"The Mushroom Cure" at The Marsh SF

As with many shows at The Marsh, Adam Strauss's The Mushroom Cure isn't a play per se, but a one-person monologue in a theatrical setting. It is very much a piece of theater art, however. It is also a very intimate portrayal of a real story of the frustrations of trying to both live with a treat mental illness, told in the first person.

We caught the last preview performance this weekend. The show officially opens this week.

The Show

The name of the show derives from an incident where Strauss discovers online an article describing clinical studies in which psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound in "magic mushrooms," showed remarkable effectiveness in treating and even curing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a condition Strauss himself has. So he took it upon himself to try to obtain and use mushrooms to treat himself.

Stepping back a bit, Strauss is a stand-up comedian based in New York City, so he is quite familiar with standing in front of an audience and discussing intimate subjects. Probably the most interesting portions of the show to me were the bits where he externally verbalizes the internal dialogue that someone with OCD has with himself trying to make a decision. It's quite brilliantly done, and provides a degree of insight not usually available to those outside.

The narrative thread of the show pretty much begins with the discovery that there is a "mushroom cure" out there, and proceeds though myriad paths toward trying to acquire mushrooms, starting with a call to his pot dealer, discussions with his therapist, and the meeting of a new girlfriend who seems remarkably well-tuned to his plight. Along the way we get insights into how OCD and its treatments came into Strauss's life, how it impacts so many facets of it, and how he deals with it prior to the discovery of mushrooms. There are detours through cactus, therapy in the park, and choosing the perfect beach house in Martha's Vineyard for a mushroom "trip." Along with those come commentaries on Burning Man, New Jersey, and Times Square, among many others.

Throughout, the well-honed comedy wit and timing come through, but so does a quite sincere desire to share a real story about real suffering. As with many difficult stories in life, there are humorous aspects if you're willing to look at it the right way, and Strauss uses that humor to help keep us with him through a truly twisted path.

Marshifying the Show

The Mushroom Cure originally appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, then made its way back to New York with Strauss where it eventually raun very successfully off-Broadway. The Marsh represents the West Coast premiere of the show, and the level of polish really shows. Strauss has a degree of comfort and fluidity in his presentation that was so clearly lacking in the last show I saw at the Marsh (Tom Ammiano's solo show, Mincing Words). Needless to say, this is a much better, more satisfying show than that.

I should add that it's not strictly speaking just a monologue. I mean, Strauss is the only performer, but he's definitely set the narrative in a dramatic form. There are scenes and scene changes. Sometimes he represents multiple characters, and so on. He really demonstrates some versatility in the performance.

Perhaps best of all, Strauss doesn't try to tie it all up in a neat package. He neither proclaims himself miraculously cured nor condemns himself to a life of unremitting torment. This isn't Hollywood; there isn't a neat ending. It's real life, and what we see is what we get. Strauss is obviously a very functional human at this point who freely admits that he has ongoing challenges from his OCD, but also shows and explains many of the ways he has gotten better.

Reality Impacting

For those who know someone (or several someones) with OCD and related conditions, the show is really helpful, providing a view into the inner workings of the process that would normally be completely opaque. There are times when the person with OCD looks completely immobile and rather withdrawn, but inside the mind is whirling between and among choices and decisions. The frustration is palpable, but it's amazingly insightful stuff.

And at the risk of a small "spoiler," I'll just say that whatever else comes out of  the pursuit of The Mushroom Cure, it's abundantly clear that there is no miracle here. Whatever else happens, there is still a lot of ongoing work for the person with OCD. Getting the process and the treatment out into the open is helpful both for those with OCD and for those who know them,  work with them, and live with them.

It's a powerful show, and well worth the time to see it. The official opening night is May 10, and the scheduled run is through June 3. It's well worth a run out to the Mission to see it.

"Mincing Words" at The Marsh

I think this will be fairly short. Some friends were going to see Tom Ammiano's solo show, "Mincing Words," at The Marsh, so we decided to tag along. The reviews I'd seen of the show weren't exactly glowing, but at 75 minutes, I figured it would at least be brief.

The Show

I can't really call this a play. It's somewhere between a retrospective monologue and a stand-up comedy routine. Tom Ammiano was a fixture in San Francisco politics for several decades, starting as a teacher who aligned himself with Harvey Milk when Milk first ran for office, and extending through his own terms on the school board, Board of Supervisors, and eventually the State Assembly. Unknown to me until recently, he also worked some as a stand-up comedian.

The show began (late) with Ammiano tossing off a few jokes about the current political scene. OK, it's fine to establish some rapport with the audience before diving into your story. But the initial presentation doesn't come across as very polished. The delivery is pretty sloppy, and the punch lines are often kind of swallowed. There is some polite laughter.

Eventually, the story veers into something that is roughly a chronology of Ammiano's life in San Francisco, the Castro, and local politics. Unfortunately, no clear story arc really appears to unify or guide the journey. It feels like a rambling reminiscence, which would be fine sitting in the living room, but this is meant to be a rehearsed presentation, and it just doesn't feel like one.

The meat of the presentation seems to be focused on his six years in Sacramento as an Assemblymember. He portrays himself as some kind of fish out of water, though by the time he gets there he's a very experienced politician. And he tries to make it seem as if his being gay and liberal somehow makes him an outsider. But again, in a state that is overwhelmingly Democratic politically, it's hard to see this as a great handicap.

He goes to great lengths to describe his interactions with more conservative members of the legislature, giving them cute nicknames like "Tammy Fae Bakersfield" and such. Some of the stories are pretty funny in themselves, but ultimately, there doesn't seem to be an overarching message.

And as such, the narrative just kind of rambles until he decides he's done. Occasionally he breaks into song, or a song just appears that is somehow related to something he said, but other than showing off that he likes music and dancing, it's hard to see the point. After over an hour and a half, he decided he was done, thanked us, and ended.

Bottom Line

Ammiano strikes me as kind of a fun guy who would be fun to talk to in a small group or at a bar. But as a speaker or stage performer, he seems uncomfortable and unfocused, shuffling around the stage, moving his hands distractingly, and sometimes muffling his words. Especially his punch lines. The overall effectiveness is not that great.

I was hoping for a bit more insight, rather than just some anecdotes. But this one seemed to just be kind of phoned in. There is one more performance this coming week, and then I believe it's done. And that's OK. Mild amusement is not really enough to justify a stage show.

"Lear's Shadow" at The Marsh

Earlier this week I had a weird dream, that I had been cast in a play. A real, professional play, by actual, serious theater people. I thought this quite odd, because I really have no desire to be on stage. Never have, really. I'm quite content to sit in the audience and kibitz.

So tonight the family went to see "Lear's Shadow" at The Marsh in Berkeley. In part this was motivated by the fact that my daughter just did a paper on "King Lear," analyzing the play from the perspective of the Fool. And partly because I've always liked Lear and the Fool, and have enjoyed other treatments of similar ideas, such as Christopher Moore's novel, "Fool."

Anyway, we get there early and stake out seats in the front row. The Marsh is small, so front row is right on the stage. [And by way of background, The Marsh focuses mostly on single-performer shows. In the case of this show, well-known Bay Area actor and clown Geoff Hoyle.] About mid-way through the show, a somewhat demented King wanders over to the front of the audience, trying to figure out if this Fool he perceives is real, and now he's grabbing me, assessing  whether I am what he perceives me to be. Not long after, he's sitting on my lap, seeking respite from the elements in a hovel off the blasted heath.

All told, we had three or four solid interactions. I guess he picked me out as the solid subject in the middle of the first row, rather than sitting on a grandmother or a squirming kid. That's about as close as I need to get to being cast in the play, thanks! It was fun, but it was enough.

Quick Summary

All I knew coming in was the blurb on the Marsh's website, that it was Hoyle doing Lear from the Fool's point of view. I suppose that's true, as far as it goes. The frame story is that this Fool is applying for a job, and naturally one of the interview questions is why he left his last position. That entails a bit of story-telling.

I was somewhat expecting just a condensed version of King Lear, but that's not really it. It's more like the Fool's impressions and interpretation of the elements of the play he's involved in, with some recreation/re-enactment of certain key scenes.

The play takes somewhat longer than the advertised 80 minutes. It was more like 95-100 minutes, but it wasn't dragging. I think he was just into it.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Hoyle is an amazing physical actor, as you know if you've seen him perform elsewhere. Seeing him up close is a real treat--his face is quite elastic and expressive, and some of his physical maneuvers are quite impressive. At the start of the performance, I was a little worried that it was going to be mostly clown-and-mime-and-magic stuff, but that was unfounded. He moved pretty quickly into telling his story, and that's where it gets good.

As I noted earlier, it's not a condensed staging of King Lear. Rather, Hoyle has pulled out the core story line and excised the politics and extra characters. This is the story of Lear, his daughters, and his Fool, and that's terrific. It's a little stilted when he's trying to portray a scene with the Fool and all three daughters as children; the character transitions take a bit too long, but the portrayals are clear, and they serve him well and consistently later in the story. It's clear how those three princesses grow up to be the three daughters who we know from Shakespeare's play.

But the best bits are when we get down to the foolish King and his regal Fool. The fluidity of the performance really gets going, and it plays well into his portrayal of the fluid dynamics of the relationship between the two (and by association, with the daughters). It's quite powerful and moving, and works on both thoughtful and emotional levels.

Takeaways

There is a nice little interlude before we get to the final climactic section of the show where Hoyle steps out of character and talks to the audience about King Lear and makes sure we all know the story, and he talks about his long-standing relationship with Shakespeare and King Lear in particular. I thought it worked very well, both for drawing in the audience and setting up the last scene.

Any version of Lear runs the risk of getting caught up in the overwhelming emotion, the vagaries of unforgiving nature, and the descent of a great king into madness and ruin. Hoyle makes a nod to that, and manages to avoid the traps that surround him. He manages to be thoughtful, yet emotionally evocative, but without losing himself and his audience in the theatrics. And to me, that's the triumph of the piece: he communicates an essential set of messages from the story by stripping away a lot of the distracting elements.

I have to say this reminds me of part of what I find compelling in the current "Hamlet Roulette" in repertory at Shotgun Players this year. I know I haven't written about it here yet--rest assured I will!--but that, too, strips away a lot of the side stories and unnecessary characters to cut to the heart of the story the director wants to tell. The fact that Geoff Hoyle both wrote and performs "Lear's Shadow" is impressive, especially because it works so well.

Footnote

I should mention that The Marsh is doing a fundraiser, their Renewal Campaign. You can learn more about it at their website or by emailing to renewal (at) themarsh.org.