance from the eponymous wizard in order to return home.

The Production

As you can deduce from the production photo, it's a very colorful production. The designers and crew obviously had a field day with this one, and I'm sure it's not a coincidence that the performance schedule fell right in the middle of Pride month in San Francisco. It's campy and a bit raucous, clearly influenced by artists such as Taylor Mac, but not in a way that would prevent it being a kid-friendly show. And indeed, there were plenty of families with children in the audience, along with a goodly contingent from Pride activities. In short, a cross-section of San Francisco and Bay Area life.

Dorothy (Chanel Tilghman) has an incredible voice, but I don't think she quite pulls off the childlike quality needed for the character. We need to feel like this is a child in trouble, who needs to get back home, but mostly she comes off like kind of a petulant teenager. Toto is a puppet. Dorothy's companions in Oz (Danny Scheie as the Scarecrow, Darryl V. Jones as the Tin Man, and Cathleen Riddley as the Lion) are all very strong and sympathetic in their portrayals, with Scheie getting to be quite snarky at times. 

I guess my main qualm about the show is its self-awareness that creates a bit of distance. Director/choreographer Sam Pinkelton lets the cast get playful, which is fun, but as a result the show lacks a certain earnestness that would help sell the story to the audience. By continually breaking the fourth wall (e.g., Courtney Walsh as the Wicked Witch keeps encouraging us to boo her), we're taken out of the story line, which probably contributes to the overall lack of cohesion. The cast is obviously having a ball, but by endlessly reminding us that they're putting on a big, fun show for us, we never get to enjoy the show itself, the story they are ultimately trying to tell.

The Bottom Line

It was great fun to watch, and clearly a lot of fun to put on. But I can't help feeling that they missed an opportunity to do something more. By assuming that we all know the story, so they can just play and camp it up, they miss the chance to actually let us learn something from the story itself. Because the whole reason the Wizard of Oz is a timeless classic is that there is an underlying story there, and I think that got lost in the effort to throw a big, campy party.

So I really enjoyed watching my friends putting on a show. I just wish the director and company had shown a little more respect for the story they were telling, instead of just leaning into the costumes and props and effects. There really is something useful to be conveyed by the script if they'd remembered to give it that level of care.

Fun. Glad I went. Wish it could have been a bit more substantial under all that color and glitter.

"Let the Right One In" at Berkeley Rep

 

Berkeley Rep production photo by Kevin Berne

As part of our rushing around, trying to catch up on all the local shows in our subscriptions before they close, we scrambled in to see Let the Right One In at Berkeley Rep just before it closed. Clearly, I had not been paying much attention, as I went in knowing essentially nothing about this play, or the movie it was based on. I suppose had I been better prepared, my reaction might have been different, but overall, I think my impression is valid.

The Play

The play is an adaptation by Jack Thorne (yes, the same one who wrote The Motive and the Cue, which we just saw in London!) of the Swedish novel and film by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Though I had never heard of either, apparently the film is kind of a cult classic, but in a genre I don't pay attention to. So I found myself pretty baffled by a lot of what was going on.

It turns out this is a vampire story (though they carefully avoid using that term for some reason). Oskar, a 12-year-old, bullied social outcast meets Eli, who appears to be about the same age, in the playground outside his home. Eli sort of presents as female, but really falls into the non-binary category, and indeed, self-describes as neither a boy nor a girl, but "nothing". Eli lives with Hakan, who it turns out has been harvesting people in the woods to provide blood for Eli, which causes terror among the locals.

When events finally catch up with Hakan, Eli needs someone new to rely on, and coincidentally, Oskar needs someone to protect him from the bullies. A match made in, um, Sweden, I guess.

I've never been a fan of vampire stories or horror movies much, though I realize they have wide appeal. I get the whole vampire as metaphor for queerness thing, which is fine. I just don't enjoy watching all the gore and bullying and such. But that's what we've got. I probably would have opted out of seeing this show had I realized what it was, but since I saw it, you get to read my reactions.

The Production

This is a well-done show. The set by Christine Jones is elegant in its simplicity, though the locals seem to spend a lot of time pondering the trees and snow, considering they live there all the time. Director John Tiffany seems to want to make sure we notice that everyone is aware that there are trees and it's snowing. And groups of actors seem to spontaneously start dancing in unison (with movement choreographed by associate director Stephen Hoggett). As I have doubtless mentioned often, I'm not a big dance fan--I don't really understand it--and it doesn't seem to add much to the show, though many people seemed to enjoy it. Similarly, the weird contortions of Eli (Noah Lamanna) apparently evoke "vampire" in the minds of those in the know. I mean, it's impressive and I guess well done, but I'm sure there are other ways to convey the otherness and the physical cravings of a hungry vampire. But subtlety is not a hallmark of the horror genre.

So anyway, it's hard for me to see the relationship between Eli and Oskar (Diego Lucano) as anything but another instance of someone taking advantage of Oskar's weaknesses. 

The Bottom Line

I feel like this is happening a lot lately, but this seems like yet another show that appeals to a particular audience (which is good), but not to me (which is fine). I wish I'd known that going in, since I might well have foregone this particular experience, knowing that it's something I generally dislike. On the plus side, it was nice to see a lot of people in the theater that are not generally there. And indeed, a friend who ushers at Berkeley Rep confirms that they're pulling in a much younger audience for this show. That's great!

But unlike a show such as last week's Yerma at Shotgun, where I can appreciate the show on some levels, this genre just feels very exclusive. Although I can appreciate that some audience members like seeing this kind of story, and maybe even relate to some of the characters, I struggle to see what anyone else (i.e., me) is supposed to get out of the experience. But this is why I keep going to the theater: new experiences, new questions. It's not always pleasant for me, but it's interesting to see what people are doing and think about why and how.

But I'll pass on the horror/vampire play next time.

"Yerma" at Shotgun Players

 

Shotgun Players production photo by Ben Krantz

OK, back from our vacation jaunts, with plenty of local theater to catch up on. Lots of things closing in the next couple of weeks, so we'll sneak them in when we can!

First up in Yerma at Shotgun Players. I thought we were going to miss this entirely, but they added a Wednesday evening show that we could squeeze in between a couple of little trips, so we literally made the one performance we could before they closed.

The Play

I actually had a chance to read the script while it was under consideration for the Shotgun season, and frankly, I was not that impressed. It's an adaptation and translation by Melinda Lopez of a play by Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca about a young woman, Yerma, who desperately wants to have a child with her husband, Juan. But she never conceives. The play is about her efforts to have a child, and what she will and won't do to achieve that.

For whatever reason, the story doesn't appeal to me. Perhaps I've never been in a position of wanting something terribly that I could not have. But whatever it is, the play just doesn't do it for me. But clearly it has a strong appeal for many others, so I was hoping to find something in the performance that eluded me when reading. 

The Production

The play is indeed better in the flesh than it was on paper, but I still don't think it's all that. In the hands of director Katja Rivera (a long-time member of the Shotgun artistic company, making her mainstage directorial debut) and a good crew of designers (Nina Ball designed the set, lighted by Sara Saavedra, with costumes by Valera Coble), the story comes to life. But there still isn't that much story. I find myself siding with the majority of the characters who can't fathom why Yerma seems unwilling to take any of the alternative options presented to her (e.g., sleep with someone who looks like your husband, or adopt one of your many nieces and nephews) when endlessly repeating the same scheme continues to produce no results.

Regina Morones as Yerma, Caleb Cabrera as Juan, and Samuel Prince as Victor all give fine performances, but the material they have to work with just doesn't give them much room to shine. And some of Yerma's friends and relations (such as they are--she's pretty distant from everyone) manage to give more life to the characters than I detected in the script. Notably, Linda Maria Giron as Marta and Linda Amayo-Hassan as Incarnacion manage to make me care about them.

The Bottom Line

This just seems to be one of those plays that has great appeal to some audience, but not to me, personally. (Another example would be last season's Man of God at Shotgun.) Well done, but with a script that doesn't do much for me. But that's fine. Theater isn't just for me, and I can appreciate that there is value in hearing other voices and seeing other faces on stage.

So I applaud theaters for taking steps to highlight other stories, especially when they do it well. Expanding the scope of the works and the audience are both important goals. With so many theaters struggling to draw audiences after the pandemic, it's good to see so many of them at least trying to reach out to broader swaths of the community.

2023 Summer Theater Tour: London Portion

 After our week in New York City, we headed for Europe, which included two short stays in London, so we booked two plays during each, for a total of four shows. Since we had only a limited time, we were pretty selective, and were pretty sure we'd like everything we saw.

Out of the four shows, I'd say two really stood out, but we quite enjoyed all four.

The Best

Two shows stood out for us, both because they're very well written plays and because the performances were just top-notch:

• The Motive and the Cue
• Patriots

Each of those just kind of reminded me of how great London theater really is.

Also Very Good

Neither of these others is bad at all, just not as outstanding as the other two:

• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Operation Mincemeat

Overall, I'd have to say it was a most successful venture through London! So between our New York and London stops, we saw thirteen plays, and at least five of those were genuinely excellent. That's a pretty terrific ratio, I'd say. It's nice to be able to go on the road again and catch some theater!

"Operation Mincemeat" at Fortune Theatre

 This is one of those shows where we just took a flier on it. We were coming to London and had one night where we could fit in a play, and didn't have a clear favorite for what to see. Operation Mincemeat was getting great reviews, so since nothing else jumped out at us, we decided to check it out.

The Play

Based on real events in World War II that also became a movie, Operation Mincemeat refers to a plan concocted by British Intelligence (MI5) to convince the Germans to move their troops out of Sicily, where the Allies planned to invade. It's an example of some of the Hail Mary chances the Allies managed to pull off. In this case, they planted fake invasion plans (pointing to Sardinia) on a corpse made to look like a British pilot who crashed in Spain. The notion being that if the Germans found these plans they would believe the invasion was coming to Sardinia and move their troops there, thus enabling the Allies to invade Sicily as planned.

So we get a bunch of MI5's smartest guys in the room all trying to posture and promote their own schemes. The story here is as much about the infighting and internal politics in the intelligence service as it is about the actual operation. But it's charmingly and disarmingly done with self-deprecating musical numbers. On the face of it, the whole thing seems a bit daft--both the actual WWII operation and the scheme to portray it in a musical comedy--but it works. It's especially effective that the whole show is Brits poking fun at their own system: prep schools, class differences, bureaucracy, Ian Fleming, etc.

The show was written by four artists, David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, and Zoë Roberts, and all by Hagan are still appearing in the show. It's kind of staged like a musical revue, but also like a more traditional musical theater piece. It's silly, but never veers so far off into the silliness that it gets truly outrageous, which probably saves the whole endeavor.

The Production

The show includes five actors, which as far as I can tell are sort of a revolving group from the nine cast members. Essentially there are two actors who can play each of the five roles/tracks, but I have no idea how they choose who goes on when. Our cast included two of the three original writers (Natasha Hodgson as Montagu and Zoë Roberts as Johnny Bevan). All five actors portray male and female characters and do a lot of quick switching. It's really quite impressive.

Of particular note was Jak Malone in the role of Hester Leggett. He evoked a lot of pathos in a wide-ranging performance. Frankly, all of the actors have to have a lot of range, but Malone in particular showed both breadth of skill and a depth of empathy that was especially impressive.

The Fortune Theatre is pretty small, so even from our seats toward the rear, we had a great view. Also, the full house was filled with a terrific variety of people, from teens to seniors, and all seemed to be enjoying it immensely. I've not seen a theater production in a long time that seems to have such a broad appeal, particularly with the younger crowd. There seemed to be multiple groups of roughly high school aged kids out together, where I would have expected them to be at a movie or something. That was refreshing to see! And particularly surprising since the subject matter revolves around WWII, which doesn't seem like prime teen viewing today.

The Bottom Line

If I had to sum things up in two words, I would probably choose "funny" and "charming". And when I say funny, I mean that in a genuinely comedic sense, where the audience was engaged and amused, but not just yukking it up from one gag to the next. And charming in the sense that although the play pokes fun at almost everyone, it does so in a gentle and affectionate way that engages rather than distances one from the objects of the fun. In that sense, it's a remarkably subtle and thoughtful effort.

We genuinely enjoyed the show. It feels like a truly British theater experience, but even as foreigners (and Americans were definitely among the targets of the jokes!) we felt welcomed and included in the crowd. It definitely felt like a slice of local culture, rather than just a piece of art for art's sake.

So I would recommend this for a light, fun evening at the theater. They're currently selling tickets through September 23rd, but I think it's pretty much an open-ended run at this point.

"Patriots" at Noel Coward Theatre

 

Production photo by Marc Brenner

After a quick trip to Paris, we came back through London for a few days to catch up with friends and maybe another play or two. Peter Morgan's Patriots kept showing up on a lot of lists of good shows, so we decided to check it out. It was an added bonus that it was playing at the Noel Coward Theatre, and we had just heard a lecture on the life and career of Noel Coward, who also happens to be a favorite artist of one of the friends we'd been traveling with. So all signs pointed to this play!

The Play

Even without all the omens, this looked like a play we'd find interesting. It's basically about the rise of Russian oligarchs taking up the power vacuum left by the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, and particularly the story of one of the most visible oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky, the controlling owner of Russia's main state television station, ORT. As a media mogul, Berezovsky was able to both reflect the government's policies and also influence them, including boosting the career of a former KGB officer and low-level party apparatchik named Vladimir Putin.

Berezovsky's position is that he is saving Russia (or at least what he believes to be important about Russia) by exerting his financial muscle to advance his preferred policies. Although he also accumulates tremendous personal wealth and privilege, he believes he is being patriotic by "saving Russia" in the absence of coherent political action. The core conflict in the play is the tug-of-war between politicians and businessmen, each believing themselves to be the true patriots.

In a sort of Frankenstein scenario, we ultimately see Berezovsky's creation, Putin, rise up and thwart his benefactor, with Berezovsky ending up in exile in Britain, trying to find ways to influence, and ultimately return to, Russia.

It's quite involved, and covers a lot of Russian history that is probably not well understood by a lot of Americans. But of course, this is British theater, so they assume a much higher level of involvement by their audience. Morgan's script is clever and clear, bringing out the conflicts both within the character of Berezovsky and between him and the enigmatic Putin.

The Production

I'm always amazed at the quality of the theatre productions in London. It's really good to see support given to thoughtful plays that might not attract a mass audience, but which get full houses for good-length runs in the major theaters. The quality of the acting and the designs is always a pleasant surprise to me, since so few plays get that kind of treatment in the U.S.

This is a case where the production itself isn't terribly glitzy, but it's more complex than you might initially think, and it's very effective. The lighting and sound work is excellent, and the acting is top-notch, starting with Tom Hollander as Berezovsky. I had the pleasure of seeing Hollander a few years ago in the Broadway transfer of a UK production of Tom Stoppard's Travesties, and he was stellar in that. So it's no surprise that he carries this production as well. Berezovsky is the central character throughout, so he has a lot of lifting to do. Will Keen's rendition of Putin is also quite good, managing to evoke the cypher that is the bureaucrat-turned-autocrat, such that we're never sure whether Berezovsky manipulated Putin into office, or Putin manipulated Berezovsky into putting him there. The two play off each other magnificently.

Director Rupert Goold keeps the show moving right along. Berezovsky loves to talk, and he talks fast, so we jump from one scene to the next, one phone call to the next meeting, all at rapid pace. Berezovsky is like a manic Wall Street exec from the crazy 80s, constantly making deals and pulling strings. He's oh-so-confident that he's in control until suddenly, he is not. The supporting cast is consistently strong, particularly Josef Davies as Alexander Litvinenko and Ronald Guttman as Berezovsky's academic mentor and sounding board, Professor Perelman.

The Bottom Line

It's a good play, well written and well produced, so it develops and maintains interest in a subject that might not seem so intrinsically interesting. But it's an intriguing insight into how things happen in post-Soviet Russia, which is an important player in the modern world even as it tries to be something else.

We were quite taken with the overall production, and talked about the show at length for several days after, which is always a good sign. The show currently runs through August 19th in the West End. I'd say it's well worth seeing.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

Shakespeare's Globe production photo by Helen Murray

 

This was my second visit to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. The first must have predated my blogging, as I don't have a record of it. I'm pretty sure it was The Merchant of Venice. In any case, it was a very good production, so I was looking forward to this. Midsummer isn't my favorite Shakespeare play, but it can be very good, and I looked forward to what the Globe company would do with it.

The Play

It's Shakespeare. It's a comedy. Lots of fairies and a play within the play and Puck getting up to mischief. You know the drill.

The Production

One thing I like about plays at Shakespeare's Globe is that the theater is very traditional, to the point that they basically don't do sets. Minimal decoration, lots of interesting costuming, and let the play do most of the work. Having seen a number of way over-the-top productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream in recent years, I was looking forward to a more minimalist approach. This did not disappoint. aside from a net that provided Titania's bower and a few props for the mechanicals to use in their Pyramus and Thisbe, it was mostly just a stage and a bunch of actors.

Several things jumped out about the cast. One, it was quite diverse, and two, they cast women in a number of the more traditional male roles (e.g., Mariah Gale as Bottom). In fact, all the mechanicals were played by women, who also doubled as fairies. And Hermia was played by Francesca Mills, a little person, which gave extra power to some of the lines about her (e.g., "though she be but little, she is fierce"). Mills was terrific throughout.

This was a very energetic production. Where many versions of Midsummer stage the chasing and fighting in a fairly minimalist way, the crossed-up lovers were tearing all over the stage here. Weirdly, the least energy came from the craftsmen who were putting up the play within the play. They seemed almost an afterthought, particularly when it came to the actual play, which seemed a disservice to them. But overall, the production was of high quality and quite enjoyable. The nobles kind of inexplicably adjourned to the upper level when the mechanicals staged their play, which made the interplay difficult to hear and understand. By then the nobles were apparently all too drunk to really do much. That seemed a weird choice by director Elle While. But otherwise, it was pretty solid.

The Bottom Line

This play is very well known and frequently performed. As a result, it's pretty easy to mess up and pretty difficult to do in a really impressive way. This show was mostly done well, though with a few questionable choices. But the acting was very solid, the music was good, and overall it was a good time.

Seeing Shakespeare in the Globe is always a treat, and it's nice to see that they can take a clever path through a well-known text without going off in a crazy direction. This was solid, and worth seeing.

"The Motive and the Cue" at National Theatre

 

National Theatre production photo by Mark Douet

This one just sounded right in our wheelhouse: a play about a production of a Shakespeare play (Hamlet) in 1964, featuring Sir John Gielgud as the director and Richard Burton as the lead actor. That sounds really fun. And it's based on real events. Since we were going to be in London with friends, we booked tickets with great anticipation.

The Play

While working together on the movie Becket, Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole decided they would both like to try portraying Hamlet on stage, under the direction of the two best-known Hamlets of the previous generation: Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud. By the flip of a coin, it turned out O'Toole would work with Olivier at the Old Vic in 1963, and Burton would work under Gielgud on Broadway in 1964. Jack Thorne's play, The Motive and the Cue, is set during the fraught rehearsals for the Burton/Gielgud version, which was itself staged to mimic the play being done in the rehearsal hall. Very meta.

But also a great set-up for a dramatic production, as the talented-but-dissolute Burton shows up ready to play the role, except for actually figuring out how he's going to portray Hamlet. And Gielgud is determined not to try to force his own interpretation of the role onto Burton, so they end up at something of an impasse. Meanwhile Burton is his larger-than-life self, along with his equally famous wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Things fly out of control until Taylor actually ends up mediating between the two men, and eventually Gielgud manages to get Burton to come to a realization of how he wants to play the role, and it turns into a memorable and amazing performance.

The play is remarkably well written, with terrific banter and a real feel for the early 1960s. Hearing famous sections of Hamlet read in the voices of such classic actors is a real treat, of course, as they work through both the play itself and the conflicts within the cast. It's deftly done, and a treat to hear. All the more remarkable is the fact that one of the actors in the production of Hamlet actually recorded a lot of the rehearsals with a hidden tape recorder, so we know a lot of this really happened.

The Performance

It's always tricky when actors have to portray other, famous actors on stage. There is a fine line between acting, interpreting, and imitating. The actors in this show manage to stay on the interpretation side of the line, evoking the essence of the subjects without trying to portray them exactly. It helps that Mark Gatiss as Gielgud bears a fair resemblance already, but he manages to convey the quiet, stoic aspect of Gielgud as he struggles to direct Burton effectively. Similarly, Johnny Flynn as Burton and Tuppence Middleton as Taylor convey the glamor and swagger of the famous couple without sliding into parody or exaggeration (though it might be hard to exaggerate Burton's swagger!).

Set designer Es Devlin keeps things quite simple, as the two main sets are a fairly spartan rehearsal room and the sitting room of Burton and Taylor's hotel suite. We get just enough to know where we are and what it's like, without the scene taking over. The focus remains on the characters quite nicely.

The show is long, at over two-and-a-half hours, but it doesn't feel long at all. It's quite engaging, and even though the 1964 rehearsals are clearly bogging down, Thorne's play never does, and director Sam Mendes keeps it all running smoothly.

The Bottom Line

It's all quite outstanding. If you're in London before the show closes on July 15, I heartily recommend seeing it if you can. This was my first play in person at the National Theatre, and the facility is quite impressive, both in the house and in the extensive lobby. But really, the play's the thing, and this one is very, very good.

It's a wonderful, thoughtful play about producing Hamlet, of course, and also an interesting insight into the very famous people who made this particular version happen (and apparently it was a huge hit, once they figured it all out). I understand there is a filmed version of the 1964 Broadway production that I need to see now. But this play and production very much holds its own.

Highly recommended. And even if you don't get to see it in person, I suspect it will be coming to NT Live and NT at Home before long. Well worth seeing it in any form.

2023 Summer Theater Tour, New York Portion

We're on the road for a good portion of the summer, starting with a long week in New York City where we got to see nine plays. We'll be in London next, but for now, it seems like a good time to recap the highlights of the New York leg.

The Best

Of the nine plays we saw, three really stood out:

• Good Night, Oscar
• The Habit of Art
• Fat Ham

All three of those I can recommend without reservation. Good Night, Oscar and Fat Ham should both run for a while (although it appears Fat Ham is now scheduled to close on July 2nd!).

Good Enough

These plays were good, but not the top of the heap:

• Peter Pan Goes Wrong
• Prima Facie
• Primary Trust

Truthfully, Primary Trust could probably have been in the top list, but it's kind of quirky and has a few flaws that keep it from being quite as good as the best shows. Still, no reason not to see these if you have any inclination to do so.

Never Mind

I feel a little bad, because there's nothing affirmatively wrong with any of these. We just didn't think they were nearly as good as the rest, and so not really worth the time to seek out unless they appeal to you in particular.

• Kimberly Akimbo
• Summer, 1976
• Shadow/land

All told, we were pretty happy with the nine shows we saw in a long week. We have at least four shows coming up in London on the next stage of the summer tour, so stay tuned for those!

"Summer, 1976" at Manhattan Theatre Club

MTC production photo by Jeremy Daniel

This show has gotten a fair amount of buzz from critics and audiences, in part because (hey, it's Broadway) it has star power (Laura Linney is half the cast). I didn't know much about it, but we chose to go because of all the buzz. Also, it's written by David Auburn, whose Pulitzer-winning play Proof is a favorite of mine. So we give it a chance.

The Play

Two women met sort of by chance in the summer of 1976. Diana, an erudite artist, college instructor, and single mother, and Alice, a hippie married to a graduate student, meet because of their children. Both mothers are part of a babysitting co-operative (devised by Alice's economist husband; this is a much bigger plot point than it ought to be), and though they ostensibly have little in common, they come to spend a lot of time together because their daughters become friends.

The play takes the form of reminiscences by both women, who are initially sitting at opposite ends of a large table. It's like they're looking back over coffee or something, but not quite, and frankly they don't interact all that much. It's generally one woman telling a story, then the other amending, adding, or contradicting. Ultimately, neither character serves as a very reliable narrator.

What we basically have is a story about two women, neither of whom is terribly happy with her lot in life in 1976, sharing some time together, then drifting apart. The do cross paths again later, but not in the way we see initially on stage, so the chronology of the whole thing is a bit unclear.

The Production

Under the direction of Daniel Sullivan, the production is pretty clean and simple: two women sitting at a table, telling stories of their shared past. The women seem to be doing this in the early 2000s, so roughly 25 years after the initial meeting and friendship. Unfortunately, neither actor seems particularly into their role. Though the show has been running for a while, each of the actors stumbled on some of their lines, and both sort of declaimed their lines in an odd style rather than just speaking as characters. Their respective affectations didn't really seem appropriate, and just became annoying.

Linney portrays the aloof, unhappy artist Diana, who seems not terribly pleased with anything in her life, hiding behind an arrogant intellectual facade that masks a lack of real achievements. Her obvious attraction to Alice goes nowhere, and apparently mars the ensuing years. Unfortunately, a story of her inability to finish anything (her degree, her art, her relationship with Alice) isn't a very satisfying story for us, either. 

And Alice (Jessica Hecht) seems untethered to anything, whether because she's a dope-smoking hippie kid or just a ditzy flake. She seems to exist mostly as a foil for Diana, but doesn't offer much. And Hecht does some rather bizarre things with her voice that make little sense in the context of the play. I have no clue what that was meant to mean.

The Bottom Line

It was kind of dull and just OK. Not a satisfying story, no great theatrical moments, just brilliant performances. Just a rather uninteresting story, which seemed like a waste of some very experienced actors. It's not awful, but just not very interesting, either. So I can't say I'd recommend it. It runs for a while longer at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, but really, there are much better shows out there right now. Don't bother.

"Fat Ham" at Roundabout

Roundabout production photo by Joan Marcus

I've been looking forward to this one. I've been interested in James Ijames's work since seeing Kill Move Paradise several years ago, and since Fat Ham is meant to be a riff on Hamlet, I thought it ought to be a good time.

The Play

This is, in many ways, Hamlet, but set in the American South sometime in the last half century or so. The central character, Juicy, is working with his friend Tio set up the back yard for a wedding reception. Juicy's father, Pap, died in prison only a few days ago, but his mother, Tedra, has suddenly married Pap's brother, Rev. Rev has also taken over the family BBQ business. The other guest for the wedding reception are the loquatious Rabby and her grown children, Opal and Larry.

Of course, Pap's ghost appears (first to Tio, then to Juicy), revealing that his murder was set up by Rev, and that Juicy must avenge him by killing Rev, smoking the body and eating the meat. Needless to say, Juicy has reservations about all that. Next we learn that Tedra and Rev have siphoned off the money that Juicy was using to pay for his online college studies in Human Resources to pay for the wedding and some renovations on their house.

So Juicy has plenty of motivation to get rid of Rev, but he's still not terribly inclined to do so. We learn a fair amount about his long-time friendships with Tio and Opal and Larry while Tedra and Rev show off their home improvements and such. There are nods to Hamlet throughout, which is fun, and also provides some guideposts to where Ijames is both following and varying the plot of Shakespeare's play.

Overall I found it very cleverly written.

The Production

The whole play is set in the back yard of Tedra's house, with a good-sized porch dominated by a big BBQ smoker. The lawn around it has various accoutrements for a party, and big sliding doors lead into the house. It's pretty simple, but evocative. Marcel Spears is really good as Juicy, bright but brooding, and definitely in control of his faculties. Nikki Crawford (Tedra) and Billy Eugene Jones (Pap/Rev) play way over the top, in ways that manage to be both goofy and menacing at the same time. Add in the incessant babbling of Rabby (a wonderful Benja Kay Thomas), and the older generation is clearly the source of everyone's issues. Meanwhile, the taciturn Marine Larry (Calvin Leon Smith), the sullen teen Opal (Adrianna Mitchell), and the loose, stoned, inappropriate Tio (Chris Herbie Holland) provide the grounding that Juicy really needs.

The whole production under the direction of Saheem Ali (who directed Goddess at Berkeley Rep last year) does a great job of balancing the familiar threads of Hamlet with enough surprises and twists to keep us on our toes and make sure we understand where Ijames is taking us with his retelling. By making the ghost scenes comical and putting more emphasis on Juicy's relationships with his younger peers (especially Larry), /Fat Ham/ explores story lines that many recognize in Shakespeare's play, but without needing to inject too much extraneous material. It's really quite a remarkable job of writing and producing.

The Bottom Line

I really liked this show. Nearly all the actors are making their Broadway debuts in this production, but all are worthy of being there. The blending of the familiar aspects of the classic Shakespeare play with a very specific family story in a particular time and place brings out both the universality of Shakespeare's story elements and adds extra power to Ijames's riff. The audience was delighted, and deservedly so.

All told, I thought this was great, and look forward to seeing this play again sometime. I expect it will make it to the Bay Area before too long. Check it out!

"Kimberly Akimbo" at Booth Theatre

Official logo borrowed from kimberlyakimbothemusical.com

This is one of those cases where the play has a name I've heard of for years, but no idea what it is/was or what it's about. And then someone has turned it into a musical, which is now on Broadway. OK, that suggests there is something there. And then a friend or two rave about how I really have to see it. Great: let's go!

The Play

I have no idea how this play relates to the original, non-musical play of the same name. I assume it's at least reasonably close, as the program says that the book and lyrics are by David Lindsay-Abaire, who also wrote the play. And then we layer in music by Jeanine Tesori, who is a known quantity. So I'll assume this is roughly the same story, but now with music.

The story features Kimberly, who appears to be a teenager played by a much older actor, which is true as far as it goes. I at first assumed this was some kind of flashback, with Kimberly looking back on her younger self, which seemed like it could be interesting. But it turns out Kimberly has a rare genetic disease that causes her to age 4-5 times more quickly than normal, so although she is just shy of her 16th birthday, her physical age is more like 70.

So that explains why she's something of an outcast, exacerbated by the fact that her family has only recently come to town (somewhere in Bergen County, NJ) from Lodi (but we're not supposed to talk about that). It doesn't help that her dad, Buddy, is a drunk and a jerk, and her mother, Pattie, is pregnant and a narcissist (and pretty useless, as she just had surgery on both of her arms, so can't really do much). Eventually she befriends another outcast of sorts: Seth, the nerdy, tuba-playing kid who works at the roller rink in town (because this is 1999, and apparently everyone roller skates).

There is also a foursome of kids who each have crushes on another member of the group, none of which are mutual, so it's sort of a ring of misery, complicated by the fact that half of them are straight and half are gay, and none of them seems to know any of this. But they sing and dance (sometimes on skates), and are hoping to compete in the national show-band championships, but they can't afford fancy costumes, so they're really bummed about that, too.

And finally we have Kimberly's aunt Debra, who is the reason the family fled Lodi (something about killing a neighbor and other misdeeds), but who has tracked them down in New Jersey. Anyway, it turns out that Debra isn't actually a terrorist, just a scam artist, and since everyone needs money, she gets all the kids to help out in her big scam that will score enough money for everyone's needs. Yay!

Oh, and there's a ticking clock (figuratively) because people with Kimberly's disease rarely live past the age of (you guessed it) sixteen. So she needs money to take her family's dream vacation to Graceland and Disney World and such.

The Production

It's Broadway. They've got a pretty big budget. They've even got two stand-by actors for Buddy (one of whom performed in the matinee we attended). There's even a real tuba. Victoria Clark portrays Kimberly, and I guess she really is older, which is effective, but somewhat limits what the character can do in the singing and dancing department. The other kids are all pretty young, and can plausibly pass for teenagers.

Pattie (Alli Mauzey) has a terrific singing voice, but her character is really, really unlikeable. The same is pretty much true of Buddy (Jim Hogan in our performance). Debra (Bonnie Milligan) turns out to be pretty likeable for a psychopath, but again, you can't really feel like rooting for her when she's so manipulative.

So no one except Seth (Justin Cooley) has Kimberly's interests at heart. Her parents seem to have occasional pangs of guilt and responsibility, but they are rare and short-lived. So pretty much all the fun and aughs come at Kimberly's expense, which feels pretty mean spirited. So it's Kimberly and Seth against the world, which might be easier to take if either of them had a bit more dimension to their characters. I mean, they have more than the rest, but that's not saying a lot.

The Bottom Line

I thought it was pretty fun for a while, but ultimately I just found it kind of unsettling and basically cruel. The music and dance are fine, and the show works, such as it is, but truly, I didn't find much to like or enjoy about it.

So I would probably take a pass. Unless you like that sort of thing, I guess.

"Primary Trust" at Roundabout

 

Roundabout production photo by Joan Marcus

Roundabout has long been one of our favorite NYC theater companies, in part because they generally do interesting shows, and also because they are one of the few non-profit theater companies that straddles the Broadway/Off-Broadway divide. I really appreciate their ability to bring less commercial products to the Broadway audience.

Primary Trust is at one of their off-Broadway facilities, the Laura Pels Theatre, which is definitely one of their smaller houses. But it allows them to do some things that just wouldn't work in a big Broadway barn. This show, for example, has a cast of only five actors, and would just disappear on a huge Broadway stage.

The Play

This is one of those plays where I came in knowing basically nothing, and was well into it before I resigned myself to that feeling. Primary Trust by Eboni Booth is a very unusual play. It's almost like it doesn't have the proverbial fourth wall--the main character, Kenneth, addresses the audience from the moment he steps onstage. But at the same time, he's a very unreliable narrator of his own life, despite coming clean with us right off about his only friend, Bert, being imaginary.

So this is a peek into the mind and life of a quite offbeat person, orphaned young in a small town in upstate New York, he's spent his entire life since age 10 either in an orphanage or working in a used bookstore for a guy who doesn't care whether Kenneth talks to his imaginary friend. But now the store is closing, and Kenneth has to face life

Up to now, his only coping mechanisms are talking with Bert and going to happy hour at Wally's, the local tiki bar, drinking mai tais in great quantity. All of this has to change now. And change it does, as Kenneth lands a job working in a bank (called Primary Trust, hence the name of the play) after a tip from one of the wait staff at Wally's.

The ensuing action is odd and disconcerting in many ways, even when it's encouraging and uplifting. I've really not experienced anything like it, and it was truly interesting.

The Production

Nice and simple. The set is a small version of Cranberry, NY, Kenneth's hometown, and the occasional table, desk or chairs show up to represent various venues, and eventually Kenneth's teller window at the bank. But that's about it. William Jackson Harper does a remarkable job as Kenneth, both as the slow, damaged individual we come to know, but also showing flashes of the Kenneth who demonstrates himself to be something of a retail banking savant, flipping back and forth almost instantaneously. Equally impressive is April Matthis as a whole parade of Kenneth's servers at Wally's, jumping in an instant among genders, ages, races, and so on. It's really quite remarkable.

Bert (Eric Berryman) is a constant presence, at least for a while, and dovetails nicely into Kenneth's life during interviews and other events. And Jay O. Sanders fills in as various of Kenneth's employers and a few other niche roles quite effectively.  All of this is backed by a musician, Luke Wygodny, who also serve as something of a stage manager for Kenneth's life.

Director Knud Adams keeps this moving reasonably well, though the pace drags a bit in a few places. But even in slower-paced scenes, the actors keep things interesting--there are some truly pregnant pauses throughout.

Bottom Line

I thought this was a really good and interesting play, and the production was really effective. It's not earth-shaking, brilliant literature, but it's a unique take on the sort of person who doesn't really attract the attention of playwrights or audiences for the most part. In that sense, it's quite unlike nearly every play you can see.

So as long as you're looking for something small and interesting, this is a good option. The show runs through July 2 at the Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre in the heart of the theater district. Well worth the time if you're in the area.

"The Habit of Art" at 59E59

 

Original Theatre production photo by Carol Rosegg

This sounded like an interesting play. A friend had seen Britain's National Theatre production online and liked the play, and the subject matter seemed intriguing, so we took a chance on it. The production suits the setting at 59E59 Theaters, which is kind of a bare-bones theater space (though a good hall with excellent sight lines). So we headed in for a Sunday matinee.

The Play

This is the New York premiere of a play by a well-known British playwright, Alan Bennett. The Habit of Art is kind of a play-within-a-play, except it's really a rehearsal-of-a-play within a play, and the play being rehearsed involves a writer doing research that will turn into biographies of two of the principle characters in the play, the poet W.H. Auden and composer Benjamin Britten. The two men had been longtime friends and collaborators, then had a bit of a falling out and didn't speak for thirty years.

The play is set in a rehearsal room for the internal play, with the actors, stage managers, and playwright present (but not the director). The action of the wrapping play is a rough run-through of the internal play (called Caliban's Day) with a lot of dialog among the various characters about what they are doing (or sometimes think they should be doing).

Along the way we get to unravel the layers of the play, with each sort of serving as a meta-version of the one(s) within. So for example we have a biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, interviewing Auden, with some discussion of the ethics of biography, when that is exactly what the playwright is doing with Auden and Britten (and Carpenter, for all that), and at another level, it's what Bennett is doing with his play as well. Deep and complicated.

And also quite funny. Bennett has solid comedy chops going way back, and there is much amusement here. But within that is also a lot of difficult stuff about aging, old friends, betrayals, and much more. And discussion of the role of the overlooked, non-starring characters (e.g., Caliban) such as the rent boy Auden has ordered up, or Carpenter). There's a lot, and it's interesting and good.

The Production

This is a British production by Original Theatre, brought over as part of 59E59's annual series Brits Off Broadway. The acting is very good, with particular nods to Matthew Kelly as Fitz, the actor portraying Auden, and Veronica Roberts as Kay, the stage  manager. Kelly has a really tough role, as both Fitz and Auden are complicated, feisty characters, and he moves between them gracefully (with a lot of lines for each). Director Philip Franks seems to have decided that the characters of George, the assistant stage manager (Jessica Dennis) and Neil, the playwright (Robert Mountford) are solely needed for comic relief, as both have been rendered as clownish buffoons, which seems both unkind and unnecessary.

But on the whole the production is quite solid, with difficult material presented in a way that is accessible and fun, but it leaves one thinking through its layers and vagaries for quite some time. That's my favorite kind of play, and this one is very well done indeed.

Bottom Line

We came in with few expectations, and happily, we got a really good performance of a very good play. It made me want to learn more about Auden and Britten and their collaborations, as well as wanting to know more about Bennett's work in theater.

All in all, a fine effort. The show runs one more week, through May 28th, at 59E59 in midtown Manhattan. Check it out if you can!

"Good Night, Oscar" at Belasco Theatre

 

Production photo uncredited

I'm always leery when we go to see a show that stars a famous actor (or more than one), unless I know that person has real stage-acting chops. TV actors scare me the most, because I seldom watch TV, meaning I'm unlikely to know anything about them at all.

Such was the case with Good Night, Oscar, where the lead actor, Sean Hayes, is apparently a very well known TV actor (who also has numerous solid stage credits). I just know nothing about him. The story, written by Doug Wright, on the other hand, has a lot of familiarity for me. My mother was a big jazz fan, a pianist, and a huge fan of George Gershwin's music. And the "Oscar" in the title is Oscar Levant, a close friend and colleague of Gershwin's who was known as one of the foremost interpreters of his piano music. Mom had recordings and told stories. I listened. So I was intrigued by the premise of this show.

The Play

So aside from being a virtuoso pianist, known for playing Gershwin, Levant was also widely known to be a raconteur, a favorite guest/sparring partner for pioneering late-night TV host Jack Paar, who kind of invented the late-night TV shows that we still know today (specifically The Tonight Show, which he hosted before Johnny Carson). What was less known about Levant was that he was quite severely mentally ill, addicted to prescription pills, and sometimes committed to mental institutions.

The play centers around Paar moving The Tonight Show from its usual home in New York City to Hollywood for a week in 1958, where he wants his first guest to be Levant. Unknown to him, Levant has been committed by his wife after a serious breakdown, but she angles to get him a four-hour pass under false pretenses so he can appear on the show.

The play then shows the contretemps over whether he will show up, whether he should be allowed to go on, etc. And when he does show up, we get a view of a very difficult, but seriously funny, man.

Within Levant's dialogue and dissociative interior monologues and hallucinations, we get to see the complications of his relationship with Gershwin, among many other things.

It's really quite a fascinating play about some fascinating characters, based on true events. Right up my alley!

The Production

The overall production is spot-on with its recreation of the late 1950s, from the dark wood paneling of the buildings and the style of the furnishings to the fashions on the actors. Paar (Ben Rappaport) is impeccably kitted out in a tailored suit, and network president Bob Sarnoff (Peter Grosz) sports a great pinstriped power suit. June Levant (Oscar's wife, played by Emily Bergl) wears top-of-the line couture of the time. And Levant (Sean Hayes) manages to make a high-quality suit look frumpy. And there is much smoking, of course. The effect is really great.

Really solid acting from all of the actors mentioned above, with good support from Marchánt Davis as Alvin, the orderly from the institution sent to oversee Levant on his furlough and comic relief from the talkative, star-struck boss's nephew Max (Alex Wyse). 

Without saying too much, one of the highlights comes at the end when we finally get to hear Levant play Gershwin, and it turns out Sean Hayes can seriously play the piano. Truly impressive imitation of Levant's style.

Bottom Line

This is a terrific and interesting play, also very funny at times, but also a pretty intense look at a very disturbed, complicated character. We talked about various aspects of the play for a long time over dinner, and I would happily watch it again if I could. Hayes is totally deserving of his Tony nomination for best actor. The current run appears to go through August 27th at the Belasco Theatre in the heart of Times Square. Go. It's one of the best things I've seen on stage in quite a while!