Eryka Fraczek reviews

The First Grade

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:21:00 +0000

Sam Shepard brought the dysfunctional American family into clear view with intriguing stories of incest, sibling and parental rivalry and itinerant poverty that revealed a cultural underbelly seldom shown. Aurora Theatre Company’s production of Joel Drake Johnson’s The First Grade treads very lightly in Shepard’s footsteps and more along the lines of a television sitcom. As one of last season’s finalists of Aurora’s Global Age Project, it is not surprising to find the promising work still in need of dramatic development, unless sitcom is, in fact, the intent.

The lights come up on Nina Ball’s elementary school classroom, where Sydney (Julia Brothers) is teaching the first grade. Brothers’ portrayal of a first grade teacher is priceless as she imparts the difference between kindergarten and first grade levels to her students, providing them with an early example in the study of “class”. The scene soon shifts to her physical therapist, Mora’s (Tina Sanchez) office, where Sydney is an uptight physical and emotional wreck, unable to relax or to trust. As she finally starts to loosen up, she spills out her family situation, in all its dysfunctional splendor, within her maternal way of bonding. In response, Mora confides that she is separated from her husband. Sydney sees a possible call for help and flies to the rescue, insisting that Mora take her address and telephone number “just in case”.

Back on the domestic front, we encounter Sydney’s alcoholic ex-husband, Nat (Warren David Keith), who continues to reside at the home until it is sold, along with Sydney’s daughter, Angie (Rebecca Schweitzer), who is back home with her three-year-old son while her marriage is on the rocks. Keith is irresistibly authentic his paternal, spousal and alcoholic views of the situation. Schweitzer effectively brings to life the resentful indulgence of a daughter still living in adolescent entitlement. The humor of their observations is the rich humor only misfits find.

As one would expect in a formulaic sitcom, Mora appears at 2:30 in the morning with husband Jamie (Adrian Anchondo) and father-in-law Rick (John Santiago) in pursuit. Crisis after crisis is hurled forward in rapid fire sequence, leaving little, if any, time for the effect of any of these crises to be seen, felt or understood. We are left with a satirical, and superficial, ride through a dysfunctional Disneyland in the Chicago suburbs.

Directed by Tom Ross, the cast is a heavyweight assembly of talent that delivers as much credible dysfunction as can be gleaned from the story within its approximately 90 uninterrupted minutes. Nina Ball’s sets are effective and appealing and Cassandra Carpenter’s costumes appropriate. The full circle closing scene completes Johnson’s tidy outline, the enumerated points of which are as apparent as his crises.

The First Grade plays Tuesday at 7 pm, Wednesday through Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 2 pm and 7 pm through February 28 at the Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley. Tickets ($15 - $55) are available by telephone at 510-843-4822 or online at www.auroratheatre.org.

- Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

Doubt, A Parable

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:15:00 +0000

New Conservatory Theatre Center did well to present John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, A Parable. Directed by Ben Randle, the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play exposes the fundamental constraints of certainty within a larger framework of unassuming bigotry.

The uninterrupted 78-minute play takes place at the St. Nicholas Catholic Church and School in the Bronx, New York City, in 1964, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The lights come up on Mike Paul Fink’s appropriately austere room with only an altar, where Father Brendan Flynn (Andrew Nance) is preparing to don his robe in reverence before his sermon. He turns to the audience and speaks eloquently of the loneliness and burden a secret can be to man. He refers to the presidential assassination in a disarming Bronx accent that recalls the former president, and then moves on to the crisis of faith, stating “doubt can be a bond as powerful as certainty”.

We enter the next scene with Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Scarlett Hepworth), the principal of the school, at her desk where the altar previously stood. The room is furnished sparsely, with only a couple of chairs before the desk, a tea set behind it, and two large journals atop it, into one of which she writes. Sister James (Roselyn Hallett), an apparent newcomer to the school, enters to dutifully and subserviently report to the principal as she had been ordered to do. The subject of the conversation surrounds the strange behavior of one of Sister James’ young male students, the only black student in the school, after he had been at the rectory with Father Flynn.

Hepworth’s Sister Aloysius is extraordinarily astringent, unflinchingly strict and unreasonably harsh, all the qualities one would expect of a Catholic nun in a position of power at that time, though her well written dialogue was barely audible through much of the play. Hallett’s Sister James was appropriately cowed and insecure, as a young nun might be upon arriving at her first parochial school. Nance’s Father Flynn is a steady male presence amid the women. As the dialogue unfolds, Sister Aloysius decides that Father Flynn may have had inappropriate contact with the young boy, though that is largely her determination and hers alone. She summons the boy’s mother, Mrs. Muller (Pamela Smith) and, though learning of the boy’s troubled home life, she nonetheless brandishes her authority, taunting the mother over the unproven incident, no doubt because she can. Smith’s Muller exposes to the audience words it longs to hear in an adroitly spoken, steadfast defiance.

Shanley’s writing is rich, compelling and loaded with truths. The stakes are high for Father Flynn and others. Doubt, A Parable is a powerful condensation of an extremely intense situation where belief, truth and duty are challenged. There are no easy answers.

Doubt, A Parable plays Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. through February 28 at New Conservatory Theatre Center’s Walker Theatre, 25 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. Tickets ($22 - $40) are available by telephone at 415-861-8972 or online at www.nctcsf.org.

Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

A Remarkable Red Light Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:49:00 +0000

Custom Made Theatre Company’s production of Adam Rapp’s Red Light Winter is a spellbinding and haunting masterpiece. The story of two young American men, a successful white publisher and his disheveled black buddy, an aspiring playwright, and the prostitute they engage, explores the toxic shadows of generosity, friendship and love emerging from the triangle.

It’s winter in Amsterdam as the lights come up on Marci Ring’s bargain hotel room, two unmade beds sitting catty-corner from one another, a window behind one from which a red light dimly shines through yellow gauze curtains. A desk and chair are downstage right, where Matt (Daveed Briggs) sits at his laptop in a state of anguish. Grappling with his torment, he takes the belt from his pants and pulls it around his neck. He attaches the belt to a coat rack on the wall and slumps, only to break the knob off the coat rack, when his well manicured, Type A friend Davis (Steve Budd) barges into the room, a bundle of off color jokes, loud gestures and relentless optimism. Davis has brought a prostitute, Christina (Brittany K. McGregor), to take the edge off Matt’s emotional and physical mayhem.

As the dialogue continues, the competition between Matt and Davis devolves below a healthy contempt in the name of sport, each exposing the most repulsive features he can find of the other to their mysterious French companion, who provocatively removes her top and nonchalantly displays her breasts as only a French woman working in the Red Light District can when changing into something more comfortable. Matt is a total basket case, emotionally frail, unable to focus steadily, but fully capable of brilliant and minute observations articulated by an expert wordsmith. By contrast, Davis is glossy, sharp and insidious, all the while playing Matt’s concerned benefactor.

Brilliantly directed by Brian Katz, the acting is seamless and riveting. Budd’s Davis is so perfectly poisonous it oozes from his pores, while Briggs’ Matt is such a mess it hurts to watch his eyes twitch. McGregor’s enigmatic Christina is another matter altogether. Her French mannerisms and accent appear so genuine I assumed the actor has a French surname. In fact, Christina turns out to be an American from the Midwest in yet another convincingly amazing twist that continues twisting as the story unfolds. Rapp’s dialogue is tight, his passionate monologues rapturous. When Christina finds Matt in New York the following year, Matt refers to his unforgettable experience with her as a “total uneventful blip of antimatter for you”, an apt example of his low esteem and articulate reflexes. It’s a very cold, very haunting winter in Amsterdam and New York, and the nudity is frontal.

Red Light Winter plays Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m. through February 20 (no Sunday show February 21) at The Next Stage (attached to Trinity Church), 1620 Gough Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($18-$28) may be obtained by telephone at 1-800-838-3006 or online at www.CustomMade.org.

Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

Patience, and Then Some

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:50:00 +0000

The Lamplighters Music Theatre’s presentation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience, directed by Jane Erwin Hammett, may require a little, depending upon your point of view. For Gilbert & Sullivan enthusiasts, it will no doubt be a frolic in the park, Patience being the longest running production by Gilbert & Sullivan first produced in the 19th century after moving to the Savoy Theatre in London, where it ran for 578 performances. As a comic opera, Patience became instantly popular for poking fun at the aesthetic movement that pervaded England at that time, and it later became a timeless classic for spoofing the logic of trend itself.

As the curtain rises, the neighborhood maidens are hopelessly in love with the aesthetic poet, Reginald Bunthorne (F. Lawrence Ewing), and it would appear, hopelessly in love with hopelessness, to the tune of Twenty Love-Sick Maidens We. Patience (Jennifer Ashworth), a simple milkmaid, appears, wondering what all the fuss is about. In fact, she’s rather thankful not to have loved if the doleful indulgence she witnesses is love. Reginald appears and displays his sensitivity and his literacy, along with the idiocy of the situation. For all the ladies swooning around him, his eye alights on the beauty of simplicity, the unaffected Patience. In a stolen moment of solitude, Reginald takes off his wig to reveal to the audience that he is a sham, stating “I’m not fond of uttering platitudes in stained-glass attitudes.” This glaringly universal truth runs through and through, applicable to a full gamut of trends, from high fashion to political correctness.

Reginald finds stiff competition when Archibald Grosvenor (Chris Uzelac), Patience’s childhood friend who has grown into a self-infatuated, idyllic poet whom the swooning ladies find even more enchanting, appears. Antics abound from all sides, from the Dragoon Guards previously engaged to the now swooning ladies, to the swooning ladies themselves, and, of course, to a poet or two.

Music Director and Conductor Baker Peeples leads the Lamplighters Orchestra brightly through Arthur Sullivan’s score. Ashworth’s vocal abilities are particularly strong. Though the production is no match for grand opera, the singing by cast members is admirable. The comic acting is delightful amid the starchy context of British propriety in the late 19th century. The Lady Angela (Cary Ann Rosko) and The Lady Jane (Katy Daniel) are especially engaging, as is Lieutenant the Duke of Dunstable (Jonathan Smucker).

The sets are elaborate and effectively convey the lavish sense of indulgence pervading the time, thanks to Peter Crompton’s scenic design. The costumes cleverly reflect both the richness and farce of the story. Particularly stunning at the end of the second act is Melissa Wortman’s “ordinary” attire after Bunthorne is discarded by his swooning ladies and Grosvenor renounces his status as a poet.

Patience plays Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. at Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek through January 31. Tickets ($11 - $48) are available by telephone at 925-943-7469 or online at www.lesherartscenter.org.

For more information about The Lamplighters, call 415-227-4797 or visit online at www.lamplighters.org.

Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

Women on the Way Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Artistic Director Mary Alice Fry continues her version of the San Francisco Fringe Festival, this year being the 10th anniversary of her annual Women on the Way Festival, which presents 19 different works by women in dance, theatre, and music at three separate venues in San Francisco.

I chanced upon Olivia Hallie Lehrman’s delightfully hilarious one-woman show as a French femme fatale secret agent, unexpectedly arriving late to the performance which was already underway. As I was getting settled in my seat, our diminutive secret agent, dressed in a short, white bouffant trench coat with black polka dots, red and white stilettos, red fishnets, a red beret and abundant cleavage, was making her rounds in the audience, speaking in an impeccably sassy French accent. When, in the row before me, she said “you can bring a horse to water but you can’t make him . . .”, I impulsively said “drink”. Oops Our secret agent looked up in amazement and asked my name. When I told her, she asked incredulously if I was Secret Agent Eryka, to which, I, of course, admitted. Little did I know I was about to become the object of her seductive wiles.

I am relieved to say I was not the only object of her attention in this delightful evening of spellbinding improv. As our secret agent pursues personal amorous objectives while on duty as a secret agent, her antics include acrobatics, dance, mime, song, and “virtuosity” on the piano and concertina, amid a deliciously deft and sly French wit. She is an exotic cat, properly drawn as a French cartoon.

Next on the menu was Theater of the Crackpot Crones, created and performed by Terry Baum and Carolyn Myers, a duo who have written, produced and performed theater for over thirty years together and separately. Sunday’s performance celebrated their first time on a stage together in 33 years. In the mid-70's Baum founded Lilith, a women’s theater in San Francisco named for Lilith of the Bible, Adam’s first wife who was cast out for refusing to be subservient.

The four pieces that followed, The Abecedarien, The Coming-Out Transformations, Improvisation and Eve in Therapy were intriguing, enlightening, comical and real, all of them utilizing Baum’s and Myers’ seasoned skills as a fine balm to stroke the skin of the audience. What little furniture appeared on stage was painted in brilliant colors and flecked patterns of bright red and electric turquoise, an unspoken counterpoint underlying the texture of the stories.

The Women on the Way Festival continues through January 31 at three venues in San Francisco: The Garage at 975 Howard Street, Shotwell Studious at 3252-A 19th Street, and ODC Dance Commons at 351 Shotwell Street, with most shows Thursday through Sunday at 8 p.m. For complete schedule and information, visit www.ftloose.org. Tickets may be obtained by telephone at 1-800-838-3006 and online at www.brownpapertickets.com. Reservations and information may be obtained by telephone at 415-289-2000.

- Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

Circus Finelli: Start the New Year Laughing

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:52:00 +0000

Instead of sunscreen, Vitamin D or a good, stiff drink, I recommend Circus Finelli’s Frau Bachfeifengesicht’s Spectacle of Perfection to counteract the post-holiday slump pervading the Bay Area. The all women extravaganza, directed by Michael Gene Sullivan, is an Alice in Wonderland experience of the purest order, a European circus on the outskirts of a city in the days of American Vaudeville.

The entrance to the theater is the first moment of enchantment. As you enter the red stairwell lined with holiday lights, you are met by an accordion player in a circus hat who sings to you in German. Unbeknownst to you, it is Frau Bachfeifengesicht (Luz Gaxiola) herself, the Mistress of Ceremonies for the spectacle to come, a spoof on Cirque du Soleil with real daredevil acts thrown in for good measure. At the bottom of the stairs, you arrive at an old ticket booth from the early days of the last century, where your transactions are completed.

Once inside and comfortably seated in the small theater, a clown in a red and white striped unitard, Pepito (Z Smith), hands you a program as only a clown can, tucking you in. The Mistress of Ceremonies makes the usual announcement regarding cell phones, cameras and candies in her heavy German accent. Before the lights dim, you notice a lady in a stylish hat (Verka Zaskodna) entering the theater, talking on her cell phone and carrying an abundance of shopping bags. She brings her own lounge chair from Macy’s and settles into it, all the while obliviously talking on her cell phone. Frau Bachfeifengesicht reappears, and after a stern reiteration, the show begins.

The first act is a slapstick take on the hula hoop spectacle that is disarmingly hilarious until the good Frau really delivers a hoop spectacle, playing a trombone in the process. Carmelita (Molly Shannon) follows as the world famous Spanish acrobat, displaying genuine acrobatic feats before our lady of the cell phone responds to an incoming call, obliviously trespassing over stage boundaries and dumping Carmelita into a barrel along the way.

Throughout the spectacle, performers play a variety of musical instruments, sing, and engage in slapstick comedy, dance, acrobatics and daredevil feats including knives. It’s funny and exciting. The comic timing is delightful. The off key sound effects (Mahsa Matin) carry a cartoon reality, and the orchestrated lighting (Ty McKenzie and Sid Silverman) brings an old fashioned circus into play. No matter what the situation, which are many, each performer delivers with admirable skill, including our lady of the cell phones. I found Pepito, the clown, especially endearing in her animal and human impersonations, my favorite being the goat.

Also known as the Slapstick Slavic Cabaret, it is companion to a family matinee suitable for all ages, yet the good natured humor of the adult fare is hardly x-rated. Circus Finelli plays Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. through January 24 at Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter Street (downstairs), San Francisco, California. Tickets may be obtained by telephone at 800-838-3006 or online at www.brownpapertickets.com. For more information, visit www.circusfinelli.com and www.stagewerx.org.

- Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

A Single Man

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:01:00 +0000

Tom Ford is a phenomenal man. Not only did he turn around a sinking Gucci fashion house to occupy its top echelons as a foremost fashion designer, his first foray as a film director is equally monumental. A Single Man, which Ford wrote and produced in his directorial debut, tells the story of George Falconer (in a spellbinding portrayal by Colin Firth), after the sudden death of his partner of 16 years, Jim (Matthew Goode). George is an affluent, middle-aged, gay British college professor living in southern California in the early 60's during the time of the Cuban missile crisis. The story is based on the Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name.

Ford approaches the film as a composer would approach the writing of a sonata. The pictorial presentation is lavish, yet defined by simplicity. The production design is created by the same team who created production sets in Mad Men, with corresponding 60's period costumes, make up and hairstyles. Precision is everywhere. We view in minute detail moments of the inescapable, publicly contained, anguish that envelopes George after Jim’s death. George’s long term friendship with his countrywoman and former lover, Charlotte (Julianne Moore), affectionately known as Charley, is the only vestige of their previous, separate lives in London. She remains one of the few people he can communicate with freely.

A Single Man is an extraordinary romantic tale of one man’s grief and his commitment to a life shared with his deceased lover. As he attempts to navigate through his now solitary days, George is fairly oblivious to pursuit by younger men, whether by his student Kenny (Nicholas Hoult) who persistently stalks him, or by Carlos (Jon Kortajarena), a young Spanish immigrant in a highly evocative cigarette smoking scene, or by his female friend Charley, an affluent divorcee with a fondness for alcohol who refuses to forget the potential they once had, though a part of him realizes what is going on. George simply doesn’t permit other engagements, no matter how much he aches for comfort. The density of George's emotional confinement is palpable throughout.

A Single Man is currently showing at the Embarcadero Cinema on Battery Street in San Francisco and at other movie theaters. It has been nominated for various awards at film festivals, including the Venice International Film Festival. Golden Globe nominations include Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress for Firth and Moore, respectively.

- Eryka M. Fraczek

Yes Sweet Can - A Delightful Ride

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:16:00 +0000

If you have neither the time nor the funds to see Cirque de Soleil this year, a delightfully satisfying experience at a much more reasonable rate is Yes Sweet Can, a production of Sweet Can Productions now playing at Dance Mission Theater in San Francisco. Directed by Wendy Parkman, who performed with the Pickle Family Circus, and Joanna Haigood, Artistic Director of Zaccho Dance Theatre, the one hour performance incorporates dance, theatre, live music, acrobatics and circus performances along the lines of Cirque de Soleil’s elaborate extravaganzas on a smaller scale and in a far more intimate, and viewable, setting.

The evening begins with a spare set that includes a white oblong coffee table, a red square stool at one end and a yellow round one at the other. A newspaper sits on each end of the table, while two additional stools of varying heights stand behind. A music section of keyboards and a synthesizer is upstage left behind a row of silver trash cans and hula hoops. The music is composed and performed by EO, who soon appears and begins playing a trumpet, with the synthesized sound of a rhythm section piping in under his trumpet tones.

Lights dim. Rain is heard, then thunder and a storm. Lights come up on four dancers peering through a window at the storm. One of the dancers sits on the yellow stool, grabs the newspaper and fashions a paper airplane, which she sets aloft. The others join and play around the table. A radio weather report is heard through the storm The window is hoisted up, and the storm is gone. Suddenly, a circus appears, with cartwheels and somersaults abounding, the table becoming a hurdle for roundoffs and other acrobatic stunts. Newspapers are abundant, flying everywhere, until some unfurl at one point, and the sign “Yes Sweet Can” is hung.

It being the real world, the performers begin sweeping away the newspapers littered on the floor after this ingenious introduction. We hear the distant sound of Frank Sinatra crooning Fly Me to the Moon as Matt White, the male performer, uses the broom as a microphone. The music grows clear and loud while Matt uses the broom as a twirling baton and Natasha Kaluza and EO replace Ol’ Blue Eyes’ tones with their own voices.

These are but openers to an evening that includes spellbinding performances by Beth Clarke, who walks, lounges on and dances the tightrope, Kerri Kresinski, who astounds in a breathtaking aireal dance, Natasha Kaluza, a super duper hula hooper, and Matt White, the balancing man. They are also but a few of the many remarkable feats performed over a one hour sojourn from the storm, which include tap dance, balancing acts, audience interaction and musical chairs. It’s eye popping and delightful for young and old alike.

Yes Sweet Can plays through January 3, 2010, at Dance Mission Theater, 3316 - 24th Street, San Francisco. Performance times vary. For information and tickets ($20), call 415-273-4633 or visit online at www.sweetcanproductions.com.

- Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

She Stoops to Comedy

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:57:00 +0000

SF Playhouse’s She Stoops to Comedy, written by David Greenspan and directed by Mark Rucker, is best summed up in the playwright’s own words as a “pseudo documentary about reality in the theater”. Greenspan playfully tackles Shakespeare and Beckett in his not so scrambled exposition of a work in progress. Along the way, he highlights a full spectrum of sexual relationships, gay, lesbian and heterosexual, similarly in progress, in a gender-bending translation of Shakespearean cross-dressing and existential isolation.

This interior of an interior drama takes us into the writer’s development of the play, where we witness sporadic character and plot changes with each keystroke, leading us into a hairball, it would seem. In fact, these seemingly sporadic changes layer the work with a cohesive synchronicity, as piano keys being stroked or dominoes falling. Despite the shifting times, Greenspan’s world is a linear world. It’s also a real world, prismatic as it is, reflecting the human condition

Bill English’s set opens onto a large bed center stage, opulent in purple, on a black stage. The right wing off stage is open and is Alexandra Page’s (Liam Vincent) dressing room. Alexandra is a lesbian actress who has just broken up with Alison Rose (Sally Clawson), also an actress. Alexandra has decided to audition for the part of Orlando in As You Like It to secretly play across Alison and has gone into serious reverse drag mode to get the part. The lights come up on Alexandra lamenting her breakup and exposing her plot to her friend Kay Fein (Amy Resnick), a lesbian buddy who just returned from an archeological expedition.

Alexandra arrives at the audition with filmmaker Hal Stewart (Cole Alexander Smith) and his assistant Eve Addaman (Carly Cioffi). Other members of the entourage and cast include Simon Lanquish (Scott Capurro), Alison and Jayne Summerhouse (Amy Resnick). Through the constant shifting of details, the relationships between Alexandra (in drag) and Alison, Kay and Jayne, Alexandra (in drag) and Simon, and Hal and Eve unfold. The implications of marriage in all its varying forms are carefully dissected, redrawn and repositioned in what outwardly appears to be a disjointed comedic farce in which reality lurks heavy.

The actors are exceptional in their double-bodied ranges, from Liam Vincent’s portrayal of a lesbian in drag, to Sally Clawson’s attraction to a heterosexual, to Scott Capurro’s gay pick up of Alexandra (in drag) to Amy Resnick’s dual relationship with herself as Kay Fein and Jayne Summerhouse, to the ongoing heterosexual affair between Hal and Eve. Greenspan’s monologues for Simon and Kay bring spellbinding tour de force performances by Capurro, reflecting on the fundamental insecurity of his homosexuality, and Resnick, in her separate portrayals of herself, sexually relishing a good fight.

She Stoops to Comedy plays Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m., Tuesday at 7 p.m., and Saturday at 3 p.m. through January 9, 2010, at SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter Street (upstairs), San Francisco. Tickets are available by telephone at (415) 677-9596 and online at www.sfplayhouse.org.

Santaland Diaries: A Christmas Treat

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:00:00 +0000

The eighth annual production of David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries, adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello and presented by Combined Artform and Beck-n-Call, is a refreshing, candy-coated slice of joy in these gloomy days of recessionary reflexes. The 90-minute monologue, directed by Lux Obscura (sounds like we have an elf prank here), tells the story of how David, deliciously brought to life by David Sinaiko, finds himself as Crumpet the Elf at Macy’s in Manhattan.

The audience is met with a spare black stage consisting of a black box at center stage, another box at stage left, and a highback chair downstage right draped in a blue cloth. We find David sitting in a coffee shop, reading the newspaper and chuckling to himself over a want ad for an elf to work at Macy’s during the holidays. David is a wise guy and wonders who in his right mind would ever take such a ridiculous job. When David reaches into his pocket to pay for his coffee, he remembers he’s unemployed and decides, coyly to himself, that maybe he should think about this idiotic job a little more. When his roommate dares him to apply for it, there’s no turning back.

One can only guess that at some point in Sedaris’ life, he did indeed find himself working as an elf at Macy’s in Manhattan, judging from his minute observations of the job and the people occupying Santaland, an elaborate fantasy land where Macy’s hosts Santa for three weeks before Christmas. Sinaiko is hilarious as we watch David attempt to fit into corporate elfdom from his sardonic perspective.

Together, Sedaris and Sinaiko take us through the universes of Christmas as we think it should be and Christmas as it is, each one taking our hand and leading us to the holiday mirror. We experience the reality of retail, the unblemished awe of children, their tantrums, their bossy and exasperated parents, flaky elves, bitter elves with higher aspirations, deluded Santas, clever Santas, obnoxious Santas, and, of course, the monolith of Macy’s management, piped in through the voice of Veronica Klaus. The artifice of money is everywhere.

Sinaiko divinely slips into each persona and out again into David, who remains stuck swallowing his contempt to make ends meet. With all the demands on elves at Macy’s, the lines between David and Crumpet begin to blur. By the time Christmas approaches, Santaland is real.

Santaland Diaries leaves you with the warm, tingly mirth of a six-year old child who just sat on Santa’s knee. It’s well worth experiencing.

Santaland Diaries plays through December 30 at Off-Market Theater, 965 Mission Street, San Francisco. Show times are 8 p.m. and 10 p.m, with matinees at 3 p.m. See box office website (www.brownpapertickets.com/event/89315) or call 800-838-3006 for specific times as the schedule varies.

- Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

Loretta Divine Live!

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:06:00 +0000

A Broadway actor and singer for years, Loretta Divine recently decided to take her show on the road, and it’s a show to see. Her nightclub debut in San Francisco took place on Thanksgiving weekend, running Friday through Sunday at the Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko. Television audiences know her as Adele, the chief’s wife on Grey’s Anatomy, and for her role on Eli Stone. On the big screen, she has appeared in a number of award winning films, including Crash and Dreamgirls.

The evening began with her grand entrance in a bright red top over a sequined gray and red dress and an exceedingly up tempo I Believe in Love sung in a high soprano that seemed a bit pushed rhythmically. She introduced the members of her three-piece band, piano, drums and bass, and said “We just met this mornin’, but we’re pullin’ this off!” Well, that explained it. And she was right. By the time she sang Just the Two of Us, the third tune of the evening, they had cruised to a soft landing.

In a tune embracing lonely nights in familiar words for San Francisco - where have they gone, all the great lovers, and why did they take my dreams along with them - she filled the air with melancholy desperation from one of her own compositions. Another of her compositions, Panties and Pearls, lighter and bawdier, started as a recitation with the canter of It Was the Night Before Christmas, though the subject matter was much closer to soft porn than to stockings hanging from a fireplace. It was but a prelude to the bittersweet ballad to follow.

As the evening became toasty, the rhythms of blues, gospel and just a touch of sweet jazz permeated the air, starting off with My Sweet Home Cookin’ Man, a down home tune to bump the blues home. Billie Holiday hovered in Divine’s Hush Now, Don’t Explain, the pain flowing tenderly from her lips until a delicious piano interlude intervened.

Loretta Divine is funny and engaging, with stories galore when she isn’t crooning. After the cabaret love songs, the gospel, blues and jazz, it was time to be current, to say something today’s generation would understand. So with all due respect, she belted out I’ll Bust the Window Out of Your Car, a modern day love song sporting lyrics from the current generation: I ain’t sorry. You deserved it. You broke my heart.

Loretta Divine brings with her a wealth of talent too big to articulate. Her history on Broadway, working with the likes of Bob Fosse and others, and her numerous roles on stage, screen and television inform her musical presence. She’s a bundle of joy to experience and is well worth seeing.

- Eryka M. Fraczek

Precious - A Hard Knock and Then Some

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:59:00 +0000

All of the Oscar buzz about this movie is well aimed. Adapted by Geoffrey Fletcher from the novel Push by Sapphire, Precious tells the hard hitting story of an obese Harlem teenager, pregnant with a second child by her father, living with an abusive mother who collects welfare on the first child of incest. Directed by Daniel Lee, who directed Monster Ball some years earlier, Precious makes a very powerful point. It’s a woman’s world. Virtually all of the primary characters in the movie are women, disadvantaged women, abusive and abused women, young women, women holding the life line, all of them women of color to some degree. The only featured male is a maternity nurse, played by Lenny Kravitz.

Not only is the story a powerful look at the underbelly of ghetto life, the performances are spellbinding. Gabourey Sedibi, as Clarise Precious Jones, is the embodiment of hopelessness in the ghetto, holding a minimal grasp of the education available to her within the cesspool of abuse surrounding her. She escapes the self loathing clutching her by retreating into fantasy to a world at the opposite end of the spectrum. Her mother, in a wrenching performance by Mo’nique, throws all the rage from years of rejection by her boyfriend at Precious, who, as an unwitting rival, ignites her mother’s resentment constantly.

When Precious is discharged from her school as the result of her pregnancy, she is pointed to Each One Teach One, an alternative school for those needing to retain access to literacy. Her teenage female classmates include, among others, a Jamaican illegal immigrant, a Latino mother who talks the ghetto tongue as fluently as any of its black residents and a slick, yet sweet, black girl in the music industry. They’re hot tempered, they’re sassy and they’re hard. When Precious unexpectedly gives birth to her baby, they hang out at the hospital with her, teasing the male nurse as only these teenagers can.

Holding the life line at Each One Teach One is Ms. Rain, a teacher, played by Paula Patton, who is the crowbar in these girls’ lives that moves them forward when no other options are at hand. She is literate, sensitive and caring, strong enough to take on students like these and, as we learn later, lesbian. At the welfare office sits Mariah Carey as the caseworker in a no-nonsense depiction of the hand that gives in that part of town.

Precious is a beautiful movie not only for the story it tells, but also for the empowerment it showers on the disenfranchised as a mainstream film. These people are acknowledged not as a problem or a demographic, but as people, the women of color to whatever degree, ghetto dwellers, abused and abusers, welfare recipients, unwed mothers, obese, lesbian, illiterate, the unsung life lines working within the system, all alongside a solitary, nurturing male in a splendid role reversal. This is a beautiful movie that lingers.

- Eryka M. Fraczek

Beautiful Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:44:00 +0000

New Conservatory Theatre Center’s ten-year anniversary production of its West Coast Stage premiere of Beautiful Thing celebrates the timelessness of a love story set in working class London in the early 90's. Written by Jonathan Harvey, Beautiful Thing was first produced in London in 1993. It received its U.S. stage premiere in Chicago in early 1998 and later that year opened at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco. Judging from the sold out performance I attended, this production may be a reprisal of its earlier success.

Directed by Andrew Nance, who played Jamie in the original performance, the play largely takes place on the landing of a South London housing project, where Jamie (Ben Carver) and his mother Sandra (Gigi Benson) live alongside Ste (Brant Rotnem) and his abusive father and next door to Leah (Shubhra Prakash), the modern version of a British tart. Opening onto the landing are three red doors, one for each apartment. A basket of pink carnations hangs between Ste’s and Jamie’s apartments. A folding laundry rack sits next to Ste’s stage left. Downstage, below the landing, are two white chairs.

As the lights come up, Jamie is sitting on the stoop, having left school early. Leah sees him and plies him with her fanatic worship of the dead Mama Cass. Sandra appears in leggings and a pullover top on her way out. Ste arrives home after soccer at school, which Jamie had fled. Jamie is 15, difficult and conflicted, afraid to participate in sports at school, yet combative toward his mother. Sandra works at a pub and behaves accordingly. She’s caught Tony’s (Cory Tallman) eye, a local artist who, at 27, is many years her junior. Sandra’s saucy banter and her ribald attraction to Tony bring the party to an otherwise languid scene dominated by Jamie’s adolescent angst, Leah’s obnoxious demands for attention and Ste’s familial misfortunes.

Act One of the play is largely exposition, leaving the bare bones acting skills of a few cast members exposed to harsh light. The working class British accents, though laudably employed and well mastered, make understanding the dialogue difficult. With the exception of her drug overdose, which is rich, Prakash’s over the top rendition of Leah’s adolescent state is too pushed for comfort. The boys, Jamie and Ste, are very tortured in their awareness of their budding sexuality and their attraction for one another. The bedroom scenes, played downstage below the landing, are just audible, leaving the audience as tortured as the boys. Benson’s Sandra is the driving force of the play. Engaging, witty, compassionate and pragmatic, her situation is completely credible. She shines the light on the party for all to see. Tallman’s Tony is no slouch either.

Act Two of the play, which holds the action, comes together nicely and is worth the wait. Not only has the story grown full, the women’s relationship juxtaposed to the boys’ relationship provides an interesting backdrop to Jamie’s accidental coming out and the weight it bears.

Beautiful Thing plays Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through January 3, 2010, at New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. Tickets range from $22 - $40 and are available at the NCTC Box Office at 415-861-8972 or online at www.nctcsf.org.

Rabbi Sam: Eternity is Now

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:57:00 +0000

It takes Charlie Varon and the dead founder of a Jewish congregation’s wife to create an unstoppable religious reality in Varon’s Rabbi Sam, written and performed by Varon and developed and directed by David Ford, with music composed by Bruce Barth. Over the course of two hours and ten minutes, Varon inhabits 12 characters, including Rabbi Sam Isaac, a former New York tax attorney who recently lost his wife, his ten-year old son, Noah, and various Board members of Congregation B’nai Am, a sleepy Jewish congregation in Semanitas, California. Varon’s monologue, steeped in humor and bound to religious philosophy, is so engaging it’s easy to overlook the tremendous depth of talent that brings his world to our feet.

A frenzied squall of jazz pierces the air as the lights come up on a small, round stand beside a straight-backed chair, where Varon sits as Bob Lew, president and chairman of the congregation’s Board, discussing the less than desirable circumstances of Rabbi Sam’s tenure. Rabbi Sam is a different sort of rabbi, a bit of a misfit, young, passionate about Judaism and tied to his calling. The plot thickens as each of the characters evolve and loyalties are forged. With clever, sophisticated strategies and the political savvy of a tax lawyer, Rabbi Sam stops at nothing to gain permanent status in the Congregation, from where he can promote the resurgence of Judaism as a meaningful religious identity rather than to complacently mind the dying tradition it has become at B’nai Am, where the average age of congregation members is 60.

A few members of the Board, headed by Jerry Gomberg, realize that getting rid of the new rabbi is their only option to restore integrity to the congregation. Jerry calls Sarah Schimmel, the widow of Steve Schimmel, founder of Congregation B’Nai Am, to a secret meeting of Board members, but not before Rabbi Sam has insinuated himself into her home. For all of Rabbi Sam’s impassioned, gut-wrenching sermons, which are complete masterpieces, the truth is nowhere nearer at hand than when he is confronted by Sarah, a resolute atheist who generously tolerated and supported her late husband’s religious devotion but by no means shared it. She observes Rabbi Sam’s role in his marriage and family and pointedly advises him to “apologize to your dead wife”. The lady is blunt and has no use for euphemism, religious or otherwise.

Varon’s characters are familiar and deliciously real, from the elderly, wise Auschwitz survivor to the surgically disabled Myron who cannot arrive at a complete word, much less a decisive statement. When Rabbi Sam’s volatile religiosity merges into simple human dynamics, the eternity of his parables is fundamentally realized. Rabbi Sam is a gripping and entertaining experience that should not be missed.

Rabbi Sam plays through December 12 at The Marsh, 1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco. Tickets and times may be obtained by telephone at 800-838-3006 and online at themarsh.org.

- Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

A Body of Water, and a Rubik Cube

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:16:00 +0000

Spare Stage’s production of Lee Blessing’s A Body of Water, directed by Steven Drewes, examines the nature of personal identity as defined by memory and the extent to which we choose what we remember, and in doing so, choose our identity.

Before the lights dim, the sound of birds chirping loudly fills the air. As the lights come up, a middle-aged man (James Allen Brewer) walks into a well appointed living room, wearing a silk robe, coffee cup in hand. Soon a woman (Holly Silk) of similar age, also wearing a robe, joins him. They look out the window through the trees at a large body of water that appears to encircle the house. It becomes apparent that neither of them remember who they are or what they are doing there.

Although they have no recollection of their own identities, they have ample recollection of society, modern technology and some of their personal history to pose a variety of circumstances that could reasonably apply to them, including the likelihood they are husband and wife. Their disagreements over their scenarios are, indeed, the type of disagreements typically heard between husband and wife. When a young woman (Halsey Varady) appears who apparently knows them, a new wrench is thrown into the works.

The characters themselves, with the exception of the young woman, Wren, are relatively simple and complacent people, almost cartoon caricatures in their simplicity. They enjoy their oblivion, it appears, being content to make do with what they have rather than to challenge their awareness. Moss, the man, likes to spin yarns for himself and displays a suspicious nature, while Avis, the woman, is socially engaging. Wren, who has no problems with her recollection, tolerates their meandering when not toying with them because she can.

Though an interesting examination, the play as written does not veer from the path of cerebral exercise sufficiently to create a dramatic world driven by human instinct or passion. It’s a story of pretense, of truth, and the variable nature of both, slightly existential, yet too comfortable for an existential reality to prevail, in which event, the characters’ plight would be defined. For the actor, assuming the role of Moss or Avis would appear to be a challenge, given that no resolution is in sight and no objective is readily at hand. All of the actors portrayed their characters competently, though little ground appeared for them to excel.

A Body of Water appears to be incomplete, presently resembling a Rubik cube, puzzling and demanding, but not terribly vital.

A Body of Water plays Friday through Sunday through November 22 at the EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco. For tickets and show times, visit online at www.sparestage.com.

- Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:08:00 +0000

Actors Theatre of San Francisco’s production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, directed by Keith Phillips, is outstanding, exquisitely crafted and well worth seeing. It has been said that Albee was never satisfied with productions of his work and preferred not to view them, having observed actors fail to achieve what he had written. Achieving what the master playwright had written is indeed a challenge for the actor and the director alike. This production would more likely reassure than disappoint him.

Actors Theatre is aging like a very fine wine. Since the company moved to its new venue on Bush Street in 2006, multiple transformations have occurred, each one bringing a warmer and finer tone to the location than the last. The ambient quality of the theater is similar to a European café, comfortable, literate and tasteful.

Songs of Billie Holiday linger in the air prior to the show and during intermissions. The lights come up on George and Martha’s sedate living room in New Carthage. A rich leather couch occupies center stage, with a companion armchair downstage right. A pendulum clock sits against an upstage wall near the door. James Baldock’s, Biz Duncan’s and Rachel Klyce’s set is tasteful, comfortable and apropos for the academic world it houses.

George (Christian Phillips) and Martha (Rachel Klyce) stagger in from her father’s party for new faculty, her father being the head of the university. Klyce’s Martha is dead on, fresh, biting and real. Phillips’ George milks the humor in Albee’s barbs to perfection. Their clever and affectionate verbal jousting reflects the marriage as a well worn, favorite pair of slippers. It is after 2 a.m., and Martha announces that guests are coming. It isn’t long before Nick (Alessandro Garcia) and Honey (Jessica Coghill), a young biology professor and his wife, arrive. The affectionate sparring between Martha and George slips into darkness as verbal daggers begin flying across the room.

The only weak spot in this exceptional production is Martha’s monologue in Act Three, an extraordinarily challenging monologue by any standard. It was delivered from the safety zone of a sane and clever, albeit drunk, adult woman, which is not where Martha is at that moment. By Albee’s writing, Martha is a confused and broken child in an adult body who at that point is not in control, a much scarier situation to portray.

Keith Phillips’ direction is remarkably deft. Dimensions that are seldom seen in this play come into focus. The depth and complexity of Martha and George’s entangled love is palpable. Nick and Honey have strong personalities of their own and aren’t just victims; they’re part of the recipe. Coghill’s Honey is delightful in her simple-minded drunkenness, while Garcia’s Nick has the backbone to be a real threat to George. Martha’s dance with Nick is cleverly staged upstage while Honey and George look on from the sofa, effecting realism in place of awkward farce. The humor is delicious. It’s a genuine madhouse, and it’s a real party.

Actors Theatre of San Francisco’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf plays Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. through December 19 at 855 Bush Street, San Francisco. Tickets may be obtained by telephone at (415) 345-1287 or online at www.actorstheatresf.org.

Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

The Bald Soprano: Would you care for a bit of logic?

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:56:00 +0000

Written in 1949, Eugène Ionesco’s first play, The Bald Soprano, was created from his observation of absurdity in British dialogue while he was learning English. Running slightly over an hour without intermission, The Cutting Ball Theater’s production, directed and translated from the French original by Rob Melrose, adds a lively new dimension to this enduring farce.

The lights come up on a sublimely simple set: a black leather sofa sits center stage, on either side of which are identical black leather armchairs, all framed by a solid orange wall. An unseen, and apparently broken, clock chimes incessantly, then stops. Mr. Smith (David Sinaiko) is seated on the sofa behind a newspaper. Mrs. Smith (Paige Rogers) stands nearby, noting to her husband that it is 9 o’clock and that they have dined well. She carries on as incessantly as the clock about the meal, food in general and their neighborhood “on the outskirts of London”. Mr. Smith finally emerges from behind the newspaper to correct her observation about a Dr. McKenzie’s competence. The ensuing dialogue between them is nonsensical, contradicting itself amid digressions.

The maid (Anjali Vashi) appears and brashly describes her day before being berated for taking the afternoon off, for which she had permission. She announces the arrival of guests, Mr. (Donell Hill) and Mrs. (Caitlyn Louchard) Martin, who are ushered onstage when the Smiths leave to prepare for them. It appears that Mr. and Mrs. Martin recognize one another but can’t quite place from where until Mr. Martin arrives at the realization they are, in fact, husband and wife. The Smiths return. An awkward silence soon envelopes the room. It isn’t long before a stranger in the form of a fire captain (Derek Fischer) appears and chaos is ignited.

At this point, The Bald Soprano enters a realm of absurdity where holding on to your hat is strongly advised. It’s a wild ride in overdrive, as physical as it is illogical, with glimmers of fish frolicking in the air. Ionesco’s humor is far from subtle or staid. Before the play on words is done, the broken springs of the unseen cuckoo clock have sprung to life in its characters.

Melrose’s choice to present a French play about Englishmen in an American accent, elected in an attempt to prevent the play’s detour into British parody of another hue, loses humor that would have otherwise been apparent in the first half of the play. A mildly British accent would have enhanced the absurdity of the characters’ confined observations more keenly than the American hysteria taking its place. The only actor to successfully command a British inflection without a British accent was Hill, who instilled a sense of starkness in the process. After the fire captain appeared, however, dissonance evaporated as this or any other chosen accent was overwhelmed by utter confusion.

The Bald Soprano is a wonderful celebration of theater of the absurd and a recognition of Ionesco’s inimitable contribution. Acting is excellent throughout, as can be expected of Cutting Ball productions.

The Bald Soprano plays Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 5:00 p.m. at EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street (between Eddy and Ellis), San Francisco, through November 22. Tickets are available online at www.cuttingball.com or by telephone at 800-838-3006.

Oleanna: Sexual Politics 101B

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:38:00 +0000

Expression Productions recently opened its production of Oleanna, written by David Mamet and directed by Andrey Esterlis, at Royce Gallery, one of the newer venues for theater in San Francisco. Royce Gallery is clean and comfortable and, true to its name, currently features work on its walls by artist Don Keenan. As one of Mamet’s later works, Oleanna invokes the subtle play of power, privilege and sexual politics when John, a male college professor, and Carol, his young, struggling, female student, exchange points of view within the confines of his office.

As the lights come up on John’s (Andrey Esterlis) reasonably well appointed office, John is talking with his wife on the telephone while Carol (Melissa O’Keefe) sits in a chair at his desk, waiting. John’s luxuriously uncluttered desk occupies the center of the stage, resting atop a Persian-style rug. John is tastefully attired in slacks and tie. The coat rack behind him accentuates a sense of warmth and comfort. John is dealing with escrow of the home he and his wife are purchasing now that he has been approved for tenure. He is anxious to complete the call so he can focus on his student meeting. Carol meanwhile sits in silence.

Esterlis’ John brilliantly sports the signature qualities Mamet imbues on male characters. Immersed in rapid-fire dialogue, John lifts the intellectual level of their conversation into the professorial domain at a clip, inviting brisk, scholarly debate. O’Keefe’s Carol, by contrast, is confrontational, whether by nature or by influence is not clear. At her most receptive, she takes a coy and manipulative stand to John’s torrentially heady postulations. It isn’t long before John unwittingly succumbs to his fate, all the while obliviously chasing his intellectual tail.

While Esterlis’ characterization of John is spot on, both actors strike a singular tone in their portrayals that remains unchanged, more glaring in Carol's testy monotone than in John's frenetic accommodations to her. Carol is as combative at the outset as she is at the end. John similarly continues to spout intellectual postulations without seeing the bigger picture or realizing genuine humility, though each has reached a very different point by the end of the play. The unflinchingly intellectual dynamic muffles the dramatic impact of Mamet’s words and precludes the view that would otherwise be apparent in John’s fall from power and privilege.

Carol finally asserts to John in the second act that she “came here to instruct you”, an otherwise powerful statement that rings hollow as no transition occurred to bring her to such victory believably. These words would have been far more effective had she been portrayed as struggling and confused at the outset and had John, in turn, become broken and confused at the end.

Oleanna plays Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. through November 21, 2009, at Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. Tickets are available online at www.oleannasf.com or by telephone at 866-811-4111.

- Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

The Heidi Chronicles

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:11:00 +0000

The Custom Made Theatre Company’s production of The Heidi Chronicles highlights a Pulitzer prize winning play by Wendy Wasserstein that brought women and their political status to a primary, rather than a secondary, place on the stage. Directed by Brian Katz, the play chronicles the life of feminist art historian Heidi Holland (Leah S. Abrams) from the heady days of the 60's and Eugene McCarthy’s presidential campaign through Heidi and her friends’ personal evolutions into adulthood in the late 80's, by which time each has reaped success.

The audience is met with a spare set, created by Marci Ring, in which two square platforms atop stairs occupy the right and left sides of the stage. On the back wall hang nine contemporary art works painted for this production by Nicola McCarthy, each an homage to the work of a particular twentieth century female artist. A small table with a checkered tablecloth is downstage right while a lectern sits downstage left between the stair platforms. Heidi appears as the lecturer exposing the fact that a number of highly gifted painters throughout history were women, though little, if any, reference to them can be found.

We then travel back to a high school dance in 1965, where Heidi, with her friend Susan (Kelly Rinehart), first encounters the likes of Scoop Rosenbaum (Dan Wilson) and Peter Patrone (Fred Pitts) and begin the idealistic journey through her ivory tower. We travel through female empowerment groups, John Lennon’s death, Scoop’s marriage and Peter’s coming out, with Heidi all the while struggling for a place in the sun she can call her own. Throughout it all, Heidi’s comment to her empowerment group that “Nothing is going to change until we really start talking to each other” is the play’s driving force.

For all the issues presented of equal rights and recognition, no emotional subtext is developed within the characters. All human interactions are left to languish intellectually in the form of social and political issues rather than coming alive in the form of three-dimensional human conflicts. Heidi remains in her ivory tower, having idealistically adopted feminist issues in place of human bonding as the passion to which she remains steadfastly loyal. Her relationship with Scoop, though she cannot deny the attraction, is managed cerebrally, along with everything else in her life.

The characters, in competent portrayals by the actors, appear more as caricatures than as people, each character representing an “issue” rather than a person. While Scoop’s personality, the smart and cocky guy that always scores and scores well, is adroitly crafted, Scoop, along with everyone else, thinks more than he feels. The lush musical lyrics interjected throughout the play serve as its entire source of emotional content to bring the era and its struggles into focus.

The Heidi Chronicles plays Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 7:00 p.m. at The Next Stage, 1620 Gough Street, San Francisco, through October 24, 2009. Tickets may be obtained by telephone at 800-838-3006, or online at www.custommade.org.

- Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

Regina Carter - Jazz Violin Virtuoso

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:17:00 +0000

Regina Carter and her quintet, playing at Yoshi’s in Oakland through Sunday, October 11, brings the far corners of the world to your feet. Hailing from Detroit and trained in classical music, the violinist found herself wandering into the world of jazz and primary cultural rhythms early in her musical career as she established her foothold in the music world. Though she favors the laid back and relaxed rhythms of jazz, she is by no means a child of that universe alone. She has studied with classical giants Itzak Perlman and Yehudi Menuhin and has performed with such contemporary luminaries as Ray Brown, Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Dolly Parton and Billy Joel.

Friday evening’s first set began with an east Indian melody loosely translated as “Friendship”, the cadence of which brought to mind the Indian dance troupe Angels of Light from decades ago. This was followed by another east Indian tune that might reasonably be considered to fall within the musical genre of a contemporary operatic score, the story of a man who falls in love with a woman who doesn’t love him, a passionate piece of many hues. One of her own compositions, “Black Bottom” brought us back to Detroit in the 1920's, before the advent of bebop or big band sounds and just before the Charlston, when country tunes and urban rhythms popped together.

In December of 2001, Carter traveled to Genoa, Italy, and became the first jazz musician and first African American to play the legendary Guarneri del Gesu violin owned by the classical music virtuoso and composer Nicolo Paganini. She returned to Genoa a year later to record her critically acclaimed release, Paganini: After a Dream.

Carter’s emotional and cultural range in her music plumbs the depths of the soul. The composition of her quintet, which by my experience is as diverse over the years as her music, as is her persona, consisted of Carter on violin, Chris Lightcap on bass, Alvester Grarnett on drums and percussion, Will Holshouser on accordian and Yacouba Sissoko on kora, an exotic string instrument of the harp family.

Regina Carter returns to the Bay Area regularly and is well worth seeing at any venue. The broad range of her diverse musical personality is remarkable and a joy to experience.

Regina Carter and her quintet play at Yoshi’s Oakland, 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland, through October 11, 2009. Tickets may be obtained by telephone at 510-238-9200 or online at yoshis.com.

Sins Invalid - A Reminder

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:45:00 +0000

Sins Invalid returned to San Francisco this past weekend, October 2 - 4, with three evening performances at the Brava Theatre. Co-founded by Patty Berne and Leroy Moore in 2006, Sins Invalid is a performance project reflecting the sexual world of the queer and gender variant disabled, a world that has historically been marginalized from public view. The project was conceived and is performed by disabled people of varying racial and sexual orientations.

In keeping with its context, a pair of translators, male and female, are seated downstage right, where they take turns translating the announcements preceding the performance and the performance pieces themselves into sign language. The exuberance delivered by these translators is itself a performance to enjoy. Cara Page, as the Master of Ceremonies, introduces each piece to come in poetic cadence. The evening consisted of approximately 12 theatrical, vocal, dance and multi-media performances, presented cabaret style and largely woven together through poetic narrative.

Nomy Lamm, a large woman sporting black feathered wings and a beak, opened the series with a high energy, over-amplified rock opera, “The Reckoning”. She later returns to sing “Bird Song” as another sort of bird, a deserted baby bird sitting alone in a nest of prostheses.

She was followed by Mat Fraser, a British performer with minimal upper extremities, who skillfully performed martial arts choreography to taped dialogue and drums, responding kinetically to such phrases “I don’t see you as disabled. You’re just different.” and “I couldn’t ever fuck a cripple.” By the end of the piece “No Retreat No Surrender”, he is on the ground, having been pummeled by the dialogue. Not having the arms to lift himself up, he is dragged away.

Poetic monologues were effectively delivered by other artists. Leah Lakshmi Peipzna-Samarasinha presented her “Dirty River Girl”, addressing industrial poisoning and its effect on people and places. The poetic narrative is haunting as she describes growing up in her home town of Massachusetts, where the chemical stench of household water taps is pervasive even when the taps aren’t running.

Aurora Levins Morales’ pieces were deftly articulated and moving. In “Exoskeleton”, the sole performer on the stage is an empty wheelchair, darting about, while Morales’ ode to the vehicle is heard. Morales speaks of a fatigue we cannot imagine and of how the wheelchair frees rather than confines her. In a later piece, “Drifting to the Bottom”, the stage is again devoid of a visible presence as she likens her sexuality to that of a plant or a sea anemone, a sexuality reduced to the most minute of interactions.

Maria R. Palacios appeared in her wheelchair to present her “Hunger” and “Vagina Manifesto” monologues, the poetic narratives of a desperate woman, a woman in need. The male translator appeared to be having an especially wonderful time translating “Hunger” into sign language.

Antoine-DeVinci Hunter, a deaf choreographer and dancer, performed “Risk”, in which the Master of Ceremonies requested an audience volunteer to roll a pair of dice. Each combination of the dice corresponds to a different sound score. We experienced the roll of five. His second piece, “Hear What We Risk”, is later performed to silence.

“The Scene” , a dramatic collaboration by Leroy F. Moore, Jr., seeley quest, Ralph Dickinson and Patty Berne, was introduced by the Master of Ceremonies as a sadomasochistic story involving race. A doctor dominatrix conducts erotic medical procedures, such as inserting a speculum into the mouth of her black subject, which is captured live on video and is projected onto a screen behind the performers, creating a surreal landscape. By robust San Francisco standards, the sadomasochism appeared quaint and could just as likely be a playful encounter between two members of the same sex or race. The only notable racial element manifested in the form of white voyeuristic fantasies.

Nudity and masturbation aside, Sins Invalid was received with a standing ovation. Sins Invalid travels around the country and appears yearly in many venues. For more information, telephone 510-689-7198, or visit online at sinsinvalid.org.

- Eryka M. Fraczek

Tings Dey Happen

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:47:00 +0000

Dan Hoyle’s Tings Dey Happen, which has returned briefly to San Francisco after extended runs in San Francisco and New York, is well deserving of all its critical acclaim. Written and performed by Hoyle, developed and directed by Charlie Varon, the one man tour de force is nothing short of amazing. We find ourselves within the underbelly of a cultural poverty spawned by global oil interests over the approximately 90 minutes in which we are ushered into the Nigerian world Hoyle creates. The portrayals he brings home, based on his year living in the Niger River Delta in 2005-2006 as a Fulbright Scholar studying oil politics, are for the most part a study in truth.

Hoyle opens the show as Captain, the leader of militants at Nembe Creek, a place where the white man normally does not go, who provides a brief glimmer of the road to come. In a matter of a few seconds, Hoyle transforms into Sylvanus, a sly, yet friendly, Nigerian stage manager. The Niger Delta, being the hot place that it is, is a place where one automatically discards polite platitudes to face the searing problems of survival. People are frank, yet proud and hospitable. Sylvanus seduces the San Francisco audience with his saucy banter, noting, for example, that Nigerians are “a bit like your Appalachian people. No but their teeth are ok!”

Throughout the evening, Hoyle assumes a host of characters, including Nigerian militants and warlords, students, white oil men from Scotland, Texas and Northern England, a United States Ambassador, an educated Nigerian hustler, frustrated Nigerian youth caught in the oil wars, a prostitute, and a Community Relations Officer who sends him off with words of wisdom. Hoyle himself, though the main character of the story, is never depicted, the story being told in negative space. Hoyle’s transformation of himself into these living, breathing characters at will is mind boggling and a tribute to his incredible ability as an actor. Nuance is lush and perfectly placed. He is firmly planted within the soul of each of his characters, and we cannot deny the truth of their stories.

The heart of the story is personified by the character Okosi, a young sniper of 23 who is tired of killing. When Dan meets him at Nembe Creek, Okosi extends his humble hospitality: “Dat is my bed, it’s not very big, but is it okay for you?” Dan hears Okosi’s dream of going to the university, something which Okosi can’t afford. “Sometimes you have to kill people to have your own dream”, he says in his pidgin English. Okosi is hopelessly idealistic amid the pervasive pain of the Niger Delta. He throws his guns into the creeks, and now he has no money. He’s still killing people, not for his dreams anymore, but for survival.

Tings Dey Happen plays through September 26, 2009, Thursday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 5 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m. at The Marsh, 1062 Valencia Street in San Francisco. All remaining September performances are sold out. Tickets for future performances in November may be obtained by telephone at 800-838-3996 or online at www.themarsh.org. It is highly recommended tickets be purchased soon, as future performances are expected to sell out quickly.

Tings Dey Happen will return in November, playing November 12 through November 28, after Hoyle returns from Nigeria, where he will perform in Lagos, Calabar, Abuha, Jos and Bauchi and teach workshops. The tour is sponsored by the United States State Department Public Affairs Section.

Hoyle is working to arrange a documentary of the tour. Donations for the documentary are welcome and should be provided prior to the end of September when Hoyle begins his tour. Donations should be made at The Marsh, Hoyle’s fiscal agent, and should be designated as a donation to Dan Hoyle or Tings Dey Happen. More information can be obtained by telephone at 415-826-5750.

- Eryka M. Fraczek
Member, SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

The Headless Woman: Privilege Reigns

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 04:51:00 +0000

The Headless Woman, written and directed by Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel, tells a story of mishap and privilege in negative space, a technique far more compelling than linear narrative. In Spanish with English subtitles, running 92 minutes, it is the story of Vero (short for Veronica), played by Maria Onetto, and what becomes of her after she is involved in a hit-and-run accident one rainy night.

The focus of the story appears dissipated at the outset, the camera trained entirely on Vero and her responses to the accident, she having fled before she could determine what she hit. The experience obviously has an impact on her. She appears disoriented. She speaks little, politely declining most of the time, and appears to be functioning normally only in a peripheral sense. As we continue watching her responses, it becomes apparent she is a successful professional woman who owns a dental clinic with her brother, has grown daughters away at school, and maintains a household, like her business, with sufficient staff to handle all situations. She is a woman well loved and privileged.

The other side of the story, similarly unspoken, juxtaposes a separate world occupied by servants, staff and the less privileged, the people she encounters daily in her normal life and now as she reassembles herself. The manner in which the story materializes is a tribute to subtlety. At the outset, we experience only the confusion of the main character. At the story’s conclusion, Vero resumes her place in her society on solid footing. The focus is clear, the mishap behind her having been quietly removed as only her privilege would allow.

The Headless Woman leaves plenty of room for thought. She is headless in many ways, from the disoriented woman functioning on automatic pilot whom no one notices is disoriented to the reoriented hit-and-run driver who will never be identified. It is well directed with strong acting throughout, not only by Maria Onetto, who is riveting as the focus of the story, but by César Bordón and Daniel Genoud, as her husband and his cousin, as well.

The Headless Woman is playing at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, Fillmore and Post Streets, in San Francisco.

- Eryka M. Fraczek

San Francisco Fringe Festival's Potluck Theatre Buffet

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:45:00 +0000

The San Francisco Fringe Festival, celebrating its 19th year, again offers a diverse array of uncensored theater, all under 60 minutes with tickets at $10 or less, at various venues in downtown San Francisco. This year’s Fringe Festival runs 12 days, from September 9 through September 20, presenting productions by 43 different companies from near and far.

My weekend sampling of the buffet began at the Climate Theatre at 9th and Folsom Streets with Legs and All. Legs and All is the brainchild of Summer Shapiro, in collaboration with Peter Musante, Brandi Brandes and Jeremy Shapiro, and is a brilliant translation of the details of conversant life as we know it, taking these details a few steps beyond Harold Pinter and flinging them with utmost precision into comedy.

As the lights come up, a Frenchman is narrating something which I cannot understand. It isn’t long before a lady in a bright red dress (Summer Shapiro) emerges from a box and eats a flower with a hypnotic stillness, beginning the slow intoxication brought by kinetic minutiae. The lights change and her companion, a fellow (Peter Musante), emerges from the box in her place. He soon leaves, only to return with a small trunk under his arm. He rummages through it and finds his treasure, a red canister. All the while, a vibraphone and percussive instruments, played by Brandi Brandes, accompany his movements, echoing the unspoken dialogue. At the corner of the box sits a tiny rubber ball, which he must have, though he certainly can’t claim it directly. He finally snatches the ball between his legs and leaves triumphantly with his trunk. A hand emerges from the box and begins dancing on the box's edge. Eventually, a head follows, that of our lady in red, who begins attacking the hand with her mouth, only to discover the hand belongs to her. Our fellow reappears, and we are invited into a day in the life of their relationship. It would appear to be a French relationship, all things considered. The French narration resumes, and musical recordings pop up intermittently, both the handiwork of Jeremy Shapiro.

Watching Legs and All is like watching a cat play with itself when you finally realize you’re watching yourself and others interacting as a couple, with all of the quiet hungers that remain unspoken in the mundane world now under a microscope. Legs and All is a delightful and ingenious use of sound, foreign (and sparingly domestic) language, music and movement to paint the interior of unspoken dialogue. It’s a tantalizing kinetic comedy well worth seeing.

Legs and all plays at the Climate Theater, 298 Ninth Street, San Francisco, September 17, 18, 19 and 20. Tickets may be purchased at www.summershapiro.com. For more information, visit online at www.sffringe.org.

I next sampled Tater Stew, at the Exit Theater on Eddy Street, a different taste and hue presented by Slop Hog Productions of Missoula, Montana. Written by John Budge and Monte Jenkins, who also play Seamus and Master, respectively, Tater Stew is, by contrast, a conceptually elementary story presented on a largely one-dimensional plane, that of anger and violence, arriving as a distillation of network television without insight.

The lights come up on Stewart (Andrew John Garfield), a chubby boy in shorts and a vest, standing on a chair singing an Irish ballad. He is discovered by a sadistic school Master (Monte Jenkins), who immediately takes him to task, spanking Stewart’s butt and legs with a pink ruler. The school Master’s colleague in this Peyton Place of a private school, Schmaing (Ciara Griffin, also director), is the lunchroom cook whose job is to slave over a pot of glorified slop. She appears to be as angry, deranged and prone to violence as the school Master, with the distinction that she has no whipping boy. Seamus, a homeless man, is hungry and is discovered by the school Master as he digs through a trash can looking for food.

Tater Stew is a display of cartoon characters exploring the attainment of manhood in the guise of a sadomasochistic relationship between a man and child. While there are moments of pleasurable acting by Stewart, in his closing monologue, and the Master, in his musings, these moments are insufficient to counterbalance the juvenile nature of the production as a whole.

Tater Stew plays at the Exit Theater, 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco. Show times for Tater Stew vary. For information or tickets, call 415-931-1094, or visit online at www.myspace.com/taterstew1.

My final sampling of the weekend was Knitting, or Pletenje in Hungarian, a one-woman show written by Barbara Kapelj Osredkar and played by Damjana Černe at the Exit Theater on Eddy Street. The program is written in both English and Hungarian. Pletenje / Knitting explores the psychological world of the struggling female artist within a documentary framework that recedes into intermittent psycho-exhibitionism.

The set consists of four clothing screens tastefully evolved and placed at various points on the stage. A lady (Damjana Černe) in a red gown walks to center stage, turns her back to the audience and squats on a short stool. Her hands fidget across her back as she proclaims in her heavy Slavic accent that she is three years old. She turns around, displaying a red pump on one foot and a cowboy boot on the other stockinged foot. In a moment or two, she leaves. A seaside view is projected over the voices of female artists describing the internal struggles arising from their sensitivities. Černa returns in a fur coat, which she removes to reveal an unfastened corset. The mismatched shoes remain. She repeats “All my life is late” a number of times to underscore its profundity.

Pletenje / Knitting appears to be a work in its early stages of development. Though much may be lost in the translation, the focus of the work seems leans toward self indulgent. The artist (Černa) is an animal in her own cage, struggling with her artistic identity, yet the proclaimed struggles do not tie together with any higher aspirations to legitimize the proclamations.

For all its generous intentions, Pletenje / Knitting is a tribute to self doubt, stumbling over the suffering and self pity one finds in the early stages of self awareness. It closes with a song about mismatched body parts, an apt metaphor for the state of this work in its present form.

No other performances of Pletenje / Knitting remain in this year’s San Francisco Fringe Festival. Pletenje / Knitting next plays September 22, 2009, at the Mladinsko Theater in Slovakia.

- Eryka M. Fraczek

The Grapes of Wrath - The Great Recession Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Eryka Fraczek reviews) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:39:00 +0000

John Steinbeck’s seminal novel, The Grapes of Wrath, adapted for stage by Frank Galati, is a powerful work that receives its just reward in Actors Theatre of San Francisco’s dynamic production under the direction of Jennifer Welch. Over the course of approximately two hours, the struggles of the Joad family, who leave Oklahoma after losing their home in the “dust bowl” during the Great Depression for the promised land in sunny California, seep under our skin. Life for the Joads is austere, and the reality of their poverty and their pride is palpable.

Before the lights dim, lively country folk tunes are heard. Onstage are a series of panels on each side on which painted pieces of wood are skewed and hammered, leaving the impression the viewer is sitting within a large, contemporary oil painting. A screen sits squarely in the middle of the backstage wall, on which black and white and sepia projections appear over a narration. During Act One, as the Joads drive across country, three of them stand at each end of a triangle on the stage, immersing the moment in shades of Henri Magritte and bringing time to a standstill.

As the lights go up, we come upon Tom Joad, adroitly portrayed by Duncan Phillips, chewing tobacco and all, returning home after being released from jail for murder. He encounters Jim Casey, touchingly embodied by Scott Agar-Jaicks, the former preacher who baptized him and now no longer serves the church. Casey, once and always a preacher, explains the limits of his human condition and his newfound faith in mankind. He informs Tom of the financial blight facing the Joad family and others since Tom left home. The Joads lost their home to foreclosure, along with scores of others, and now have no means of support as the Great Depression sweeps across the country. It isn’t hard to feel the ramifications of their situation today.

Pa Joad, in a sympathetic portrayal by Frank Willey, packs all 12 family members and friends, including Casey, into his truck and heads toward California, where the Joads believe agricultural work abounds and weather is kind. It isn’t long before they begin to experience the hazards of the journey, the first being the death of Grandpa Joad (John Krause). Ma Joad, in a rock solid portrayal by Carole Robinson, is the backbone that keeps the family together as it begins to fall apart. The cast is large, the acting even throughout. Several actors appear in numerous roles. Strong performances are too numerous to list by individual cast members. Suffice it to say an intense evening awaits.

Steinbeck weaves a biblical narrative throughout his story, the influence of Christianity in his characterizations and events being readily evident. A primary thread is the journey to the promised land, juxtaposed with the hard reality of life itself. Jim Casey, whose initials match those of Jesus Christ, in one of his numerous sermons declares how he went out to the land, just like Christ, to think and to find the word of God. But as time would have it, he could not, with a clear conscience, continue to promote the language of the church and represent mankind at the same time.

Steinbeck takes closer aim at religious teachings when a religious zealot, Elizabeth Sandry (Maureen Coyn) verbally attacks the pregnant Rose of Sharon (in an endearing portrayal by Jessica Coghill) as a heretic and curses her unborn child. Reverberations to modern day Christian Coalition rhetoric spring to view. The final scene of the play ties Steinbeck’s religious narrative to its base. A classic Madonna and child appear in modern day dress as the mother of a stillborn child with an adult man dying of starvation.

The Grapes of Wrath is a powerful and well crafted production: keenly directed, with remarkably strong performances and a compelling set. It’s a classic worth experiencing.

The Grapes of Wrath plays Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. at Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush Street, San Francisco, though September 26. Tickets may be obtained by telephone at 415-345-1287 or via Ticketweb and Brown Paper Tickets. For more information, visit online at www.actorstheatresf.org.