March/April Theatre reviews

March/April Theatre Reviews

S.F. Follies Spoof and Glorify San Francisco' Past and Present

With a blast and a bang the Follies performers greet us with a lively
song and dance opening that grabs us from the start as we are invited
to revisit the past and present of one of America's most glorious
cities. As quickly we are back in the seventeen hundreds where a couple
of Spaniards are commanding two female native Indians who comprehend
nada. After the name Yerba Buena is changed to San Francisco a naked
gold miner adds another note of humor and scandal as he appears holding
his mining plate in front of his parts to spoof the days of the Gold
Rush. An attractive Victorian female ventriloquist carrying a baby who
talks like an adult captivates our attention. The days of the Barbary
Coast, alive with crime and prostitution, are vividly depicted. In the
late eighteen hundreds the cable cars climb the hills of San Francisco.
In 1906 the earthquake is portrayed as demolishing a good part of the
city, rapidly rebuilt and followed by the 1920ties stock market clash.
As we move further into the twentieth century we are offered amusing
caricatures of the Beatnik writers of the 1950ties and Patty Hearst in
the 1960ties. Next we see cartoon sketches of such notables as movie
critic Jan Wahl who appears looking like a robot puppet, Diane
Feinstein, George Moscone, Harvey Milk, Wendy Takuta, and an enticing 0D
Mayor Newsom. There are vivid portrayals of the city's favorite spots
namely Telegraph Hill and its parrots, Fisherman's Wharf, Golden Gate
Park, City Hall, Davis Music Hall, the Tenderloin homeless, Bart and
more. To end this rapid overview of the history and present of San
Francisco a number of video projections offer a sentimental look at
some of the city's finest stores of last century such as The City of
Paris and Blum's along with Christmas adorning the city's streets.
The singers/actors/dancers of this fifteen member cast are alive,
energetic and they give their all in this brilliantly developed satire.
Sets under the sharp eagle eye of John Bisceglie (Author, Director,
Producer and Costume/Set Designer) are visually appealing and costumes
extravagantly stunning to convey the glittering Follies ambience.
The retrospect of San Francisco ends on a touching note as we watch
video projections of the landmarks that to those who are familiar with
the city can bring tears to their eyes.
This caricature of San Francisco is at once amusing and moving,
performed with glamour and humorous affection in an intimate ambience.
For information about an open-ended run on Thurs, Fri, Sat at 8 p.m.
and and Sun. matinees until April 26 at the Actor's Theatre on 855 Bush
Street (and possibly at another S F venue later) visit
www.sffollies.com; email SFFollies@gmail.com.

Crime and Punishment, A Tour de Force at
Berkeley Rep

Do you believe in Lazarus rising from the dead? And do you believe in
God?" are the lines at the beginning, during and at the end of this
adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel. The theme centers on the existence of
God in man and whether the latter can
overcome his sins through suffering that leads to forgiveness. It
begins with the interrogation of the inspector that consists of
questions to the hero that he cleverly strategizes to lead to a
confession. This high-powered drama is interspersed with scenes in
retrospect demonstrating the hero's encounters with his victims and
with Sonia who has engaged in prostitution to support her drunken
father. The main conflict is between Raskolnikov 's struggle with his
soul to live with his murders or to relieve his conscience by
confessing. He believes he can vanquish his feelings of guilt until
Sonia, to whom he unburdens his deeds, plays a role
in the play's denouement.
Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus' adaptation astutely captures the
basic theme and dramatic conflict within the main character and
provides the retrospective scenes that lead to the murders and the
hero's reactions to them.
Directed by Obie Awardee Sharon Ott and former artistic director of
Berkeley Rep, the direction of the play and the acting is expertly
assumed with the use of a three- member cast in which two play several
roles. Tyler Pierce renders=2
0justice to the in- depth psychological
torment of Raskolnikov in which he is torn between his ego's self
assurance and the need to humbly submit to a confession.
J.R. Horne plays a convincing inspector and drunken father. Delia
MacDougall offers a compassionate Sonia and three other female
character roles.
Sets with revolving doors for set changes are created by Christopher
Barreca and costumes evoking the characters' impoverishment are by
Lydia Tanji
Berkeley Rep's tour de force adaptation and staging of the Russian
author's masterpiece plays until March 29. For info call 510-647-2949
or berkeleyrep.org.

Machinal, An Apropos Choice for Brava

The title of Sophie Treadwell's 1928 Machinal, derived from French
meaning mechanical or involuntary, is based on the true life story of
murderess Ruth Snyder who followed all the conventions of the women of
her day at home, at the office, in marriage, obeying her spouse and
raising a child. But obeying her mother, boss, and husband eventually
led to her revolt and liberation through her love for a younger man who
motivated her to commit a crime to obtain her freedom.
The theme of Machinal is well brought out by stage director Evren
Odcikin in his staging, especially visually in the beginning and end
scenes where he has his actors moving rigidly like robots and speaking
in mechanical rhythms. Odcikin's use of the expressionistic style is
also
found in such plays of the same period such as Elmer Rice's Adding
Machine (1923) and Eugene O'Neill's Hairy Ape (1920. In literature and
the theatre Expressionism distorted reality to allow the author's
subjective feelings and emotions, often subconscious, to manifest
themselves. In this production the expressionistic elements are used to
satirize the conventionality of the era without depreciating the
emotional and human aspect of the main character in particular.
If the expressionist style provides absurd effects that provide
laughter, there are also moments that move the spectator for the
heroine's demise.
The actors synchronize their movements and voices with precision in an
ensemble that resembles a choric work. Juliet Tanner in the lead role
creates a sensitive, troubled
heroine. Linda Ayres Frederick moves masterfully and with ease from the
role of the Mother, to a low class woman and to a high-class lady in a
café, to a journalist and other characters. The remainder of the seven
character cast (Madeline H.D. Brown, Matthew M. Chavez, Lawrence
Radecker, Randy Rollison, and Christopher W. White) render their
multiple roles well.
Sophie Treadwell's Machinal is an apropos choice for Brava's mission to
explore feminism and ignite social change through a creative,
meaningful, and pertinent staging.
Machinal plays until March 21. For information about this or upcoming
productions at Brava visit www.
brava.org.

Jump Theatre Presents Innovative "Cuckoo"

"Cuckoo" tells Madison Clell's true story of living with multiple
personalities and surviving to tell the tale. Adapted by Madison Clell
from her 2002 graphic novel of the same name, "Cuckoo" recounts Clell's
own struggle with, and eventual recovery from, Dissociative Identity
Disorder (once known as Multiple Personality Disorder).
"Cuckoo" chronicles the true adventures of Adriene played by Madison
Clell herself, and her many personalities. Nine actors portray
pre-integration parts of Madison. These many personalities battle her
patient and understanding boyfriend (portrayed by Matthew Lowe). They
also play havoc with her therapist (played with a perfect German accent
by Carole Robinson).
With a stage design inspired by Clell's evocative pen-and-ink drawings
and sharp humor that perseveres through harrowing memories of childhood
trauma, "Cuckoo" is directed in a fast pace by Rebecca Longworth with
animation design also by Rebecca Longworth. The scenes in the car
passing scenery were especially effective.
"Cuckoo" is very innovative as it combines live actors with a cartoon
video with expert timing. I strongly recommend "Cuckoo"'s high energy
ensemble that includes Madison Clell herself in the lead role.
Congratulations to the Jump Theatre, under the artistic direction of
Nena St. Louis, which for 4 years has been telling true stories of
mental illness and has 5 productions in its repertoire.=0
D
For future info on Jump Theatre productions, visit
www.brownpapertickets.com/event/48805 or call 1-800-838-3006.
Flora Lynn Isaacson

Northern California Premiere of "Waitin' 2 End Hell" at Lorraine
Hansberry Theatre

"Waitin' 2 End Hell" explores both the hilarious and tragic shifting
dynamics in a contemporary marriage. The play begins when a group of
friends gather together to celebrate Dante and Diane Jones's 20th
anniversary.
In honor of Black History Month, it is important for playwright William
Parker,that Dante and Diane, no matter what their problems, appear as
"among the upwardly mobile African Americans who were born in the
sixties and have clung to their blackness." The characters in the play
work through struggles borrowing from black vernacular, the language of
the black church and contemporary black music.
Robert Broadfoot's set is open and expansive of the home of Dante and
Diane Jones.
This play, set in Sacramento, 2008, has its share of love, laughter and
good times but these themes emerge only in the context of a centrifugal
storm of confrontations related to money, sex and power.
For information about future Lorraine Hansberry productions visit
www.lhtsf.org.
Flora Lynn Isaacson

Berkeley's Rep's 50th World Premiere "In the Next Room" (or the
Vibrator Play).

Playwright Sarah Ruhl and Director Les Waters reunite at Berkeley Rep
to produce "In the Next Room" (or the Vibrat
or Play) that takes place
in late 19th century America when middle class morality held that women
didn't enjoy sex and a wide range of "female problems" were classified
as "hysteria." The doctors in this period treated this malady with the
invention of the electric vibrator around 1878.
As the title suggests, the play is set in two rooms that are seen on
the theatre's larger Roda Theatre, the living room of a doctor's house
and the receiving room next door where he sees patients for their
vibrator treatments for hysteria, and the action is taking place in
both rooms simultaneously.
Maria Dizzia, who makes such a luminous impression as "Eurydice," also
created by Sarah Rahl and Les Waters in 2004, plays Sabrina, a nervous
child-like woman who shrinks from light and cold and touch. Her
husband (John Leonard Thompson) takes her to Dr. Givings (Paul
Niebanck) to put the bloom back in his cheeks.
Meanwhile, next door, Anne Smart's set captures the prissi-ness
and confinement of the parlour where women's bodies were hidden under
so many layers of taffeta and fear. Givings wife, Catherine (Hannah
Cabell) is growing more curious about the sounds emanating from her
husband's office. Catherine's quest is the engine of the story.
Cabell seethes with a growing frustration, led not only by her
husband's detachment but also by fears that her new baby is bonding
with her nurse (beautifully portrayed by Melle Powers). She20begins to
bristle at the limitations on women, expertly established as much by
David Zinnn's corseted and multilayered costumes as by the patriarchal
attitudes of Givings and Sabrina's husband. Sexual possibilities
suggest themselves in the compassionate painter visiting from Europe
(Joaquin Torres) who has come to Dr. Givings for treatments.
Les Waters' sensitive staging accentuates Sarah Ruhl's enticing blend
of irreverent humor and skewed relations.
For Berkeley Rep's upcoming "Lieutenant of Inishmore" by Martin
McDonagh April 17 to May 17, visit www.berkeleyrep.org.
.Flora Lynn Isaacson

John Guare's "Landscape of the Body"-Landscape of a Playwright

In John Guare's fertile visions, he comes up with the important
questions of life--how easy is it to lose everything? How do people
face the idea that nothing is permanent, including happiness? And if
everything we love in the world is taken from us, how do we start over?
When happiness is taken away, we must reclaim it with the same vigor
we had when we first attained it. The idea that one person can lose
everything and remain defiant is the essence of "Landscape of the Body"
which opened at the SF Playhouse on January 31, 2009.responsible for
the
grisly murder of her 14 year old son ends where it began with Betty
taking all the information she's assimilated over the years and tossing
it piece by scribbled piece into the sea.20 "My life," she concludes,
"is a triumph of all the things I don't know."
As directed by Bill English (who also did a superb set of the Nantucket
ferry) with equal measures of sensationalism and sensitivity, "The
Landscape of the Body" identifies the human condition as an almost
unbearable longing. Rana Kangas-Kent is a funny stand up performer who
cracks joke like a Catskills comic, dances like a vaudevillian trooper
and sings like an earthly angel. Suzi Danmilano in the central role of
Betty is believable and moving. Andrew Hurteau is effervescent as
Holahan, an erratic oddball cop. The beauty of John Guare is that,
under his inventive plot twists and quirky characters, one finds truth.
For tickets or more information about the Playhouse's upcoming "The
Story"by Tracey Scott Wilson, a riveting drama about race and
reporting, visit www.sfplayhouse.org
Flora Lynn Isaacson

Watch For Bay Area and Dominican Players' Twenty-Third Fringe Festival
of New One-Acts & Solos for Theatre Critics Award.
For its 23rd season new short one-acts and solos by Bay Area
playwrights, directors and actors will be performed to vie for Bay Area
Theatre Critics Best Play, Actors and Directors awards. Recently
granted a Special Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award, the festival
will take place in Meadowlands Assembly Hall Theatre at Dominican
University of California, 50 Acacia Ave, San Rafael, from April 17 to
May=2
03, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., plus a
2 p.m. show on Sat. May 2nd. The festival features premieres of
one-acts and monologues ranging from light comedy, a spoof on sex in
the jungle of Peru, pre-nups, friendship, sex abuse, and social issues
to an original pantomime satirizing modern technology. Admission
$14-16: seniors and students $10; children $5. For reservations and
information (415) 673-3131 or Jeanlust@aol.com