(no subject)
THREE SECONDS IN THE KEY
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
The San Francisco Playhouse has moved: it used to be located at 530 Sutter Street, now it is just across the street at 533 Sutter. Do not attempt to jay walk across Sutter from the old location to the new: if the docile San Francisco police have a choice between issuing a theatre dweeb a $50 citation for jay walking or busting some burly street denizen, jacked up on PCP or Crack, for sidewalk micturition and intimidating tourists, who is going to get selected?
Now that we have found the new San Francisco Playhouse, what is its current offering? THREE SECONDS IN THE KEY written by Deb Margolin and directed Leigh Fondakowski. The title hearkens to a rule in basketball: a player, offensive or defensive, can not stand in that region of the court between the foul line and the basket for more than three seconds. In a metaphorical sense, THREE SECONDS IN THE KEY, like the title FLASH DANCE, describes our lives on the great cosmic scale.
It has been 2500 years since Sophocles roamed the streets and graced the stages of Athens; with the right genes and enough sex, we might live to be 100. Our life span is less that 4% of the time it took civilization to descend from the cultural Olympus of OEDIPUS REX and the Ecstasy Cults of Dionysus to miasmic bogs of reality television and the Tabloid Cults of Brittney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith. If we compare the average human lifespan to the age of the universe, then the time we spend as the sense organs of that universe is just the flutter of Glassy-Winged Sharp Shooter’s aileron.
When presented with rock solid evidence of just how trivial and ephemeral our lives are, and what an inconvenience we are to the environment, we have a couple general routes we can travel after we have viscerally connect with magnitude our insignificance. THREE SECONDS IN THE KEY explores one of those pathways.
Amy Resnick plays Mother: a single Jewish mother of a nine-year-old boy and New York Knickerbocker fan. She is incapacitated by the chemo-therapy used to treat her Hodgkin’s Disease. Life has been reduced down to nausea, snoozing in and out of reality, and watching Knicks basketball with her son.
While Mother is hovering between life and death, the Knicks are having a bad season: mostly due to one Player. This Player, played by Paul Oakley Stovall, is rumored to be targeted for trade. In the phantasmagorical netherworld of chemo-therapy, Mother begins having liaisons with an apparition of the failing Player. Using the wisdom, strategies and jargon of the basketball court, the Player sets Mother’s feet squarely on the heroic path to life.
The performance this reviewer witnessed received a standing ovation and rightfully so: it was flawless. Yet the script prompted questions. It lacked symmetry. The Player needed help too and yet there was no evidence that Mother was delivering. Mother asked the Player questions for which the Player provided no answers. Strange that a play would be structured in such a way that an African American NBA Player would be placed in service to a Jewish woman, without a balanced exchange. Oh well, a small sticking point in an otherwise great play.
The run of THREE SECONDS IN THE KEY is ending soon. You should look for it to reopen somewhere in the bay area. It is well worth the money and the time. For tickets to the few remaining shows, you are invited to contact the ticket office at 415 677-9596 and to check out the SF Playhouse website at www.sfplayhouse.org.
U.S. Naval Aviator and Lieutenant Commander Retired
Math Teacher at Encinal High School A.U.S.D.
San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Sidewalk Politician and Arm Chair Liberal