COMPLETELY HOLLYWOOD (ABRIDGED) REVIEWED THE FRINGE OF MARIN REVIEWED 22 MINUTES REMAINING Reviewed HEROES by the Ross Valley Players Reviewed A.C.T. performs RAINMAKER
COMPLETELY HOLLYWOOD (ABRIDGED)
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
The Reduced Shakespeare Company (a.k.a. R.S.C. but definitely NOT to be confused with the Royal Shakespeare Company—although they would like be) is currently performing two alternating comedies at the Marines Memorial Theatre: THE BIBLE: THE COMPLETE WORD OF GOD (ABRIDGED) and COMPLETELY HOLLYWOOD (ABRIDGED).
Nightly the cast is drawn from a pool of seven, seasoned, actor-comedians: Dominic Conti, Matthew Croke, Michael Faulkner, Jerry Kernion, Reed Martin, Austin Tichenor and Brent Tubbs.
If you were a tourist on a $10 per day budget or if you spent most of your entertainment budget tipping the therapists over at the Green Door and you could only pay for one show, this critic would most strongly recommend paying for COMPLETELY HOLLYWOOD.
But, if you miss your Greyhound back to Manteca and have to spend extra night in Union Square, this critic would urge you to sneak in, via the fire escape, a lifted man-hole-cover or the stage door, and catch THE BIBLE: it could reconnect you with your red-neck fundamentalist roots and nudge you closer to the Republican Party; but more importantly: the theater is much warmer than the outdoors and the lavatories are clean.
COMPLETELY HOLLYWOOD dissects and skewers ninety-nine percent of all the Hollywood movies that you may have mistakenly admitted that you enjoyed.
When you get home from COMPLETELY HOLLYWOOD you will probably want to sort through your steamer trucks of Beta-Maxes or simply demagnetize all your videotapes and Movie Sound Tracks cassettes with a hand-held cyclotron.
The action and gags are so fast that the audience is apt to wonder if the writers Reed Martin, Austin Tichenor and Dominic Conti spared any of the wholesome Hollywood classics.
Furthermore one might ask if these irreverent film iconoclasts ever saw a Hollywood movie that they enjoyed.
Did these cinema snobs grow up renting beach chairs to Nebbish Autures at Cannes?
Of one thing you can be sure: if Robert Redford ever sees their show, they will be persona non grata at the next Sundance Festival.
While some movies like AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIVE and SHAYNE are fair game, moreover sitting ducks for parody, one has to wonder how these satirists could unleash the gall to spoof and lampoon such sacrosanct epics as THE FLY, POSEDIAN ADVANTURE, BATTLEFIELD EARTH, WATERWORLD, THE TRIP and ROAD HOUSE.
HOLLYWOOD looks beyond the morally bankrupt glitterati, druggies, drunk drivers and 12-steppers of the toupeed film industry and focuses on the artistically bankrupt directors, producers and screenwriters that foist fetid films from afar.
In this show, all the tangled trite tripe of Hollywood is conveniently reduced down to its essence: off-the-shelf plot lines, stock characters, sniveling sentimentality, recycled cliché and obscene profits.
As the play points out: once a movie audience gets past Paramount's snow-clad Mattahorn, Warner Brothers' Roaring Lion, or Columbia's Columbia with the slinky satin blue dress and the dazzling torch, it is all downhill from there: the rest of the movie is a hybrid clone of a clone of a clone of a remake of a sequel.
We all know that it is fun to laugh at someone else's abysmal unsophisticated taste in movies: but where else are we going to get our spurious sense of chic cultural superiority?
When a rookie on your softball team claims to like STEEL MAGNOLIAS, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES and SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE don't be surprised if his batting average is barely double digits.
HOLLYWOOD goes the extra quarter mile to point out that it is also fun to laugh at our own abysmal taste in movies.
After seeing HOLLYWOOD, you will not be ashamed to tell people that you have a boxed DVD set of Pee-Wee Herman's Greatest Hits and have seen every movie that Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon ever made.
For a great evening of uproarious laughter get thee to COMPLETELY HOLLYWOOD. Call the Marines Memorial box office at 415-771-6900 between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
THE FRINGE OF MARIN AUTUMN 2007
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.
Grande Dame Annette Lust, the creator, founder, artistic director, instigator, whip and riding crop behind the Fringe of Marin, continues to ratchet up the quality evidenced at her festival of one-acts.
According to Abraham Maslow, when an individual reaches the summit or apex of his or her hierarchal pyramid of human needs, she or he turns to artistic self-expression for ultimate fulfillment. Failing to address such a higher calling, the frustrated mind may well stagnate and foment neurotic behavior: unbridled consumer spending, inelegant promiscuity, frequent forays into the wine cellar and liquor locker, skin diving in the beer keg, vacuum cleaning the coffee table with cocktail straws, frequent kitchen makeovers, and worst of all: belting down afternoon T.V. with evening Sitcoms as chasers and a boxed DVD set of CHEERS serving as tappas.
It may be an exaggeration to say that the average trust-fund baby hits a detox center, performs a twelve step therapy or finds a new mission in life as often as the rest of us hit a Jiffy-Lube, but none-the-less Annette Lust is trying to scotch such slanderous hyperbole and stereotyping the denizens of Marin. Her stage is the perfect creative outlet for hopeful Marin Mamets and Stoppards.
Her latest offerings rise well above acting as mere therapy for ennui. The resonate voices of thoughtful playwrights, the clear visions of directors, and the earnest thespian efforts of amateur actors and actresses are all conspicuously evidenced.
Had George W. Bush such a venue, he might be acting and directing in Crawford, Texas, rather than acting, directing, strutting and fretting in Washington D.C. But let us not blame Annette's lack of omnipresence for George W. Bush, she cannot be expected to be all things to all people: Marin is most fortunate to have her.
STARTING TO SHOW, a dark comedy by Joanne Green, is a good demonstration of how people, or more specifically women, can seize a situation and be both brutally and lovingly honest with each other. As MS Green demonstrates in her play: real friends push friends forward: out of the ruts and sloughs. Friends goad each other to give up languishing and moldering in self-deception and denial. Three women converging in an OB waiting room seize on the opportunity to lance the respective carbuncles that polite, superficial conversation might otherwise have left unattended and unopened. Of all this festival's one-acts, this one is conspicuously well rehearsed and the script is well groomed: free of clichés and the trite.
Even a ridiculous farce like Lisa Juris' delightful FLY ME TO THE MOON has an element truth. Clueless Ken—played by Mike Morrow—already up to his mastoid process—no, sagittal crest—in debt has borrowed an additional $10,000 to begin a gold mining operation where? On the moon of course: duh! Luckily for Ken's femurs and thumbs, his friendly, sub-prime, loan shark: Johnny—played by Craig Logan—gets on board the moronic lunar gold rush just as Ken's wife: Shar—played by Kathleen Freitag—and daughter: Alison—played by Erica Badgeley—are not ready to start strip mining the Sea of Tranquility, they disembark from Ken's fantasy trip. Given how ludicrous Ken's scheme is, it is a wonder that any of MS Juris' dialogue between husband Ken and wife Shar would be even remotely serious. Shar's conversation with her puerile, numbskull husband is wasted breath: a simple good bye—like you were saying goodbye to the family Chihuahua—would have sufficed. Like white zinfandel wines the play is light and fruity. So where is the element of truth? Some of us invested in Enron and the Herbal Life pyramid didn't we?
Let's hope that the offerings at the Fringe of Marin are not roman-a-clefs extracted from the tony neighborhoods of San Rafael nor transcribed off the gossip net at the proliferating Designer Coffee Spas; if so then gifted playwright Debra Turner, who wrote A VERY PRIVATE PARTY, is raconteur, a snitch and Marin's own Grace Metalious (think: Peyton Place circa 1965). MS Turner has crafted a marvelous script that demands Becca—played by Sally Devoto—and Katherine—played by Heather Shepardon, to credibly perform demanding mood swings that are generally reserved for women who are off their bipolar meds. Director Linda Vito deserves much of the credit for this titillating mini soap opera. To its credit, the piece really nails the feel of afternoon television: one almost expects the action to be interrupted by an Ivory Snow commercial. MS Turner may have stumbled onto a genre here and this show could be a pilot. A little Hammond organ music to highlight the drama would be appropriate.
Paige Lehmann's piece ULYSSES has the design and feel of a Tom Stoppard play; particularly ARCADIA or SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. While ARCADIA speculates on Lord Byron's estival activities at Sidley Park more specifically, that retreat's influence on Byron's work; SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE is a romantic fantasy piece that imaginatively reconstructs how ROMEO AND JULIETTE may have been crafted backstage or in the dressing rooms of the Globe Theatre. MS Lehmann's ULYSSES is likewise a fanciful speculative piece. MS Lehmann toys with the possibility that Joyce's daughter, Luca Joyce—played by Erica Badgeley—may have been her father's muse: the creative genius behind ULYSSES. The period is 1904-1915: Joyce's Italian protracted sojourn in Trieste. Of all the one-acts at the Fringe of Marin, this one has the greatest potential to expand into a play of significance. MS Lehmann has just begun to establish the dynamic between Joyce—played by Mike Morrow—his uninspiring, nay saying wife: Nora Joyce—played by Molly McCarthy—and his exuberant upbeat daughter. Were MS Lehmann to dredge up more history and literary rumor, be it apocryphal or fact, to illuminate the forces and influences impinging on Joyce during the Trieste and the ULYSSES era, she could concoct a play suited to the big stage. Assuming MS Lehmann can sustain the quality of the writing evidenced hitherto in her one-act, her seed idea definitely has wings.
Annette Lust did not always have the luxury of writing books, theatre reviews and plays. As a wife of Jean Lust and the mother of two girls, Annette was once relegated to the scullery where she could have been just Martha rattling her pans. But instead her temporary exile from the glitterati and literati dampens neither her imagination nor ambition. While laboring in the kitchen, Annette blended theatre with the culinary arts; the result was her own genre of one-acts involving such savory characters as Pepper Shaker, Salt Shaker, Vinegar, Duchess Mustard, General Garlic and Olive Oil. Initially these kitchen skits enjoyed a tenuous existence as oral traditions. Thankfully, Annette has now committed her pantry plays to paper. VINAIGRETTE is one such fable about strife in the larder. The ever-unctuous Olive Oil—played by the lubricious Sallie Romer—successfully charms grumpy acetic Vinegar into a milder disposition. The result of their commingling—vinaigrette—is well known to all of us who eschew viscous creamy dressings like Thousand Islands, Blue Cheese and Ranch. While VINAIGRETTE is perhaps too spicy for Broadway, it does serve as a reminder that imagination and story telling are not limited to the stage and to hundred-seat houses: an audience of two daughters is just as rewarding as playing to a full house at the Odeon or the Geary.
Anthony Martinez has woven puns, double entendres and sexual innuendo together to create SWITCHING TEAMS, a comedy of sexual orientation errors. Softball Captain Mike—played by MR Martinez—is momentarily led to misunderstand that teammate Ted—played by Ken Bacon—has really gone over the other side. While the play is admittedly a one trick pony like THE CRYING GAME, THE SIXTH SENSE or FIGHT CLUB, it is a thought provoking gag. An ambiguous choice of words has Mike thinking that Ted is a switch hitter. One wonders which would be more of a psychological adjustment: losing a strong player from your softball team or having second thoughts about retrieving the dropped soap while sharing the locker room shower. The play demonstrates that the seemingly neutral language of baseball is rife with sexual imagery. Things like: "Can I cork your bat?" "Have you ever slid into home?" "Did you make it to third base?" "Have you ever pulled off a double play?" could mean something else.
MURDER ON THE MIND by Samantha Skinner is a good illustration of the social schizophrenia we are forced to engage in lest we lose our connections with friends and relatives. We nod in polite agreement reigning in our honesty in an effort to preserve our social network. By capitulating to a bit of self-censorship and by our stifling our candor, friends, coworkers and relatives trust that we are a safe, uncritical sounding board for their denial, psychotic episodes, fantasies and distortions of reality. If love makes the world go round then white lies and half-truths lubricate the axel. Julia—played by Sallie Romer—and Marilyn—played by Susan Tuttle chitchat idly, catching up on recent developments in their respectively murky, Byzantine personal lives. Alternately one character freezes while the other speaks her mind. The play is an excellent device to warn each us that in all probability when we feel like we are successfully lying our butts off and our fatuously gullible listeners are gulping down our prevarications and exaggerations like they were chocolate covered Bonbons, the reality is that, consciously or unconsciously, they know were are lying like deranged sociopaths. If there is a lesson in MS Skinners well-crafted skit it is, "Only the truly mediocre mind is capable of consistently underestimating the intelligence of everyone around them."
The first lady of San Francisco theatre: Linda Ayres-Frederick entered the one-act sweepstakes with her offering: FIASCO. A metaphorical farce in which a dashing Zorro figure: the masked, capped and caped Zin—played by Rob Dario—enters a Trattoria in search of a satisfying wine. The owner: Signore Verducci—perhaps an intimate relative of the East Coast pretender, wine snob and small time vintner Christine Verducci—describes many wines to the discriminating Signore Zin. Each of Verducci's wine recommendations could equally apply to a wine, a woman, a musical composition or a European sports car: "full bodied," "passionate finish," "tantalizing oeuvre," "gusto," "mysteriously seductive," "low maintenance-high torque." The audience begins to wonder: Is this Trattoria a front for a bordello? Does Signore Verducci suspect that Zin is working undercover for the Vice Squad? Is Verducci masking or veiling his propositions with double entendres to avoid a pandering bust? Then too, one must ask: Does Signore Zin actually know his Port from his Pinot? Or is Zin just a Quixotic swashbuckler posing as a wine cognoscenti? Just when the audience is warming up to the unsophisticated charm of Zin—who seems to have learned his Italian and his Spanish from a language lab in Arkansas—out struts a very pretty, svelte Sangiovese—deliciously played by MS Lina Lam. Signorita Sangiovese closes escrow faster than a sub-prime lender signs off on an uncapped ARM. A slavering male audience, anticipating the wine screw, is left to imagine the sound of a cork popping.
Clayton Schuster penetrates the psychological domain of a captured terrorist with his entry: BLIND LOYALTY. Fergusson—played by stage stalwart Steve North—and Spleski—played by Hande Gokbas are trying to get a hard-boiled terrorist: Twist—played by the versatile Lina Lam—to crack and spill the pinto beans. Spleski seems more like a dominatrix than a counter terrorist agent and Fergusson's efforts to extract information from Twist are thwarted by his extreme ambivalence to the use of violence and torture as necessary adjuncts in collecting intelligence. Fergusson and Spleski try the old "good cop-bad cop" routine and come off looking more like Starsky and Hutch than a pair of CIA interrogation experts. For a man his age, MR North does some pretty convincing pratfalls: just watching him will make your gutes knot up. MR Schuster does not create the feel of an Abu Ghraib or a Guantanamo Bay nor do Spleski and Fergusson bear any resemblance to Lynndie England and Charles Graner; but one could understand how torture, as John McCain has often warned us, could lead to some senseless results and unintended consequences.
Perhaps the most stunning script of the autumnal fringe is 22 MINUTES REMAINING. Rarely does satire attain such subtlety and profundity in fewer than 15 minutes.
Writer Ignacio Zulueta gleefully packs in every cliché, double standard, special plea and propaganda device that the running dog, anti-Zionist, press routinely parades before the great undiscerning and myopic masses.
The title 22 MINUTES REMAINING refers to the warning time that the Israeli Defense Force (I.D.F.) provides to residents of structures that are about to be destroyed by a retaliatory Israeli Air Strike. Zulueta cleverly omits any mention of the precise warning times that terrorists groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qeda invariably provide to non-combatants before directing a Suicide Bomber, Qassam, Scud, Katyusha, Iranian Fajr-3, or Commercial Jet into soft civilian targets like villages, schools, discos or trade centers.
Zulueta adds an element of mystery to 22 MINUTES REMAINING by shrouding the fact that the air strike may be remotely connection to the 200 missiles a day that Hezbollah has rained down on Northern Israel.
Zulueta believes neither in spoon-feeding his audience nor taking sides in the Middle East conflict: he never states which of the worlds kicked around and marginalized ethnic groups ARE entitled to a homeland. Is it the French Canadians? The Basque? The Druze? The Armenians? The Kurds? The Gypsies or Roma or Romani? The Maronites? The Bedouins? The Falashas? The Coptics? The American Indians? The Jews of the Diaspora? Except to assume that the Palestinians are entitled to a homeland in Gaza, the West Bank, Galilee, Judea, Jordan, Samaria and the Negev, Zulueta does not wade in to the contentious homeland issue.
Perhaps his answer to the Jewish homeland is veiled within the conversation between the Lebanese woman—Myriam—who refuses to leave her condemned home, and the IDF caller beckoning her to flee for her life. The conversation gets around to the proverbial Jewish march into the sea—either single file our en masse—either way, assuming no one parts the waters, the amphibious gesture will be universally construed as a meaningful peace overture; anything short of total immersion will be viewed as an illegal occupation of Arab land. That Israelis or Jews are suicidal is a tenacious myth.
Zulueta is not without nuance: Myriam states that her son could not find work in Lebanon—we are not told if the economy was destroyed by the Hezbollah or by forty-years of internecine civil war—but we know that Junior was forced to leave a utopia in the Levant for work in Haifa and the vibrant, Mephistophelean economy of the Zionist entity.
Given the proliferation of SUVs and our dependency on Middle-Eastern oil, we need more fawning anti-Israeli screed like this to convince OPEC leaders that we are in their hip pockets culturally, politically and morally. This unctuous sub-stratum of fawning panegyrics invites audience participation: burnooses, kefiyahs, chadors, brown shirts and free John Walker Lindh t-shirts would be appropriate attire.
Steve North is never one to hesitate violating the proscriptions and caveats regarding writing, directing and acting in your own show. Steve does a great job with his loony and hilarious creation: THIS LIFE. Steve's voice as a writer and actor oscillates somewhere between Franz Kafka and Nikolay Gogol. Fueled by distorted remembrances of his unintentional life as a buffoon Steve North—played by Steve North—rants more than reminisces about his squandered life and feckless professional follies. THIS LIFE is a good argument for letting Alzheimer's disease run its course unabated. Who would want to live out one's golden years remembering precisely what a fool he or she had been in his or her salad days and middle age? If you have been a fool most of your life then THIS LIFE offers a sound argument for eating raw British beef. If Alzheimer's doesn't scrub the haunting embarrassing memories from your tote sheet then Creutzfeldt-Jakob's disease with a heaping side order of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy certainly will. Steve is to be respected and congratulated for putting the fruits of his creative comic spirit and effort out there for all of Marin to enjoy.
22 MINUTES REMAINING
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Perhaps the most stunning script in the autumnal fringe festival of Marin is 22 MINUTES REMAINING.
Rarely does satire attain such subtlety and profundity in less than 15 minutes.
Writer Ignacio Zulueta gleefully packs in every cliché, bias, double standard, special plea, rhetorical ruse and propaganda device that the running dog, anti-Zionist, press and Al Jezeera routinely spew before the great undiscerning, the myopic masses and the fatuously politically correct.
While most of us have heard most of the arguments trumpeted by MR Zulueta, his play is a good warning to all us rubes: if you listen to the dim of the same fables enough times, they begin to gel into an aspic resembling truth.
The title 22 MINUTES REMAINING refers to the warning time that the Israeli Defense Force (I.D.F.) provides to residents of structures that are about to be destroyed by a retaliatory Israeli Air Strike.
With a sleigh of the writer's hand, Zulueta cleverly omits any mention of the precise warning times that terrorists groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qeda routinely provide to non-combatants before directing a Suicide Bomber, Qassam, Scud, Katyusha, Iranian Fajr-3, or Commercial Jet into soft civilian targets like discos, villages, schools or trade centers.
Zulueta adds an element of mystery to 22 MINUTES REMAINING by shrouding the fact that the IDF air strike may have some remote connection to the 200 missiles a day that Hezbollah was raining down on civilian targets in Northern Israel.
Zulueta does not believe in spoon-feeding his audience nor taking sides in the Middle East conflict: he never states which of the world's kicked around and marginalized ethnic groups ARE entitled to a homeland.
Is it the French Canadians? The Basque? The Druze? The Armenians? The Kurds? The Gypsies or Roma or Romani? The Maronites? The Bedouins? The Falashas? The Coptics? The American Indians? The WASPS? The Jews of the Diaspora? Help us out here MR Zulueta.
Except to assume that the Palestinians ARE entitled to a homeland in Gaza, the West Bank, Galilee, Judea, Jordan and the Negev, Zulueta does not risk his credibility by wading in to the homeland issue.
Perhaps his underlying answer to the Jewish homeland is ensconced within the conversation between the Lebanese woman—Myriam—who refuses to leave her condemned home, and the IDF caller—Gilda—beckoning her to flee for her life.
Their conversation gets around to the proverbial Jewish march into the sea—either single file our en masse: Israel is a democratic country they can decide for themselves—either way, the amphibious gesture will be construed as a meaningful peace overture by the Arabs and the Arab sympathizers.
Then too anything short of total immersion will be viewed as an illegal occupation of Arab lands.
Zulueta is not without nuance: Myriam states that her son could not find work in Lebanon and was forced to leave the utopia of Lebanon to find work in decadent Haifa.
Is Zulueta contrasting the 20 percent unemployment rate in Lebanon to the vibrant, Mephistophelean economy of the Zionist entity?
Zulueta is careful to reign in the questions provoked by 22 MINUTES REMAINING.
We leave the theatre certain that Zulueta condemns retaliatory raids by the IDF for as many as 200 missiles a day targeting civilians in Israeli, but would he recommend that same restraint on the part of the United States if 200 missiles a day were launched by the French Separatists of Quebec into New England?
How many missiles per day should the U.S. tolerate from Tijuana, Matamoros and Nuevo Loreda if Mexican Ultranationalists were to begin a war to repatriate all the lands lost during the Mexican-American War of 1846 and the Gadson Purchase of 1853?
If you enjoy anti-Zionism dressed up as comedy, farce, political satire and parody and maybe a whiff of anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism, then this play is for you.
Look for it in a theater near you, unless Homeland Security finds it first.
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
HEROES
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
To the immense pleasure of audiences, the Ross Valley Players are currently staging HEROES.
With respect to superannuation, Nature is in some regards kind.
While she or her or it will not stay the hand of fate, we are provided with sufficient warning shots.
But, while we are young, we unconsciously tune out such niggling perturbations.
As we age our defenses eventually weaken, denial gives way to petitioning: "Oh God, if you spare my hairline, waistline and buttline, I promise to be a faithful husband."
Or, "Oh God, if I become a vegetarian, will you please not let me end up looking like my parents?"
HEROES is a great opportunity for a reconciliation with an impending reality: a chance to drop the draw bridge so truth can stride proudly, as a welcome visitor, into your castle rather than living as an outcast beyond the ramparts of self-deception.
The denial mechanism of callow youth screens out foreboding auguries; therefore we can live our lives with blithe insouciance; we can throw all the wood on the fire and pander to the dictates of our pheromones, hormones and atavistic strands of DNA.
Denial gives us the power to shuttle blissfully between blind ambition and reckless abandon.
Regrettably, we do not need a Ouija board, tea leaves, palm readers or the entrails of birds to know the defining characteristics of our final years.
Unless worse things happen to us, there will come a day when the gold from our golden years will transmute into iron pyrite and the flickering thoughts that attempt to dimly illuminate our deteriorating consciousness will sputter into befuddled nescience.
Then too, what will be the point of packaging a thought into an audible coherent sentence?
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise?
If a fond recollection is blurted out in a rest home and no one—other than a mercenary nurse—is there to pay attention to it or to successfully process it, does it make a noise?
Though denial insulates us from such a lurking verity, there may come a day when every sentence we utter to indifferent, preoccupied ears will be framed in past perfect, pluperfect, past absolute, past subjunctive or preterit tenses.
Present tense will be limited to responses to such questions as, "How are you today?"
Future tense will be completely boxed up and shelved until our next incarnation.
Be kind to your children, remember, it is they who will select your assisted living quarters and they who will appoint your day care provider or dominatrix.
On the other hand, HEROES presents a pleasant vision of the final years: a romp in Valhalla when compared to some possibilities.
The grateful nation of France, gives three World War I veterans: Henri, Gustave and Philippe, the chance to live out their final years with grace and dignity in an old soldiers' home situated in a provincial village.
Rather than remaining perpetually garbed in pajamas, bathrobes and slippers, these gallant veterans dress nattily for their days of reflection.
In a temperate French climate, they spend their days admiring the vista from a terrace.
From their deck chairs they see poplars, on a knoll in the distance, taunting them like their futile dreams of one day visiting Indochina.
The caretakers at their home allow the veterans to go for constitutional walks without the escape claxon sounding and without a bevy of bovine nurses herding them back into the octogenarian television room.
Like the rest of us, the limits to their freedom come only from themselves.
HEROES was written, in French, by Gerald Sibleyras.
Although it has the feel of a classic, it first hit the stage in Paris as recently as 2002.
Considering that Sibleyras was born in 1961, it is obviously not mere time that gives this play its matt patina and rich feel, it is the psychological depth to which Sibleyras masterfully crafts his characters.
Tom Stoppard has also lent a not so invisible hand to this play: he wrote the authorized English translation and we strongly suspect that he both sharpened and augmented the play's wit.
Alex Ross, Wood Lockhart and Russell Edmund Lessig superbly play the three veterans.
In all of Marin nor all of Northern California will you catch three gentlemen with such a commitment to the stage and with such dedicated talent assembled in one production: three mature veterans of the stage playing three mature veterans of the Great War: a winning combination.
For tickets to tempered truth and a most enjoyable show, call 415-456-9555 or visit http://www.rossvalleyplayers.com.
THE RAINMAKER
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
The amazing advantage that live theater has over cinema is that theater nearly always comes off as fresh, contemporary and mysteriously relevant.
Cinema seems to take on the sepia tones of irrelevancy as soon as it is committed to VCR tape, converted to DVD format or siphoned into the cable network.
RAINMAKER, the current production at the A.C.T. in
Director Mark Rucker takes this plains state romantic drama, dusts it off and breathes new vibrant life into it.
NYT theater critic, Brooks Arkinson, once described RAINMAKER as "warm, simple and friendly."
The humor was described as "captivating" and the characters as "lovable and original."
The question is, did the play reflect the culture of the plains states or did it indirectly reveal the paranoid restraint the artist community exercised during the McCarthy era?
Simple, safe, wholesome
Actress Rene Augesen is the tent pole that lifts this entire production.
As an actress, MS Augesen is worth studying at charm school: without changing her hair, make-up, jewelry or costume, MS Augesen can transition from plain as a fence post to radiantly beautiful, just by altering her body language, posture, movements, speech patterns and facial expression.
When her character, Lizzie Curry, calls for her to feel wretched, like a chameleon, she turns wretched.
When her character is supposed to feel beautiful, MS Augesen sheds her pallid, dowdy, dodgy rustic skein and reveals the butterfly within.
Stage stalwart Rod Gnapp—who once played Artie Mitchell in XXX LOVE ACT—plays Sheriff Thomas with the bedrock stage competency that remains his hallmark on Bay Area stages.
If there was an age of innocence it passed through
Like psychiatrist Abraham Maslow, playwright N. Richard Nash seemed to understand that the struggle against the whims and vagaries of nature kept the demons of neurosis at bay; the simple life was nothing more abstract than family, friends, eking out a living and putting palatable meals on the table.
To experience the bucolic life that existed before farm subsidies invited the rapacious to the plains states and to see a stunning theatrical production get thee to A.C.T.'s RAINMAKER.
For tickets call the box office at 415-749-2228 or visit www.act-sf.org.