FULLY COMMITTED THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED) ENCHANTED APRIL Reviewed
FULLY COMMITTED
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Every profession has its final exam. For law, the final exam is obviously the Bar Exam. For aviation, the final is the Airline Transport Rating check ride with an FAA examiner. For an escort service, it's the U.S. Senate. But for an actor, it has got to be performing FULLY COMMITTED.
Aside from the trapeze, acrobatics and professional wrestling, FULLY COMMITTED has to be the most strenuous show invented. It is one man doing a dozen or so distinctive characters. Think of it: one man memorizing a dozen scripts and developing a dozen characters. Even without the heat of the Klieg Lights, the show will wring more sweat out of an actor than a Pilates Class or an IRS audit.
Dan Saski and Justin Scheuer, of the Ross Valley Players, alternately step up to the plate: both playing the core character Sam, and all the dozen or so ancillary roles, on alternating nights. Argo Thompson directs.
Sam works the reservation line for a hot, trendy, see-and-be-seen, restaurant in New York. If you have ever worked under pressure, for the self-absorbed, the self-important and the self-indulgent, then you can appreciate the nature of Sam's position. Everyone Sam speaks to on the phone considers himself or herself to be priority one: the center of the universe. Sam is centrifuged omni-directionally: trying to be all things and to do all things for all people. Finally Sam finds his grounding point: he is an actor and he gets a callback. Based on just the possibility of an acting job, Sam's self-esteem soars and his whole perception of reality changes. It is interesting to watch Sam ascend the power structure: changing his social and contractual dynamic with the people who have hitherto used and abused him.
FULLY COMMITTED is more than an opportunity to showcase an actor's range and stamina: it is an enjoyable, illuminating comedy in its own right. For tickets to this remarkable one-man show contact the Ross Valley Players at www.rossvalleyplayers.com or call 415-456-9555.
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THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED)
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Each year, like the rest of us, Shakespeare ratchets his age up one increment. For the living and those of us who still get out to Peets, Starbucks, Noahs or The Green Door, our language remains—for better or for worse—current, contemporary and unsophisticated. Every idiom that is force fed us by the mass media quickly burrows its way into our Broca's Region and takes root in our vernacular: even things like: "We don't need no stinkin' badges," Get the butter," "Charlie don't Surf" and "Plastics." And, just as in the case of Bible Thumping Louisiana Senators, old rhetoric is irreverently supplanted by fresh cliché: few of us still use such musty idioms and superannuated solecisms as "Twenty-three skidoo," "Cookie, Cookie lend me your comb," or "Gort, klaatu barada nikto."
Elizabethan English, like a son or daughter who has graduated from five or more years of undergraduate college, becomes more remote with each passing nanosecond. The language of Shakespeare, in the parlance of linguists, has ossified. Avon pundits worry that someday the works of Shakespeare will, like the King James Bible, be republished in an updated form under such rubrics as: The New English Shakespeare, The New International Version of Shakespeare or Gideon's Shakespeare.
Hopefully the Earth's orbit will decay and we will splash into the Sun's ocean of molten hydrogen long before anyone messes with Shakespeare. But, can we count on the saving grace of Armageddon? Just as root canals, Botox and hair transplants are all inevitable, so too is the day when irreverent Philistines will tamper with the language of Shakespeare. Until then, if we want warped and twisted Shakespeare, we will just have to attend THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED) as currently presented by Marin Shakespeare.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the show for nearly ten years, let it suffice to say that THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED) never gets old. Each year, indeed each performance, is a new permutation or mutation with new ingredients, new spices, fresh corn and new monkey wrenches tossed into the loosely adhered to script. The play is virtually an improvisation: a work in progress: a kaleidoscope of changing gags. Marin County's most resourceful director: Robert Currier, remains faithful to the spirit of the script, yet remains unencumbered by the letter of the script.
THE COMPLETE WORKS was originally crafted in Marin County by Jess Borgeson, Adam Long and Daniel Singer. It was first produced it at Black Point in Novato: not far from the boat launch. It was first published in 1994. Since then, like Borders Books and Abercrombie & Fitch, THE COMPLETE WORKS has spread across the face of the planet: it has even been translated into Spanish and performed in Barcelona.
Fortunately Marin Shakespeare has cast Darren Bridgett in the role of Darren Bridgett (all of the cast members play themselves). Darren is a stalwart of the show: it could be his seven season, but who is counting. Darren works the audience like a game show host, a television evangelist, a lap dancer, a pick-pocket. If this show had a star and a definitive character, it would be Darren. While Buddhists argue that "you can never put your foot into the same river twice," Darren never performs the same show twice. Darren ensures that every performance is high energy interactive theater.
The show is a seamless and shameless blend of bawdy spontaneity, low brow wit, high brow humor, casual vulgarity and audience involvement. While some knowledge of the Bard's work is useful, no one need be a Shakespearean expert to enjoy the show: leave the scholarly stuff to Bob Currier: don't bring a volume of Shakespeare: bring a picnic basket. For a delightful evening of laughter under the moon and stars, get thee to Forest Meadows Amphitheater; Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from now until August 12 th. If you don't mind sharing your baguette, brie, wine or date with Darren, sit in the front row: we dare you. For tickets to a rollicking evening, visit www.marinshakespeare.org or call the box office at 415-499-4488.
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ENCHANTED APRIL
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
The Porchlight Theatre Company of Marin is currently staging a delightful rendition of ENCHANTED APRIL.
If your faith in the good life has recently been shaken, not stirred, by the insensitive incarceration of if Her Royal Heiress Paris Hilton and you are beginning to doubt that life can be measured in troy ounces, then ENCHANTED APRIL may serve as the perfect antidote for the existential crisis or the ennui that might be seeping into your attic. The play reinforces our sustaining belief that there exists a place—beyond Marin, beyond Trader Joe's and yes beyond Whole Foods—where we could become reacquainted with our true humanity and our intrinsic happiness.
The play originated in 1922, as a novel, by Elizabeth von Arnim. Those of us who watch it as a stage play are seeing the adaptation written by Matthew Barber, which was first presented on Broadway in 2003. Then too, there is the 1992 film, which is even a further stretch from the spirit of the novel. If original intent is to be invoked, von Arnim's novel, written close on the heels of the Great War for which England paid such dear a price, illustrates the psychological and spiritual depression that post-war England suffered. For those of you who have side-stepped both the novel and the movie, ENCHANTED APRIL follows the momentary confluence of four dissimilar women, none of whom are friends initially, who depart dreary rainy England for sunny exuberant Portofino.
The most vivacious of the foursome is Lotty Wilton: she is the engine or the catalyst driving the plot and bringing substance to dreams. Lotty is superbly played by Marin's first lady of theater: Molly Noble. Without Lotty the lives of all four women would have chugged along like a London cab hitting on three cylinders: none of the four would have tasted the dolce vita, wafted the sea breeze of the Tyrrhenian littoral nor experienced their emancipation from men. While Lotty puts forth the greatest effort to create the Italian sojourn, the cantankerous, self-absorbed and the timorous gain handsomely from the adventure. While all of the women have defects in their lives brought on by men, those defects are rightfully trivialized by the splendor of the Italian Riviera.
Beth Craven directs the play, wringing outstanding performances from the entire cast.
If you enjoy a dash of feminism, everything Italian, and outdoor theater, get yourself quickly to the Marin Garden Center for a delightful evening starlight, moonlight and Klieg lights.
Tickets run from $15 to $30. For reservations call 415-488-7126 or visit www.porchlight.net .
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