"As You Like It" at SF Playhouse

 

SF Playhouse production photo by Jessica Palopoli

It's a musical adaptation of a Shakespeare play. Updated with some modern touches.

The Play

It's substantially Shakespeare's play As You Like It, with some extra gender-bending to give it a queer component as well as the gender-confusion that is built into Shakespeare's plot. And much of the script has been edited out, converted into songs in various popular genres to explain the parts of the plot that have been elided.

I found the juxtaposition of the modern songs and the Elizabethan text rather jarring, both from a stylistic standpoint and because the songs are pretty much all expository. As a wise character once noted, "nothing can kill a show like too much exposition."

The Production

The show is for the most part well done. The set design is pretty clean, so we have large spaces to represent the forest or Arden. I think my major criticism of the production itself would be that there is far too much standing around on the set. Someone starts singing, and they and everyone else sort of stand around, unless they happen to be dancing. Director Bill English needed to come up with some better blocking for a lot of the scenes.

And things are a bit heavy-handed when we're dealing with the usurping Duke Frederick. It seems unnecessary to play loud, martial music and have everyone goose-stepping. We get that he's an authoritarian. Of course, the script also undercuts that by having characters refer to him as "Your Duke-ness". WTF? Make up your minds whether we're supposed to take all of that seriously. Don't let the snark overwhelm the message of the show, folks!

Bottom Line

I didn't really care for the adaptation or the production. I thought most of the songs were pretty banal and the presentation heavy-handed. It's as if neither the adapters (Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery) nor the director thought the audience would understand the show. Yet they kept long passages of Shakespeare's text, and no one got lost. It's not as if the show survived for 400 years by confusing people.

On the other hand, I appeared to be in the vast minority on this one. Most of the audience seemed to enjoy the show immensely. And indeed, it was well done, with a lot of obvious joy on the part of the cast. So I'd give it a passing grade, but not a rave. Seems like it could have been much better, either in the adaptation or in the production (or preferably, both!).

"The Tempest" at Round House Theatre

Round House Theatre production photo by Scott Suchman

 Seriously? I'm going to see The Tempest for the third time in a single year? Indeed. We saw it early this year at the Oakland Theatre Project (before I resumed blogging), and again this summer at Ashland. The OTP production was really interesting, and the Ashland one disappointing. But this promises to be something quite different, in part because I know the work of both co-director/adapters. Aaron Posner is a pretty well-known playwright (I quite enjoyed his adaptation of Chekhov's "The Seagull", called Stupid Fucking Bird) and director, and Teller is half of the brilliant magic act "Penn & Teller". So The Tempest with the prospect of real magic seems cool. Also got tipped off by a friend who saw this production earlier in Boston that it was amazing. So, one more Tempest!

The Play

Really, it's Shakespeare's The Tempest. Edited a bit, of course, but on the whole, it's a very standard text.

The Production

Fresh off the previous night's disappointment at STC, we were mildly concerned about this first foray into the Washington, DC, theater scene. The better-known theaters, such as Arena Stage and Wooly Mammoth, were either dark or doing holiday shows we didn't care to see. But this seemed pretty cool. And it didn't disappoint.

First, about 15 minutes before curtain, Ariel (Nate Dendy) comes on stage in pantomime and starts doing little magic tricks with cards, gradually involving some of the audience. That sets the stage nicely. And what a lovely set! Scenic Designer Daniel Conway and Lighting Designer Thom Weaver have made a beautiful, engaging set that works as both a magical stage and a remote desert island. It's really lovely.

Then the play sets in, and we mostly have a pretty standard (fancy) production of the play, but with little bits of stage magic thrown in. The card tricks seem a bit gratuitous, but I suppose they help with the atmosphere of magic. The other really unique touch is that Caliban is played by two actors (Hassiem Muhammad and Ryan Sellers) who are a single being, speaking in unison, and moving in a way that is both monstrous and elegant. It's like nothing I've encountered before. [Interestingly, the OTP production this year used three actors to portray Ariel, but all acted separately, unlike these two who were a single Caliban.]

Most satisfying, after our disappointment at Ashland, was that this production definitely has a point of view: Prospero (Eric Hissom) is clearly throughout trying to atone for his own past misbehavior. He is never seeking vengeance (much to the confusion of Antonio, played by Cody Nickell).

Bottom Line

It's brilliant. Not perfect, but a wonderful production of a very complex and difficult play. The production itself is beautiful, and the acting (and magic) is really solid, enhanced by the vision of the directors. Choreography by Pilobolus and music by Tom Waits rounds out the production.

This was definitely the antidote we needed for the previous night's disappointment. It's a terrific production of The Tempest by itself, but given its innovations, it's a real treat for those who already know and like the play and want to explore something a little different.

The best news is that this one has been extended, and now runs through January 29, 2023, so you can run out to Bethesda and see it! Highly recommended.

"Jane Anger" at Shakespeare Theatre Company

 This was just too intriguing to pass up: a promised mashup of Shakespeare and feminism, set in a plague year. What fun! And we were going to be in Washington, DC, anyway. Perfect. And a chance to check out Shakespeare Theatre Company before we go see their production of King Lear next March.

The Play

Written by Talene Monahon during the COVID pandemic, Jane Anger postulates that famous playwright William Shakespeare, himself quarantined during a plague, is having difficulty writing his next play(s), meant to be an adaptation of an old tale about King Leir. Sure, this sounds a bit like the premise of Shakespeare in Love, but this is definitely a different story. For one thing, the play starts with a monologue by the eponymous Jane Anger, who is based on a real-life person who published a pamphlet in 1589 called "Jane Anger, her Protection for Women".

And after Shakespeare flails about for a bit with his assistant, Francis, Jane Anger literally climbs in through the window and puts her angry wit to work on Will.

The Production

Wow. What to make of this? The lobby of the very nice Klein Theater is full of materials about the real Jane Anger and her ilk. Great stuff: makes me all ready to see a play about an assertive woman who influences a better-known (and able to be published/performed) playwright into improving his works! Sadly, this is not the play we were led to expect.

Apparently playwright Monahon and director Jess Chayes would rather write a sophomoric skit full of gender and bodily-function "jokes". Had I read Monahon's prologue in the program ahead of time, I would have learned that she is "deeply interested in jokes--in puns and gags and potty humor." Oh. Well, then I guess that's what STC wanted to present. I won't say there is nothing of substance around the gags and potty humor, but the balance is way off from what I had anticipated. Instead of using those in service of (as she claims to want) "rupturing history", she instead uses the promise of a feminist overthrow to string together gags and puns, but then never gets to the punch line: We never get to see or hear or even really know much about the supposed better works that Jane Anger would have produced.

It's kind of hard for me to evaluate the cast here. My take at the time was that the acting was way too over-the-top and broad. I suspect that toning down the overt clowning might make the jokes more effective, not less, but perhaps that is just my preference. For what it's worth, Amelia Workman does a pretty good job as the titular character. The others are so thinly written and so broadly performed that it's hard to say how well it's done, and I'm not familiar with any of the players.

Bottom Line

This feels like a missed opportunity. I'm still interested in the question of how a feminist, woman of color might have been able to influence or even subvert a famous writer into projecting their ideas into the mainstream, and what would have resulted. But Monahon, despite feints in that direction, doesn't seem to want to go there. Instead we have a very forgettable piece of fluff, sort of amusing, but not terribly funny, that seems to have even less of a point than the materials hung in the lobby. I'm grateful that I got introduced to Jane Anger, but Jane Anger was not really worth the effort.

I look forward to seeing what STC does with an actual Shakespeare play next year.

"Two Trains Running" at Marin Theatre Company

 Well, this is late. The holidays and vacations and such caught up with me, and I got way behind on blogging the limited shows we went to see. But this one was very good, and deserves mention.

The Play

As I've noted elsewhere, I'm a fan of August Wilson's work. I haven't yet seen all of his ten-play cycle representing African-American life in Pittsburgh during each decade of the 20th century, but I'm working on it. In this case it was a repeat, as we'd seen Two Trains Running at Ashland in 2013.

Set in a run-down restaurant in 1969, the subject at hand is urban renewal. The owner of the restaurant, Memphis, wants to sell his restaurant before it is torn down, but worries that the city will not meet his price. Meanwhile, local mortician and entrepreneur West offers to buy it from him. Meanwhile, Wolf is running numbers on the restaurant pay phone, Holloway is dispensing philosophy and playing chess, while the recently-released-from-prison Sterling is scheming ways to get ahead (and get with the restaurant's sole employee, Risa). And then there is Hambone, who appears to be mentally challenged, feeling aggrieved about a promised ham that he has never received.

As with most of Wilson's cycle, the play is an ensemble piece that highlights the characters who seem both timeless and very much of their time.

The Production

This was really nicely done: well cast and directed, the ensemble works well together to transport us to 1969. Director Dawn Monique Williams keeps the pace moving without rushing it. Within the very strong cast, Lamont Thompson as Memphis stands out with a nuanced portrayal of a man who seems a bit detached from everyone else while focusing on his own crusade, but who actually keeps a close eye on all in the circle of the restaurant. Eddie Ewell as Sterling and Khary L. Moye as West play two sides of a very similar role, both always on the lookout for any angle to get ahead, but currently in very different circumstances.

The whole group does a great job of making the production feel authentic.

Bottom Line

Having recently seen Wilson's The Piano Lesson in New York with a cast of well-known stars, it was refreshing to see again how well Wilson's plays work without the star power. The words and settings are always believable, and the scripts are rich with opportunities for any actor. Marin has done a fine job with this one. Unfortunately, it closed on December 18, so no further opportunities to see it. But a very solid offering.

"It's Christmas, Carol!" at OSF

Oregon Shakespeare Festival production photo by Joe Sofranko

 

I'm not generally a big fan of holiday shows. I have seen more versions of Dickens's A Christmas Carol than I probably need. But when the folks responsible for OSF's recent revivals of a couple of Marx Brothers plays (Animal Crackers and The Cocoanuts) decided to do a holiday show (extremely loosely) based on the Dickens classic, I knew I needed to see it.

So off we trundled to Ashland for an overnight stay between Christmas and New Year's, just long enough to see a matinee of It's Christmas, Carol!.

The Play

It's definitely not A Christmas Carol. But it's really fun. We have a narrator who tries to tell the story, but the Ghosts of Holidays Past, Present and Future (who remarkably resemble Groucho, Chico, and Harpo Marx) keep stepping out of the story and disrupting the telling. Meanwhile, Carol Scroogenhouse, who is supposed to be the subject of the story (and the ghosts' lessons), isn't quite getting it, and, well, things go pretty far off the rails.

You didn't really expect coherence from a Marx-inspired play, did you? I mean, that, and dinosaurs. It's all good.

The Production

It's what one expects from OSF: solid actors, high-quality design and implementation. Really, had they done this good a job with most of their mainstage productions in the season, it would have been a better year.

Most importantly, the return of the trio of Mark Bedard, John Tufts, and Brett Hinkley as the holiday ghosts/Marx Brothers is very welcome and successful. Since the trio also wrote the show and composed the tunes, it's not surprising that their roles work very well for them. OSF regular Christiana Clark is great as the increasingly-frustrated narrator. The rest of the cast is obviously having a good time, and that makes it all work for everyone.

Bottom Line

It's exactly what you expect. It's fun, it's funny, and it's quite well done. It's way better than seeing another earnest retelling of Dickens' story, and much more fun than any holiday movie. I suspect this pandemic-era innovation will be an Ashland holiday tradition for a while. I plan to go see it again next year to see what new madness they've added.

"Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812" at Shotgun Players

Shotgun Players production ensemble photo by Ben Krantz

I always find it a little difficult to write about shows at Shotgun, because they really are my favorite local theater. And I try to be at least reasonably objective, even though I'm a supporter/donor and board member. That's going to be tough here, because I really like this show.

I saw Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 on Broadway some years back. I have to admit that I wasn't really prepared, and I didn't think the venue was all that conducive to really appreciating the show. It was a big open floor with cabaret tables where folks could drink, and lots of different entrances, so the show itself was a bit difficult to follow. So I've been looking forward to this production in the more intimate setting of the Ashby Stage, though I couldn't really imagine a cabaret setting in there.

The Play

The play itself is a most unlikely thing. Playwright Dave Malloy just doesn't do "normal" musical theater. This blog was still on hiatus last spring, or you would have seen a glowing review of Berkeley Rep's production of Malloy's Octet. And there is a long, meandering story about how Comet came about because of Malloy's production with Shotgun over a decade ago of Beowulf--a Thousand Years of Baggage. But let's just say the script is derived from a small slice in the middle of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace. And as the first song, "Prologue", makes clear, it's a complicated Russian novel, and everyone's got nine different names, etc. But it also gives you some mnemonic devices for remembering who is who and how they relate, which is helpful (and Shotgun's program helpfully reproduces much of that).

As the title of the show suggests, Natasha and Pierre are the central characters: she young and naïve, loving her betrothed Andrey, who is off in the war, and he older, awkward, and disenchanted with life (and particularly his life, notably his loveless marriage to Helene. So we follow as Natasha careens through Russian society, wishing for Andrey to return and marry her, distracted by the appearance of the seductive Anatole. While Pierre sits, reads, studies, and drinks, all the time thinking he used to be better, and that he wants to wake up into his life.

The music is catchy, the story is actually remarkably easy to follow, and Malloy does a great job of simplifying things without losing the essence of Tolstoy's characters.

The Production

This is the west-coast premiere of the show, which has run in New York (both off and on Broadway) and a few other places in the east. But as far as I know, it's the first time it's been staged in such a small venue. And scenic designer Nina Ball outdoes herself (which is a very high bar) in reimagining the Ashby Stage as a cross between a cabaret nightclub and an opera house. The audience surrounds the stage, but with room for the actors to move around and interact with the house, and the band is spread around so it feels integral to the room. I love the way the cast sneaks into the room to do choral backup behind one or two singers on stage, adding musical depth without distracting visually. The co-directors, Patrick Dooley (Shotgun's artistic director) and Erin Mei-Ling Stuart (who also choreographed), have done a remarkable job of taking the transformed stage and making it both large enough for the whole ensemble and small enough for intimate solo and duet numbers. The lighting design by Weili Shi contributes a lot to the illusions.

Somehow this space also accommodates a remarkably big band: musical director Daniel Alley and his upright piano is in a pit in the center of the stage, along with drummer Brietta Greger and her whole kit. On one side of the house there are strings (both a cello and double bass), while on the other are woodwinds (clarinet and oboe) and a very versatile accordion/keyboard/glockenspiel player. So it's a very rich musical ensemble, but it suits the space.

The cast is very strong, starting from the title characters. Jacqueline Dennis brings both a powerful voice and a very believable sense of youth and innocence to Natasha, which Albert Hodge brings a brooding, yet explosive, mood to Pierre. There are several other particularly strong singers in the cast, most especially Danielle Cheiken (Mary and others) and Veronica Renner (Sonya). Several others bring both vocal prowess and some serious acting chops to their supporting roles, notably Angel Adedokun (Helene) and Michelle Ianiro (Marya). But even the "minor" characters have their moments in the sun, with James Mayagoitia (Old Prince Bolkonsky) doddering humorously, Roeen Nooran filling numerous servant and ensemble roles, and Weston Scott taking advantage of every second as Balaga, just for fun.

Bottom Line

For some crazy reason, I decided to read War and Peace this summer as sort of self-assigned homework leading into this play. As a result, I appreciate both how difficult it had to be for Malloy to carve a meaningful little slice out of the middle of a ponderous tome, and also how interesting it is to contemplate the characters within this slice, knowing that there is so much more to their stories, both before and after. It really is remarkable that Malloy created such a compelling, moving, and fun piece out of that source material.

And as you have already gleaned from my words above, I believe this is one of the finest pieces of theater to hit the local stages in some time. It's not the same kind of intellectual work that wowed me in This Much I Know this summer at Aurora. But to take this remarkable piece of both literature and music and create an intimate, immersive, interactive stage experience unlike anything I've encountered anywhere recently--that's an achievement. Producing a show of this scope with the quality of this production is pretty expensive, which generally means you have to stage it in a larger house. But Shotgun has managed to fit the show into its friendly confines, and the intimacy of the show really adds to the experience.

Really--go see it. It's not just me--the "little man" in the SF Chronicle's review is leaping out of his chair. You will be, too.

Comet has already been extended through January 15th at the Ashby Stage in Berkeley.

"Indecent" at San Francisco Playhouse

SF Playhouse production photo by Jessica Palopoli

 This is a play we really, really liked at Ashland, and since it was one of the last plays I actually wrote a blog about before I shut things down, I will refer you to that posting for information about the play itself, and I'll just talk about the current SF Playhouse production here.

The Production

I went into this with some trepidation. As you can see from my previous post, I really like this play, and the production at Ashland was excellent. SF Playhouse can do really good productions, but not always, and this is a particularly tricky play, what with all the Yiddish and other languages thrown in, and some obvious cultural issues one could trip over. Still, director Susi Damilano generally does a very good job, and in this case, she does not disappoint.

I'll note up front that the one role that is stable throughout the play, Lemml, the stage manager, was an understudy the night we attended. David Schiller did a terrific job, and had the program not contained an insert indicating that we had an understudy, I would never have known. And that's a good sign for the production as a whole, if one doesn't notice that a major role has been swapped out.

I liked the simple staging of the show, using suitcases as props for many things, and using the uncurtained wings as an area for actors and musicians to rest, change, and observe. I thought that fit the play very well. As with the production in Ashland, I had difficulty seeing some of the projected supertitles from my seat location at times. That seems like something that the designers could have addressed, as we were roughly in the middle of the orchestra section, and I suspect anyone closer to the stage would have had even more difficulty.

Bottom Line

This is a very good production of an excellent play. Of course you should go see it! It runs through November 5th at SF Playhouse.

I was encouraged, by the way, to see the theater much more full than it has been for other recent shows. The orchestra was nearly full, and there were people sitting up in the balcony. I suspect this is a result of both the easing of COVID restrictions (and a concurrent willingness of people to go into indoor spaces) and the quality of this show. In any case, go! See it! Bring your friends. This is the good stuff.