"James and the Giant Peach" at Berkeley Playhouse

Berkeley Playhouse photo by Cheshiredave Creative

My daughter tells me that my knowledge of the collected works of Roald Dahl is woefully inadequate, mostly because I only ever read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the sequel about the elevator and then stopped. I was at least aware of "James and the Giant Peach," but never read it myself, either in my youth or to my daughter.

So I felt I was at a bit of a disadvantage going to see Berkeley Playhouse's mainstage production of the musical adaptation of James and the Giant Peach. I need not have worried, because it's not a terribly complicated story line. Maybe the book has more to it, but there's not a lot of substance to the book of this play.

The Play

In the grand tradition of British children's literature, the story starts with an orphaned child (the eponymous James) who gets sent to live with his only living relatives, two aunts named Spiker and Sponge. They are essentialy con artists and grifters who plan to exploit James as their house servant while they live it up on the £27 a month they will get for taking him in. In Dover (that's a plot point).

Meanwhile, James befriends some of the local insects, envying their freedom. And when tasked with chopping down the dismal old peach tree in the yard, he balks, saving the tree. Miraculously (or really, magically), an extremely large--one might even say giant--peach appears on the previously barren tree. Spiker and Sponge see this as a further opportunity to get some unearned income.

But the peach rolls away, down the hill and over the White Cliffs (see? Dover was a plot point) and into the English Channel. Taking with it James and some really large insects and bugs (Spider, Centipede, Ladybug, Earthworm, Glowworm, and Grasshopper). Peaches float, so they float across the ocean, learning important lessons about themselves and others and acceptance and choosing your real family and such. It's a bit treacly, even for children's fare, but that's the story.

All along, there is a magician who keeps popping in to do magic and sing a bit. His presence isn't explained until quite near the end. I found him a bit mystifying, though I guess the explanation at the end makes at least some sense.

But overall, best not to think too much about the plot and such. This is really just a bit of story holding together a lot of singing and dancing and bright colors. It's quite fun and crowd-pleasing. Just don't dig too deeply into the interpretations.

The Production

I've been consistently impressed with the shows I've seen at Berkeley Playhouse, with high-quality acting and music. The Julia Morgan Theater is lovely, of course, but a bit lacking as a modern theater facility. But this is not where we go looking for glitz and polish. This is more of a seat-of-the-pants operation that emphasizes the performances and not the refinement of the sets, lights, and sounds.

Even at that, however, I thought the production values on this show came up a little short. The set was obviously meant to be whimsical, but despite the bright colors it seemed a bit clunky and slow to move (with rather intrusive stage hands moving pieces), and the lighting just didn't reach some places and there were noticeable drop-outs in the sound a times that made it a bit hard to follow some of the dialogue.

But I can't be too critical here: The acting, singing, and dancing were all very good. Some of the performances were really quite excellent, starting with Elliot Choate as James. His singing is really quite strong, and he's only a fifth grader. The group of critters that James floats away with, particularly Christian Arteaga as Earthworm and Brian E. A. Miller as Grasshopper. Maya Sherer as Glowworm manages to be quite winsome, in contrast to her role at the start of the show as the Matron Nurse at the orphanage.

The over-the-top evil aunts (Heather Orth as Spiker and Matt Standley as Sponge) are quite the nasty pair, and often seem set to take over the whole show and chew up all the scenery as well, but director (and founding Artistic Director) Elizabeth McKoy keeps them sufficiently in check so they are merely amusing within the scope of the whole show. Because in contrast to their antics, the interactions of the sensitive insects and bugs could be quite overshadowed, but they manage to hold their own.

Bottom Line

This show definitely falls into the category of amusing pieces of fluff that you can safely take the whole family to see. It's a bit sentimental without being cloying, and wholesome but with a good sense of fun. So as long as you're not looking to think too hard, this could be the show for you. It's well done in a homey sort of way.

The show runs through May 6, so you still have plenty of chances to see it.

"Ragtime" at Berkeley Playhouse

Berkeley Playhouse photo by Ben Krantz Studio

I know I've raved about the youth programs at Berkeley Playhouse, but I've also been pretty impressed with their professional musical productions. Much as I mentioned with Central Works earlier this week, going to Berkeley Playhouse is an architectural treat. Berkeley Playhouse's home is a wonderful former church also designed by Julia Morgan. So it's a great space. The lobby is really small, though, because it's meant for a church. Similar to the setup at the Shotgun Players' Ashby Stage, another converted church.

Anyway, this is about the theater, and I was eager to see the production of Ragtime. I'd never seen it onstage (nor have I read the novel by E.L. Doctorow). But I liked the movie version, and thought it ought to make a compelling stage play. Plus, I really like ragtime music, so what could be bad?

The Play

Set in the early years of the 20th century in greater New York, we have three distinct groups of characters: a nameless, wealthy white family in New Rochelle, a struggling group of African Americans in Harlem, and a motley crew of new immigrants in the tenements of the lower East Side. The groups interact in a few, somewhat improbable ways, but hey, it's a play.

The main thread of the plot line runs through a black ragtime piano player named Coalhouse Walker Jr. Walker abandoned his girlfriend, Sarah, not knowing she was pregnant. Sarah, working as a laundress, abandons and buries the baby in the yard of the family in New Rochelle, where the mother of the family discovers it, still alive. Mother chooses to take in both baby and Sarah, who take up residence in the attic. Walker has a change of heart and seeks out Sarah, learns of the baby, and woos her back. They reunite. Unfortunately, some racists vandalize Walker's car, leading Walker to start a campaign of retaliatory terror.

Meanwhile, one of the Latvian immigrants, an artist, is struggling to make ends meet making silhouettes on the street but stumbles onto making moving picture books, which leads him into directing movies (because of course it does). He crosses paths a couple of times with the New Rochelle mother, and eventually they get in cahoots.

Taken on its face, this story doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, but between Doctorow's original story and the adaptation, it just works. It's a pretty pleasing and engaging story (or really, set of interlocked stories) that carries you through to the end.

The Production

This is where it gets interesting, really. Ragtime is a rather large and complicated story, and it requires a lot of people and a fair number of sets to pull off. The cast for this show is about 40 people, which is a big ask for a moderate size theater such as Berkeley Playhouse, and the stage is not huge, so the ensemble numbers take a particular degree of finesse to pull off.

And they do it. The opening production number, in fact, is quite brilliantly staged, with the three groups of characters kind of moving around the stage in clumps, coming up against one of the others they don't mingle with, and then shifting around to a different combination. It's a really complex bit of choreography that actually gives a solid introduction to the conflicts that underlie the story--a good visual start to the show.

Berkeley Playhouse also occupies a kind of never-never-land middle ground between community theaters on one hand and the larger, more established professional theaters on the other. This is a professional stage, and they can attract some pretty good actors, but they can't give the exposure or draw the crowds that a larger theater can. On the other hand, they are packing audiences into the theater, and attracting a high caliber of actor, too. Some I recognize from smaller theaters, such as CCCT and Custom Made Theatre Company (and indeed, previous shows at Berkeley Playhouse). Reading through the program credits shows a considerable level of experience in a variety of theaters. But undeniably, the leading actors are very much up to the task, and no one in the cast, including the children and teens (largely recruited from Berkeley Playhouse's own conservatory program) is noticeably lagging or inappropriately cast.

Standouts in the cast include Dave J. Abrams as Coalhouse Walker Jr. and Marissa Rudd as Sarah. Abrams has tremendous charisma and sings and dances quite well. Rudd has an amazing and moving voice, and carries the emotional journey of Sarah a long way. Mischa Stevens as Tateh, the Latvian entrepreneur, has a super solid voice and a wonderful personality that comes across both when dealing with his daughter and later with Mother and others. And Mother, played by Mindy Lym, has a wonderful voice, though her acting seems a bit more limited than some of the other leads. Special shout-outs go to Elijah Cooper as the prescient Little Boy in the New Rochelle clan who has to open and close the play, and to Jessica Coker as Emma Goldman, who carries something of a narrative role very well.

Bottom Line

Once again Berkeley Playhouse has managed to exceed even my rising expectations. This is a challenging piece even for a big company with a lot of resources, but Berkeley Playhouse pulls it off with aplomb and a good bit of cleverness. Somehow they manage to make a 40-member cast seem intimate, even in the generous space of the Julia Morgan Theater.

I wish I could recommend that you go see the show. Unfortunately, it largely sold out before it closed last weekend. We barely squeaked in on Friday night, and Saturday and Sunday were already long sold. But there are still a couple more shows left in their current season: James and the Giant Peach (about which I know nothing) in the spring and Grease in the summer. This theater is attracting a lot of stage talent and a lot of customers--they're definitely doing something right.

Best of 2017

I've been told that one of the requirements, now that I do a Theater Blog, is that I must commemorate the end of the year by doing a "Best Of" post to say what was best this year. Since 2017 was my first full year of Theater Blogging (Yep...we started in May of 2016!), this will be the first time I can really look back over a year of posts and opine on what really stuck with me, which is my criterion for "Best Of". Unless I decide it isn't. Stay tuned.

I will preface this with a side note that on the whole, 2017 was not a good year for me at all. Personally and professionally, this year has actually kind of sucked, and even my frequent respite at the ballpark was not its usual pick-me-up. But for the most part, theater--and particularly theater people--has truly kept me going. On the whole, the friends I have made through going to the theater and being involved with theater are some of the most positive, supportive people I have ever known. You know who you are, and thanks for being there for me.

Now then, theater stuff...

Best Plays/Productions

These are the plays that really stuck with me, for one reason or another. I'll list them in the order I saw them. No other ranking is implied unless I say so. I will include links to my original postings for each of them, in case you missed my musings the first time or just want to see if I lost my mind in between or something.

If I can find a theme to my "best" list, it's mostly that they almost all manage to tackle an issue that is pertinent to the day and explore it in a non-obvious way. 

"Hamlet" at Shotgun Players

Fortunately, the repertory portion of Shotgun's 2016-2017 season ended in January, and much of what I saw in January was more Hamlet. I believe I ended up seeing it about 18 times, with only one repeat casting. The shuffling of actors was amazing to watch and very educational. I learned a great deal about Hamlet and about theater from watching these shows, and my only regret is that I didn't manage to go more often. The seven actors plus one understudy deserve medals for performing in this show. And extra medals for the fact they were also performing in at least one additional repertory show each. It was just an extraordinary experience, the likes of which we are not likely to see on a Bay Area stage again any time soon.

"John" at ACT

This was the first show I felt really showed off the value of ACT's new second stage at the Strand Theater. The show was quirky, but it really kept me thinking about it for quite some time, and that's what good theater is about.

"Leni" at Aurora

Once again showing my fondness for the intimacy of small theater spaces, this little show in Aurora's second space really showcased the talents of actors Stacy Ross and Martha Brigham and brought some history to life in a thoughtful and timely way. It was an innovative and thought-provoking show, well directed by Jon Tracy.

"Sisters Matsumoto" at Center Rep

This was a very powerful and beautifully staged performance of a story that really resonated. Particularly having just seen TheaterFIRST's Beneath The Tall Tree, which also dealt with Japanese American internment, it was moving and thought-provoking and made me aware of aspects of that period and its aftermath that I hadn't been aware of.

"The Events" at Shotgun Players

My buddies at Shotgun really kind of went off the rails on some things these past couple of years. Staging The Events requires a different community choir on stage for each performance. As such, it was informative to see the play more than once (and I did). Not only did this help cement for me the value of seeing plays more than once (I also saw Hamilton for the second time around the same point), but it made me appreciate both the difficulty of incorporating different outside groups into a play and what that actually means to this particular show. This is a tough but important and certainly timely play about the resilience of both individuals and communities to sudden, shocking events.

 "As You Like It" at CalShakes

As the only comedy on the list, this seems a little odd (note that I have a separate section for comedies later). But I was moved and surprised by this CalShakes production. I usually don't expect much thought to ensue from a Shakespearean comedy, but Desdemona Chiang's interpretation of this play of mistaken identity broadened the issue to cover personal and gender identity, and did so smoothly in a fine production. This was also the start of a very strong season for CalShakes.

"Grandeur" at The Magic Theater

I went into this play knowing almost nothing about it, and left absolutely stupefied. Carl Lumbly exceeded even the lofty expectations I have of him, and the play was riveting. It's not earth-shakingly important, but it shows just how effective a small play can be. I was extremely fortunate to be sitting in the front row, in the seat closest to the chair where Lumbly sat for much of the play, so I got to watch him up close, and it was amazing.

"Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles" at Oregon Shakespeare Festival

I would normally expect at least a couple of plays from our summer jaunts to Ashland to land on the "Best Of" list for a year, but this year wasn't overall that impressive up there. But Mojada was a knockout. The adaptation of the well-worn story of Medea is almost obvious in retrospect. The portrayal of undocumented immigrants trying to assimilate (or not) and the consequences for them personally and socially is excruciating, but very effective.

"An Octoroon" at Berkeley Rep

Everybody's trying to push your buttons this year, but this time Berkeley Rep got it right. It's a super complex script, as you might expect from a hotshot playwright who has won just about every award imaginable. What I didn't expect was that Berkeley Rep would find the right director and cast, and that that director would be Eric Ting, who had previously disimpressed me with his direction of Othello at CalShakes. This production was pretty much spot-on. We're still talking about it, almost six months later.

"black odyssey" at CalShakes

I would never have guessed at the start of the year that Eric Ting would direct even one, let alone two, of my favorite productions. But here he was, coming right off the triumph that was An Octoroon, directing local playwright Marcus Gardley's wonderful adaptation of "The Odyssey" into a story of African American life. And it packed the Bruns Amphitheater every show, bringing in rafts of people who do not normally make the trek to Orinda to see a play. This was terrific storytelling.

"The Farm" at TheatreFIRST

Another artist making his second appearance on the list is Jon Tracy. Having directed Leni for Aurora earlier in the year, he also re-adapted his adaptation of Orwell's "Animal Farm" for TheatreFIRST, and the result was delightful and moving. This modest production reminded us that we don't have to be big and fancy to tell an important story. The reboot of TheatreFIRST is having sort of uneven results, but The Farm was definitely a sign of what a dedicated bunch of theater artists can do with limited resources.

Comic Relief

Most of the plays that really stuck with me this year were dramas. Maybe it fit the rhythm of my own life, which had way too much drama in it this year. But there were funny plays that made an impression on me, and they deserve some recognition, even if they weren't overall the "best" things I saw this year.

"Noises Off!" at SF Playhouse

This is one of those kind of classic plays that I had always heard of by never seen. I love the intricacy of the plotting and staging, and felt that for once, the rotating stage at SF Playhouse really was an asset. And the play is just screamingly funny, both because of all the theater in-jokes and because of some real character development. I liked both the play and the production here very well.

"The Play That Goes Wrong " at Lyceum Theatre (NYC)

This play isn't nearly as deep as Noises Off!, but the production we saw in New York this fall was absolutely the funniest thing I've seen on stage in a long, long time. The comedic timing and the convoluted set design were truly impressive. I needed a good laugh, and this provided it.

Spectacles

This is a category I just made up to salute the shows that just make you drop your jaw a bit at the stagecraft. There were some pretty over-the-top productions out there, even if they weren't among the shows that I deemed "best" overall.

"Needles and Opium" at ACT
"Monsoon Wedding" at Berkeley Rep
"A Thousand Splendid Suns" at ACT
"The Black Rider" at Shotgun Players

I won't go into them in detail again. Suffice it to say that in each case I was less than delighted with the play, the message, the storytelling, or something. But in each case the stagecraft, design, music, dancing, lights, and so on were dazzling and worth recognizing.

Musicals

I saw a fair number of musicals this year, but none that really rose to the level of "best"-ness required to make the big list. But I thought I should mention the ones that stood out, because musicals can be special in their own right, and if they are your thing, this is important.

"Good Night, Good Night, Construction Site" at Bay Area Children's Theater
"Hamilton" (touring) at SHN San Francisco
"La Cage Aux Folles" at SF Playhouse

Other

I can't think of a category it really fits into, but Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music at the Curran was like nothing I have ever seen before. I realize now that I never got around to writing up the portions of the show that I saw (I saw only the first two 6-hour segments, so didn't feel I could really comment on the show as a whole). This mash-up of musical theater, cabaret, drag show, and history lesson amazed me on a bunch of different levels. The subversive way Taylor Mac gets into the heads and under the skins of the audience while knocking out a really impressive array of popular tunes in ways probably never seen or conceived before just boggles the mind.

I truly have no words to describe the whole experience, and in any strict definition, it's not really "theater" per se, but it is, too. And it probably stuck with me more than any other performance I saw this year, so it needed to be included here.

Personal Bests

If you'll allow me to conclude with a moment of self-indulgence, there were two other productions that were particularly meaningful to me personally this year, so I just get to put them in the "Best Of" post as kind of a footnote.

My Professional Stage Debut

Yes, those loons at the Shotgun Players not only allow me to sit on their board, they also offered me a tiny role in their staged reading of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead last January. And hey, we sold out and got extended, so I had three glorious nights on stage with a bunch of real, professional actors, and I have the check to prove it.

This makes the list not because I was any great revelation on stage or because it changed my life or anything like that. But there were two important takeaways from  the experience: One, I got to see firsthand, close-up, just how real theater artists work. Rehearsing, dressing, blocking, designing and redesigning--all of it. It was glorious. And it gives me all the more respect for the work these people do, day in and day out, to produce these plays that I enjoy so much. But just as important, two, after seeing me onstage, my daughter said, "Well if Dad can do that, I can do that." And promptly signed up for her first real staged play.

Which obviously leads me to...

"Assassins" at Berkeley Playhouse Teen Stage

About six months after my little dalliance on stage, there was my daughter, singing and dancing and trying (futilely) to shoot Gerald Ford on the stage in the Julia Morgan Theater. It's still not one of my favorite plays ever, but she got out of it exactly what I hoped: she found a wonderful community of like-minded, creative, accepting people who share a love of making theater and support each other while they do it. She's now working on her second show, already signed up for another, and planning one more for the summer.

Which just goes to show, we can always handle more theater, so we obviously haven't reached the mythical "Too Much Theater" yet, and the quest must continue.

"Annie" at Berkeley Playhouse

Berkeley Playhouse photo

We went to see Berkeley Playhouse's production of the musical Annie last week, in part because we like to support this theater, in part because our daughter was having a reunion there with much of the cast of last summer's Teen Stage production of Assassins, and in part because we know the actress who was scheduled to play the lead role that night. Unfortunately, cold-and-flu-season knocked out our preferred actor, but one of the other actors was on site and stepped right into the role.

The Play

Remarkably, though I remember when this show first came out in the 1980s, I never saw it. I certainly heard the big musical number ("Tomorrow") enough times to feel like I had. Based on the "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip characters, the play follows the titular character from Miss Hannigan's orphanage to the home of wealthy Oliver Warbucks, with plenty of visits from the president and various low-lifes.

Unlike all the other orphans in the orphanage, Annie holds out hope that she's not actually an orphan, just a kid that was left by her parents (with a note saying how much they loved her) temporarily until they could come back to pick her up. And they left her with half of a broken pendant that she always wears, knowing her parents will return with the other half, thereby identifying themselves. Of course, she was left as an infant, and is now 11 years old. In the middle of the Great Depression.

But Annie has an unconquerable positive attitude. You know: "The sun will come out tomorrow," etc. So she keeps trying to escape the orphanage to find her parents. She does get out one night, and visits a Hooverville shanty town where she claims a stray dog who would otherwise be taken to the pound and put to sleep. But she's soon rounded up and returned to the orphanage, where she manages to sneak the dog in somehow.

So things aren't going so great, but we get some song and dance numbers out it anyway. Then unannounced, billionaire Warbucks' secretary arrives at the orphanage to sort of borrow an orphan for a couple of weeks at Christmastime. Because Annie happens to be in the room at the time, she charms her way into being selected, and off she goes to spend a couple of weeks in the lap of luxury, stopping off for new clothes at a fancy boutique to get new clothes on the way.

Next stop, Oliver Warbucks' home, with a large staff and all the trimmings. Warbucks seems oddly nonplussed by the presence of the orphan he apparently recruits every year. Or maybe this is just the first time he's done this. Anyway, it's no more implausible than the rest, so just go with it. Because you need to save some suspension of disbelief for our visit to the Oval Office where an incessantly positive outlook turns out to be just what the president and his cabinet were lacking in their efforts to tackle the depression.

By various twists, Annie ends up on a hugely popular national radio show, telling the story of how her parents are missing, and suddenly hundreds are lined up outside Warbucks' home to claim her (and the $50,000 reward he has offered). Unsurprisingly, none of them know about the locket thing, and are pretty quickly turned away. But of course Miss Hannigan's brother, the con man, senses a chance to snag the reward, so goes to claim her, armed with the inside info from Miss Hannigan.

I'll just stop before I spoil the mega-happy ending, OK?

Suffice it to say that I find the plot of this show, while rather fascinating, somewhat less plausible than most, and that's saying a lot. But it has some catchy tunes and is relentlessly upbeat, even when it seems like it shouldn't be. So how could it fail to be popular?

The Production

I appreciate the quality of the productions put on at Berkeley Playhouse. They always seem to have imaginative and appropriate sets and costumes. For example, the New York City scenes are pretty much cartoon skyscrapers. Similarly, Warbucks' house looks like it came right off the comics page, right down to the portrait of him over the mantel. The evocation of the show's comic-strip origins is quite effective.

Before I go farther, I also have to give full appreciation to Miranda Long, the actor who had to fill in as Annie at the last moment. For the lead role, Playhouse had cast three actors (Long, Josie Dooley, and Sophia Gilbert) who work in a scheduled rotation. So it's not as if they had an unprepared understudy step in. But still, finding out literally minutes before curtain that you're going on stage has to be a bit daunting, but Long was terrific. We were disappointed not to get to see Dooley, but we were not disappointed in the quality of the performance overall.

And I will add that in addition to rotating three Annies, they also have two sets of orphans who alternate as well. We saw the "Park Avenue" group, and were impressed with them all. They have a lot of stage time, songs, dances, and individual lines, and they were all well up to the task. And bonus points for not being phased when the dog playing Sandy (Gaston) decided to...er..."sing" along with one of their numbers. Quite impressive.

The adults did a good job, too. Michael RJ Campbell, the only union actor in the cast, carries Warbucks quite well, and Melinda Meeng as his secretary, Grace Farrell, is charming and warm. Billy Raphael as Drake, the butler, brought a lot of personality to what could be a quite dry role. My only qualm was with the framing narrative that takes the form of a radio show. The host, Bert Healy (Ted Zoldan), manages to be a bit over the top, even by the standards of this comic strip on stage.

But on the whole the production values are solid. I quite appreciated the livery costumes on the Warbucks house staff, and the singing Boylan Sisters (Andrea Dennison-Laufer, Megan McGrath, and Ashley Garlick) look and sound sharp.

Bottom Line

For a small, relatively new (ten years now) theater company, Berkeley Playhouse manages to put together really high-quality productions. The fact that they are able to integrate so many young members of the local community is a tribute both to the organization as a whole and to the conservatory program they run that trains children and teens, obviously producing actors who are quite capable of taking part in a professional production.

As you'll have gathered from my comments, I think the show is a bit silly, even by the standards of musical theater. On the other hand, it's fun to watch and it clearly appeals to a broad audience. There were lots of children in the mostly-full house for the night we saw the show, and that's a great thing.

Annie runs through January 23rd, so you still have a few chances to see it.

"Assassins" at Berkeley Playhouse Teen Stage

This will be kind of a quick item, but I felt I should write something. This was my first exposure to a Teen Stage production at Berkeley Playhouse, but I went because my daughter was in the cast. So I won't even pretend to write some kind of objective review of the show. But I would like to make some comments about the program itself.

The Program

Berkeley Playhouse is rather unique in my experience, in that they have both a professional theater program that does a full season of musicals at the Julia Morgan Theater, but also do productions for kids and teens, where they perform at the same venue. So unlike classes where they finish with a little performance for friends and family, this is actually open to the public and sells tickets.

One of the benefits of that is that they also have a professional director and designers and crew, so they've got costumes, lights, and sound on a stage with a real set. It's definitely a real theatrical performance experience.

For this summer program, the kids jumped right in, and for about 5 weeks studied the songs and music, auditioned for parts, learned their parts and choreography, and generally had a genuine, if condensed, experience putting on a play.

I was also impressed at the way they cast the roles. Since they had about twice as many actors as they had major roles, they double cast everything. So each actor has a meaningful speaking and singing part in one of the casts, and then serves in the ensemble for the other cast. So the program ends with four performances, with each cast leading twice and backing the other twice. That's a great way to make sure every actor gets a "real" part, and they all get the full experience.

The Production

I had very little in the way of expectations. I've seen a fair number of youth theater productions, and you never quite know what you're going to get. It's highly dependent on who signs up, how the talent matches the given show, etc.

Overall I would say I was quite pleasantly surprised. The actors knew their parts and nearly all delivered them strongly. Also, they were all wearing microphones, so even the weaker singers and speakers were pretty audible, though the sound techs weren't always quite on time turning on the mics. But really, given the length of the rehearsal schedule and the range of experience represented, the opening show this afternoon was quite credible. We could follow the story, track the characters, and all that. And considering that Assassins is not the most comprehensible show to start with, any degree of coherence in this sort of production is pretty impressive.

I give full credit to director Matthew Hannon for putting together a solid program. It was clearly a fun process for the actors, and the end result is something they can all be proud of.

And, if you're interested, you can see the show tomorrow night, August 11th, at either 4:00 or 7:00. It's a fun way to support youth theater!

"Urinetown, The Musical" at Berkeley Playhouse

Berkeley Playhouse photo

Let me just get this off my chest: I love Urinetown, the Musical. I have since I saw the touring production at ACT back in 2003. It appeals to my odd sense of humor. And since my daughter is going to be doing a summer teen program with Berkeley Playhouse, we thought she ought to see what their professional stage is up to. So off we go, to Urinetown!

The Play

I guess you would have to call this a dark, satirical musical. The songs are pretty upbeat, but the material is pretty grim. Set in a place suffering ongoing drought, leading to a water shortage, so private toilets are outlawed, forcing everyone to urinate (for a fee) at public toilets. But those amenities are all controlled by a gigantic corporation (Urine Good Company). Anyone who violates the laws requiring urination for a fee is sent to "Urinetown" as punishment. The nature of Urinetown is one of the topics of discussion in the show.

So the key characters in the show are the CEO of the company, Caldwell B. Cladwell (played by Paul Plain), the policemen who enforce the strict laws, Officers Lockstock and Barrel (Matt Davis and Zac Schuman, respectively), Little Sally (Brittney Monroe) who draws exposition from Lockstock, and the hot-headed idealist, Bobby Strong (Nikita Burshteyn). Also important are Miss Pennywise (Jessica Coker), who runs Public Amenity #9, and Hope Cladwell (Andrea J. Love), Caldwell's daughter and the love interest for Bobby.

Ultimately the play is a commentary on privatization, capitalist greed, class politics, law enforcement, and sustainability. There are plenty of fun songs, great puns, pokes at other Broadway shows (and musicals as a genre), and a general breaking of the fourth wall.

The Production

I thought the show was quite well done. Several of the performers really stood out for me. Jessica Coker's "Pennywise" can really belt out the songs. Matt Davis as "Officer Lockstock" (who narrates much of the show) managed to both sing the difficult songs and maintain a sort of snarky self-awareness that made it fun to watch. Monroe as "Little Sally" manages to be convincing as the precocious street urchin who is both foil and partner to Lockstock at times. And Nikita Burshteyn really holds his own in the lead role as Bobby Strong.

The set itself was fairly simple (and others in my party recognized parts of it as being reused from the recent production of Billy Elliot) but effective, lighted well and flexible enough to do quick scene changes. The cast as a whole danced quite well, and I thought the choreography was pretty ambitious for a local theater company. Most of the voices were good, although there were some issues with the audio system at the show we attended (but not enough to do serious harm to the play). And the orchestra was good, if a bit loud at times.

Overall, I thought the cast did a good job of maintaining the flow of the show. Being a bit quirky, it can be tough to keep it going and still maintain the storyline, but they did that well. Director Danny Cozart deserves credit for making the pace work for his cast.

Bottom Line

This is a really fun production, of high quality and good amusement value. My family members who had not seen or read the show previously were especially amused, and those of us who had seen it before enjoyed remembering how much fun it was. The clash between the privileged wealthy and the downtrodden poor is still all too timely, and the theme of resource shortages and sustainability running afoul of corporate interests is particularly pertinent today.

Frankly, I had been expecting one of the local theaters to revive this show during the last years of the recent California drought, and was surprised that only a few smaller, local houses took it on. It seems like this is both a high-quality show (it won Tony Awards for both best book and best score), but a fun and timely one, too.

It runs for one more weekend, so you should definitely go check it out. As Mr. Cladwell tells Hope, "Don't be the bunny!" (Go see the show: you'll get it.)