Albert Goodwyn Reviews

Wozzeck Sung as Film Noir

2010-02-04T16:17:00.000-08:00

John Duykers as The Captain and Bojan Knezevic as Wozzeck

Photo courtesy of Ensemble Parallèle

By Albert Goodwyn

Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck, derived from Georg Büchner's play, takes the hapless title character through moral depravity, weird science, illegitimacy, jealousy, infidelity, and murder. The music of the early Twentieth Century opera, just produced at Yerba Buena Center by Ensemble Parallèle, is modern with aggressively atonal passages perfectly suited to the brutal happenings on stage, tempered by lushly romantic passages. On a set with shapes as biting and angular as the music, accompanied by video projections, a stellar cast of local artists gave a performance to rival any other opera company in The City.

Set in a small garrison town in Germany about 1835, Wozzeck is a lowly army barber. As he is shaving his Captain, the officer chides him for having an out-of-wedlock child with a prostitute. Marie the mother dotes on the preadolescent child, but she and Wozzeck no longer get along. In fact she has her eye on a new conquest, the pompous Drum Major. After he rapes her, Wozzeck's jealousy can no longer be contained. He kisses her one last time by a moonlit pond, then stabs her. Searching for the knife, he comes to a bad end.

Berg's hybrid style of avant-garde music was sensitively performed by an ensemble of musicians from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the energetic conducting by Nicole Paiement, Artistic Director and Founder of the Conservatory. She describes the score as being "at turns terrifying, serene, transparent, and then obscured." The singers were all ably articulated the nuances of Berg's jumps and slides into and out of melody and dissonance.

As the half-mad Wozzeck, bass-baritone Bojan Knezevic never fails to thrill and elicit sympathy with his rich, highly trained voice. The recent graduate of scholarship programs at San Francisco Opera is also a skilled actor, projecting his emotional plight with an internal consistency of facial gestures. His intensity is matched by SFOpera compatriot bass-baritone Philip Skinner as The Doctor who experiments on Wozzeck and finds his dead body. Having worked together in several other operas, the two play off of each other with genuine character and both produce flawlessly rich, entirely different voices. But tenor John Duykers as the bumptious drunken Captain tended to overawe them with his comic interpretation and assertive voice. Mezzo-soprano Patricia Green as the tragic Marie sang the high notes of her soaring plaintive pleadings with a pure sustain.

Ensemble Parallèle's cinematic-style staging made elaborate use of large-scale video projections of live singing and prerecorded clips to set scenes and to highlight the action. The monochrome projections and the steely dark set gave the show a nourish style. Seeing the singing faces enlarged on screen at the same time as watching them live made for a different operatic experience. The show brought together grand opera and theatre. The Ensemble has a lengthy history of ambitious, greatly successful operatic productions, the last being Lou Harrison's Young Caesar. They will next participate in the Pacific Rim Festival in April with an all-Varèse concert.

Oakland's East 14th Returns to San Francisco

2010-01-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

Don Reed

Photo by Keith Leman

Oakland's East 14th Street (now International Boulevard) was a crime-ridden major thoroughfare in the 1970s when comedian Don Reed was growing up there. Reed's enacted tales of depravity humanize the neighborhood experience of becoming a player there and then. In his show East 14th, now reappearing at The Marsh after a successful off-Broadway engagement, he offers true tales of a reluctant player. He energetically portrays differing people he ran across in his teenage years. He shifts effortlessly and distinctively as he tells of living with his father the pimp and of his seeking sex while lacking in balls. He admits he had only nuts. His father tries to help, and his brothers guide and protect him from manipulative thugs and harlots.

With a brief but densely informational set-up about where he lived and what his father was like, Reed follows the timeline of his quest to lose his virginity. His self-assured brother, who does break-dance moves every time he speaks, tries to instruct him on how to be a player, but Don is too nice a guy to shove women around the way his brother does. His brother's illustration of those methods involves a demanding ultimatum on the phone. When Don tries it he winds up with a joint and $2, far different from the terms prompted by his brother.

Don's mother and father were separated; the mother gets very little time on stage. Don moves back into his father's house on East 14th. He closes Act I with a cliffhanger about how his father plotted to get him to lose his virginity. "Y'all ain't gonna believe this shit," he says as the stage blacks out and he exits.

Later, left alone in the house with his father's sly benefactions, Don takes a phone call. It's Merle "from up the street" who wants to suck his dick. He says ok, but when she arrives his torturously slow reaction to her at the door is exquisitely performed. He takes his time with this one, making it obvious that he can't believe his eyes, then allowing himself a response. He describes graphically her missing front teeth -- which becomes one of several running gags -- and he convincingly mimes her jiggling overweight. He thinks she moves too fast. Then when he is confronted with the opportunity to pick up on his brother's girlfriend, he mimes himself as a vulture, scavenging the remains of a painful death, except that his brother is none too pained by it; he just wants to be rid of her, as is evidenced by Don's one-man enactments of a three-person car altercation on the Bay Bridge.

There are many other incidental characters, such as Steakface and Troutmouth with strongly vivid faces -- on Don -- who enrich the texture of his tapestry of life in an ethnic neighborhood where he faces sexual confrontations largely initiated by the woman. His writing is mostly free of black patois, sticking largely to standard English. Reed has a strong track record of stand-up and comedy writing, but his artistry shines in his quick shifts between characters and his skillful verbal and physical introduction to each one. His mime and characterizations, along with clever and striking vocalizations, bring to life his reminiscences of being the son of a pimp growing up among tough guys. His distinctive facial contortions artistically animate the characters he displays.

East 14th true tales of a reluctant player continues through January 16 at The Marsh, 1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($20 to $50) are available online at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/93727 or by phone at 415-641-0235.

Life on East 14th in Oakland comes back to San Francisco

2010-01-09T02:40:00.000-08:00

Don Reed's re-enactment of his adolescent experiences growing up in an ethnic part of Oakland returns to The Marsh after a successful run in New York. His mime and characterizations, along with clever and striking vocalizations, bring to life his reminiscences of being the son of a pimp growing up among tough guys. His distinctive facial contortions artistically animate the characters he displays.

East 14th true tales of a reluctant player continues through January 16 at The Marsh, 1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($20 to $50) are available online at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/93727 or by phone at 415-641-0235.

Shen Yun Brings the Tiger to San Francisco

2010-01-05T13:33:00.000-08:00

Photo courtesy of
New Tang Dynasty TV

The Year of the Tiger is approaching. In the Chinese calendar, the current year of the calm and dependable Ox will soon (February 14) give way to the rebellious, unpredictable Tiger. Shen Yun Performing Arts' spectacular New Year celebration on the Opera House stage features song and dance from classical Chinese culture. The artists recount tales of simple pleasures or derring-do in a variety of scenes. From a celestial kingdom with angels in clouds to the Great Wall, a large company of dancers with elaborately constructed traditional costumes, different for each act, performs perfectly synchronized choreography to a live orchestra. Shen Yun's guiding principle thematically informs the show; to promote humanity's divinely-inspired cultural heritage in the face of a repressive society. The uplifting spirit of hopefulness shines through beautifully in each of the twenty-one acts.

These range from an ethnic dance routine and a Chinese fairy tale to a pilgrimage in search of Buddhist scriptures. The northeastern folk dance "Handkerchiefs" captures youthful energy flourishing and blossoming as the maidens twirl and toss their napkins. "Tibetan Dance of Praise" expresses the spirituality of Falun Dafa principles, which Shen Yun follows. "In a Miao Village” is a folk dance from one of China’s oldest tribal groups. In their ornate costumes -- with bells -- the dancers move in front of a stunning moving backdrop on a technologically advanced projection screen wide as the stage. With rice paddies in the background, the dancers use a “unique Chinese posture” as they feed through each other's lines in precise choreography, taking them along staggered entrances in smoothly alternating rows. "Wu Song Battles the Tiger" tells of a village hero who -- after drinking much sake -- chases a ravaging tiger onto the projection screen in clever animation. Then he returns to the stage with his quarry hanging from a stick.

The costumes are a show in themselves with elegant detailing and historical accuracy. “Mongolian Hospitality” presents dancers in persimmon dresses with broad gold hues and thick royal blue piping. They use household plates as castanets. In “Flowing Silk” young maidens in green, white and fuchsia colors wave their over-long “water sleeves” as they dance against a backdrop of a lake shore with cherry trees and a pavilion. All the costumes are gorgeous, and the dancers make them move with graceful symmetry.

Shen Yun's orchestra uses modern western and traditional Chinese instruments. For her solo “Saving the Predestined,” Xiaochun Qi plays the erhu, a two-stringed, bowed instrument, with grand piano accompaniment. The tune is sweetly melodic with a wailing weeping quality. Tenor Hong Ming's “Calmly Take a Look” uses pure highs to offer an optimistic message with words he composed. His thin but well controlled voice has good sustain and a beautiful vibrato: just the right amount to impress but not enough to overwhelm.
Mezzo-soprano Pi-ju Huang sings the hymn “Hesitate No Longer” with grandly soaring mid-highs and a pure sustain. With tenuous reverb she tells of “the awareness Dafa’s disciples are raising.”

The political message is clear. In “Nothing Can Block the Divine Path,” figures fly from the screen, leading to well coordinated physical entrances. Police persecute citizens. The announcer informs us that, “The injustice we just saw is still happening in China today.” Baritone Qu Yue sings “As the Red Regime sinks” with a strikingly pure voice and a well controlled tremolo.

Shen Yun continues through January 7 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. The touring show then moves to San Jose and Sacramento. Tickets ($40 to $160) are available online at www.cityboxoffice.com or by phone at 415.392.4400. For more information please visit www.Shenyunperformingarts.org.

The Coverlettes Cover Christmas

2009-12-29T00:16:00.000-08:00

Cover band interpretations frequently provide new insight to the original works. Local rock band artists “The Coverlettes” dig up their material from the glorious days of the late Fifties. This trio, all members of noted Bay Area contemporary bands, don their slinky sequined mini dresses and giant bouffant hairdos to recollect the Christmas songs of the doo-wop era, a style of heavily synchronized stage choreography and group harmonizing. They pay tribute to such singing idols as The Shirelles, The Chantelles and Martha and the Vandellas. Aurora’s Artistic Director Tom Ross has remounted his conception for this year’s holiday season show The Coverlettes Cover Christmas with a few new boughs and decorations. On a seasonally decorated stage, backed by a trio on piano, bass and drums, the three ladies with a high tolerance for hairspray give marvelously rousing interpretations of rock Christmas songs that were widely popularized by such performers as Brenda Lee (“Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree”), Jimmy Boyd (“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” with a heavy rock beat, like The Ronettes' top-40 hit) and their own softly harmonic take on the traditional carol with “We Three Queens of Orient Are.”

In a lively, non-secular show, Darby Gould of Jefferson Starship sings and dances with Carol Littleton and Katie Guthorn of the twelve-piece rock and soul band Big Band Beat. Their harmonized vocalization of familiar tunes is exquisitely rendered with no missed notes or inappropriate vocal stretches. When not choralising they swap off lead parts; each one has a strong, distinctly different performance personality. Their occasional solos demonstrate their professional versatility as they merrily deliver classics. The artfully enacted song selections range from “Leader of the Pack,” “Da Doo Run Run” and “Hanky Panky” to “Set Me Free,” “Silver Bells” and “White Christmas.”

In this holiday show, the trio sings perennial favorites for a family audience, while wearing provocatively tight-fitting mid-thigh gowns and moving suggestively in traditional rock and roll blocking. This is an intimate show with no dramatic staging techniques – such as Aurora’s Artistic Director Tom Ross has paid ample attention to in typical productions. The Coverlettes sing together as a group in a rock choreography style with well-coordinated arm movements and hip sways. The untrained voices and "garage" sound of 1950s recordings are addressed in these women’s performance, and their coy subtext speaks loudly of sexual desire. Their sensuous undulations while performing “Santa Baby” leave no question about what that chimney means.

The production seeks – and finds – the nut of the doo-wop style, actually improving on the melodic style of blended pop. The lyrical innocence of the genre, combined artfully with the yearning emotional directness of gospel singing and rhythm and blues comes through forcefully from these sexy ladies. The simple and guileless lyrics enhance their demure combination of girl-next-door wholesomeness and torrid vamp. The three women sensitively recreate the angelic, mellow style of more superficial musical forms. With a subtle understanding of the musical style, they have completely rendered the seminal event in the history of Twentieth Century pop music, the merging of R & B into rock and roll, without diluting its power. In this show you will find well-known feel-good holiday music presented in subtly new ways by appealing, accomplished singers.

The Coverlettes Cover Christmas continues through December 27 at Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley. Tickets ($28) are available online at http://www.auroratheatre.org or by phone at (510) 843-4822.

Aurelia's Oratorio in Berkeley

2009-12-28T22:15:00.000-08:00

Aurelia Thierrée has used the ecclesiastical, usually vocalized oratorio form to physicalize her own religious tribute to her surreal imagination. She uses her mime, dance and acrobatic skills to perform a series of mysterious, quirky fantasies set to an unpredictable score that ranges from chamber music to jazz, all on mostly bare stage with a minimum of props. Her show, conceived for her by her mother, uses three assistants and features works by dancer Jaime Martinez. She is fascinating to watch and he gracefully enacts some bizarre situations. Co-producers Crying Out Loud UK seek to present material that is appealing to audiences of all ages.

From her opening as a contortionist inside three dresser drawers at once to her untimely demise in the sands of an hourglass, she encounters collapsing draperies, a giant ogre, a vicious gnome, and malevolent animals. Her sense of humor and sense of invention are woven tightly into the visual texture of this wordless show. To operate a small set piece she bends a rope and mimes a crank. One skit uses skewed angles and warped perspectives. She lies on the stage deck and pretends to walk across, as though she walked parallel to the Earth's surface. Then she flies a kite, but it stays on the ground and she holds the string from a flying position above the stage

Jaime and she work together on some acts, but his solo pieces continue the theme of altered perceptions with good-natured surprises and persecution by ill-willed inanimate objects. He does amazing stunts as a three-legged man, and his fling with an empty overcoat is amusing. Then it turns comically dark when the coat turns around and tries to strangle him.

This is a great family show, ideal for the season. Aurelia is lithe and energetic. Her focus on the part at hand is lovingly intense, and she presents a strong stage presence. Jaime's modern-dance styles are refreshingly quick and he uses them succinctly to depict the theme and actions of each story. The seventy minute one-act leaves the audience ready for a second act. Seeing more of Ms. Thierrée would be an aesthetically pleasurable treat anytime of the year.

Aurelia's Oratorio continues through January 24 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2015 Addison Street, Berkeley. Tickets ($33 to $71) are available online at www.berkeleyrep.org or by phone at 510.647.2949.

The Young Victoria Rises to Power

2009-12-28T19:46:00.000-08:00

Prince Albert (Rupert Friend) and Queen Victoria (Emily Blunt) take an ill-fated carriage ride.

Photo courtesy of Apparition and GK Films

Queen Victoria of England rose to the throne because of her father’s lack of a male heir, this much is true. In the movie The Young Victoria, her possible reactions and growth are dramatized in a lushly romantic costume drama of epic proportions. This film explores the development of a young woman as she rises to an extraordinary level of power and tries to shed hereditary bonds that would keep her from exercising her free will. Producers Sarah Ferguson and Martin Scorsese have paid amply close attention to historical fact.

With Emily Blunt as the Queen, the movie delineates the early years of England's longest-reigning monarch. The story begins before her accession to the throne, details her surprisingly passionate, politically motivated love affair with Prince Albert of Germany (Rupert Friend) who married her and became her Royal Consort, and ends before the royal couple complete some of the major accomplishments of the Industrial Age.

Blunt's portrayal of a privileged woman who, dominated by well-meaning but oppressive family and ministers, finds her own voice and mature confidence as she takes the throne. During the film's story Blunt exhibits first naïveté then recognition of the effects this immense worldwide power is having on her and her relationship with her lover.

Friend as the Consort does an admirable job of acting the difficult part of a bedroom companion with no constitutional status or power, but who has significant influence over his spouse. He is devoted to her, and being of royal background himself respects her power. Friend is able to show Albert’s love for his wife and to keep his stiff Teutonic spine in the face of her queenly demands.

The compelling story of Victoria’s coming of age is richly detailed with glorious costuming and site-specific location settings. She was the first English sovereign to live in Buckingham Palace; the new rooms look lovely. All dressing, props, makeup, and attitudes seamlessly interweave to evoke a bygone age. The compelling cinematography moves effortlessly from grand spectacle through palatial rooms to intimate encounters. Aside from the accurate historical narrative, the movie presents a deeply moving insight to a young woman’s ascendant struggle to fulfill her destiny as a country’s most powerful figure.

The Young Victoria opens in theaters on December 18.

Cirque du Soleil's Egg

2009-12-11T17:56:00.000-08:00

The egg rules the insect world in OVO, now being presented by Cirque du Soleil. The company gives its trademark athletic, fanciful performance to live music on a stage with an organic form. The costumes portray whimsical appearances of bugs, usually; some are abstruse yet still colorful. There are Spiders, a Dragonfly, Fleas, Butterflies, Ants, Scarabs, Cockroaches, Crickets, and a Mosquito. In these costumes are tumblers, contortionists, acrobats, aerialists, a juggler, and a slack-wire artist. Rounding out the show as emcees are a fly, a foreigner and a lady bug, not as energetic as the other performers but still quite lithe. The show's theme explores the bug community faced with life and death questions in the form of a giant inflatable egg.
Flipo the fly (Joseph Collard from Belgium), Étranger the foreigner (Francois-Guillaume from Canada) and Coccinelle the lady bug (Michelle Matlock from the U. S.) introduce the various acts with distractions of comic lazzi or improvisation with the audience as the scenes are set up. Through these between-the-scenes episodes, they encounter the egg and make peace with its metaphorical importance. Flipo falls in love with Coccinelle and tries to woo her. They argue and she stalks off stage. Later she returns and kisses Étranger, who is crushed. In the end the entire cold-blooded community gathers around a table for a banquet, featuring the egg. The story is plain enough, but the addition of the acrobats provides thrilling visual interludes amidst its telling.
The opening community scene, complete with egg, is set to background sounds of insect chatter. Music is provided by a banda set up stage left and right. The singer stands with the stage-right group. The sounds of Brazil are mixed with African styles to produce samba, reggae and electronic Rio funk. Cirque’s sound system is flawless, providing distortion-free amplification that fills the big tent with surround sound. Throughout the show, cricket sounds are also played on keyboard.
The invertebrates, usually the ants and fleas, help with scene changes. They move eighty-pound dandelions, nets, webs, and flying set pieces, all in well coordinated order. Some of them also perform circus arts. Writer and Director Deborah Colker's synchronized choreography of the community scenes, when all arthropods and arachnids are moving around on the amoeba-shaped stage, is carefully arranged and gives a visually pleasing sense of teeming activity. The upstage backdrop membrane with holes suggests a maze of tunnels or a hive.
The acts include a surprising amount of invention to spice up some standard routines, plus some innovative approaches to new material. The Creatura (Lee Brearley of the U. K. in a woven costume) has collapsing limbs like a Slinky and no head. With the size of the arms and legs, the costume suggests an elephant, but perhaps there is a bug out there that moves like that. The show opens with the egg, and a man walking on a spiral jungle-gym to elegiac music while Coccinelle looks on. Act II opens with a haunting melody and vocals, and then proceeds to a fog-shrouded web with spiders. The inspired costuming of the spiders here is almost scary with predatory black widows, red widows and white ones, all with hourglass shapes sewn in. The males stand by while the spiders climb the web. Marjorie Nantel, one of the Spiders, also performs an aerial silk act in Act I called "Cocoon" where she begins inside the silk, a distinctly different approach.
Foot jugglers twirl stuffed kiwi slices, pushing them into the air and swapping them with others. Then they manipulate corn cobs. Insect food figures large here. There is some roughness in the coordination of this act, but it is spectacular and amusing. Foot jugglers appear later as feathery legs with coconut heads sticking up from holes. Cirque builds its repertoire to ever more difficult and stunning acts during the show. Most spectacular of all are the aerialists. Clad in brown and gold they swing from trapezes left and right to a platform in the middle, over a net. This highly synchronized act shows off mid-air spins and tumbles with unerring catches – except once. But that’s okay; the aerialists exit their aerie by falling into the net anyway. In this and other acts, the performers who have finished their bits cleverly indicate the active ones with crouching gestures and signals to the audience.
The highlight of the show comes when the tumblers bounce on trampolines set up below a climbing wall and straight down the middle of the stage. With the trampolines' help, they pop up to the wall and walk straight up it. Their eerily insect-like ninety degree landings on the wall and repeated momentary sticking truly suggest an insect invasion; as soon as you shoo away one horde, another lands.
Gringo Cardia's set is of a largely amorphous shape, but provides for unexpected entrances through holes that open. It also provides some spaces for full-body slides. Liz Vandal's costumes are a show in themselves. Occasionally, the nature of the bug is not readily apprehended, but the Crickets are a masterpiece of engineering. When they crawl, the motion of their hind legs is effectively reminiscent of the actual insect. While there are some raw moments in this two-hour show, the performers recover adroitly without missing a beat. The visual spectacle keeps the near-capacity audience in this big tent attentive and enthralled. When the slack-wire artist (Li Wei of China) brings on his unicycle, there is audible disbelief from the house. The entire production is sweetly sensational and excitingly professional.
OVO continues through January 24 under the blue and yellow Grand Chapiteau set up near AT & T Park. Tickets for this U. S. premiere ($45.50 to $250) are available on line at www.cirquedusoleil.com or by phone at 800.450.1480.

A Victorian Christmas Carol in San Francisco

2009-12-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

This season's remounting of A Christmas Carol by ACT brings a different life to the production. Director Domenique Lozano has added some clever fillips to Carey Perloff's original stage adaptation of the Victorian novel by Charles Dickens. This familiar story of Scrooge confronting ghosts is fast and lively with an effectively touching performance by James Carpenter as Mr. "Bah! Humbug!" himself. Other members of the large cast, including children, comport themselves with professional imagination, but Carpenter holds stage as the central figure in this story of failure and redemption.

On a set with crudely painted sliding flats, Carpenter leads ACT company members and a large group of newcomers along the path to the salvation of Ebenezer Scrooge. On a cold Christmas Eve, as Scrooge settles in for his gruel in a thrifty unheated room, his indigestion causes him to visualize spirits, ghosts of Christmases past, present and future, all teaching him how he has let down his fellow man through his parsimonious cynicism. When the Ghost of Christmas Future visits him, Scrooge is ready to repent his anti-social attitudes.

This seasonal family show is replete with monstrous visions, music, stunning but forthright scene shifts, and children costumed as vegetables. Scrooge is fascinated as the spirits lead him through what was, what should have been and what to expect next. The play centers on Scrooge and his reactions, but, bemused as he is, he stands mute among the people he has known and loved.

The dramatic highlight of the staging is the appearance of the Ghost of Christmas Future -- a tall, striking rod puppet -- but the excellent acting comes when Carpenter expresses Scrooge's joy that he is still alive on Christmas Day. Carpenter's performance is self-effacing; he acts with forced joy as though being happy is unfamiliar to him. He is awkward and stilted in his newly found magnanimity, but his infectious emotionalism projects loudly and clearly throughout the house, even when confronted by the particulars of Scrooge's death.

Scrooge lives, and brightens everybody's Christmas Day by unleashing his purse strings. The moral of Dickens' tale is timelessly relevant, and ACT's rendering of it succinctly and beautifully depicts the enlightenment of a miser.

A Christmas Carol continues through December 27 at American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary Street,San Francisco. Tickets are available online at www.act-sf.org or by phone at 415.749.2228.

Please go to http://www.doctortheatresbliss.com for more detail.