THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS is where the fun starts CRIME AND PUNISHEMENT REVIEWED BY JEFFREY R SMITH
THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Leo Rosten, the curator of all that is Yiddish, tells the story of the Jewish man who fell overboard while on a cruise ship.
Miraculously, he swims to an island where twenty years later he is rescued.
Before departing the lonely island, his rescuers and he make one final tour of the rudimentary accommodations the man had built for himself: a tree house for when waves threaten to over-run the island, a beach house for halcyon days, and two temples.
Out of curiosity, a rescuer asks the castaway, "I can understand why you built one temple: so you could keep the Sabbath, but why a second temple?"
"Oh that," the castaway replied, nodding contemptuously to the other edifice, "that is the temple I would never set foot in."
Similarly, Alfred Uhry, author of THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO, explores the arbitrary and ironic conceits and arrogances that surface when a Jewish community is ensconced in Atlanta, Georgia amongst a nearly homogenous backdrop of Christianity.
Ross Valley Players, consistent with their tradition for excellence and revealing period pieces, is currently staging this award-winning segment of Uhry's Atlanta Trilogy which also includes DRIVING MISS DAISAY and PARADE.
Strange that in Atlanta, where one would expect the Jewish community would benefit socially, politically and economically from solidarity with other Jews, precisely the opposite result surfaced.
Western European Jews, mostly from Germany and Austria, condescendingly referred to Jews hailing from Eastern Europe as being "the other kind."
The hierarchal language and snobbish invectives directed at Eastern European Jews by German and Austrian Jews mimicked the very language of the nearly ubiquitous anti-Semitism and even the more vitriolic versions of it in Nazi Germany.
Astonishingly, Jewish Community Centers and Clubs in Atlanta actually excluded Jews of the Pale of Settlement or the rural Shtetl.
Abbott Saks, a recognized American Poet and husband to Survivor Kitty Friedenbach, touched on the same theme in his memorable poem: THE SHOWER.
She held the child close to her breast
And did not look upon the rest
Who numbed had heard the cold command.
'Disrobe and by the chamber stand . . .
Remember where your clothes are hung,
They must not be carelessly flung;
You'll need them when you're clean and dry . . .
On leashes strained guard dogs nearby;
Weary, hungry, yet proud unbowed,
Shtetl met Vienna in this crowd;
The learned, simple, rich, the poor,
From Krakow, Kovno, Rhineland, Rhur;
Though nakedness they could not hide,
They kept their dignity, their pride;
What had they done to know such pain?
Outside the shower with no drain,
She held the child close to her breast
And did not look upon the rest
But sweetly whispered words of love
Although brute guards did cruelly shove,
Although she knew what was to be . . .
Death, not water, flowed with Zyklon-B.
— Abbott Saks (by permission)
"Shtetl met Vienna" is the crux of this Tony Award winning play of 1997.
An assimilated upper class Ashkenazi: Sunny Freitag (played by the stunning Alicia Bruckman) via the machinations of her uncle: Adolph Freitag (played by the stage friendly stalwart Alex Ross) meets an Eastern European Jew: Joe Farkas (played brilliantly by Mike Cernokus).
To the average Goyim, the romance should have been as sweet as strudel.
Instead, despite the event of the day being Hitler's invasion of Poland, intra-ethnic bias rears its incongruous head.
Joe is invited to a lavish cotillion, or Ballyhoo, at the Freitag's country club.
When Joe Farkas discovers that the Freitag's restrictive club would normally exclude him and all Eastern Jews, he is unable to fathom nor tolerate such discrimination from within his own religious community.
While Joe is retreating from the ludicrous anti-Semitism of Semites in Atlanta, Sunny uses her time to constructively reexamine her conflicting prejudices, traditions, identity and beliefs.
To learn a little about the nature of prejudice and the power of love to conquer it, get thee to this heart warming, yet stirring and intelligent romantic-comedy-drama.
For tickets to what is guaranteed to be a superlative performance, call the RVP ticket office at 415-456-9555 or visit www.rossvalleyplayers.com.
Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner for $10 or less.
WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
The Boxcar Theatre, which has currently alighted at 505 Natona Street in San Francisco, is presently performing WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS: a compilation of Shel Silverstein's work that has been artfully "lifted from the page; onto the stage."
If you dared to treat your children or your parents, custodian or parole officer treated you to any of the whacky works (THE GIVING TREE, WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, LIGHT IN THE ATTIC and FALLING UP, etc.) of Shel Silverstein then it will be "deja vu all over again" watching this most delightful show.
As Shel exhorted us, " . . . if you're creative person, you should just go about your business, do your work and not care about how it's received."
It is obvious that director Nick Olivera, a.k.a. Sicko Nicko, pays heed to Shel's credo.
His stage production is concocted of life-size puppets, a shadow box, phosphorescent or luminescent tubing, zany props, silly gags and dazzling costumes.
John Foley (Uncle Albert) puts forth a tremendous performance as the avuncular curmudgeon who does his best to precipitate on everyone's parade and ultimately learns to love Nephew Shel for who he is.
Ben Freeman (Shel) plays the quasi androgynous reclusive dreamer who in real life said, "When I was a kid: 12 or 14, around there, I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls. But I couldn't play ball; I couldn't dance. Luckily, the girls didn't want me; not much I could do about that. So I started to draw and to write."
Knowing where his strengths abounded, Shel made creativity, rather than baseball or chasing skirts, a way of life: "By the time I got to where I was attracting girls, I was already into work, and it was more important to me. Not that I wouldn't rather make love, but the work has become a habit."
Shel was not only assiduously creative and prolific; he was amusing and popular.
He continued to create plays, songs, poems, stories, and drawings until his death in 1999.
His mixed bag of works included A BOY NAMED SUE (performed by Johnny Cash and for which Silverstein won a Grammy in 1970), THE UNICORN (the signature piece of the Irish Rovers since 1968 and ubiquitous in Irish pubs to this day), THE COVER OF THE ROLLING STONE, FREAKIN' AT THE FREAKERS' BALL and SYLVIA'S MOTHER (by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show) and a bit of cautionary musical medical advice: DON'T GIVE A DOSE TO THE ONE YOU LOVE MOST.
His hits extend back to 1962 when the Brothers Four recorded the gristly serpentine hit BOA CONSTRICTOR.
Given his contributions to the world of country music, Silverstein was posthumously inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002.
If you have a son or daughter who is derelict in household chores, this play includes an homage to Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout and a scary hygienic caveat: THE GIRL WHO WOULD NOT TAKE THE GARBAGE OUT.
Silverstein knew where to find the good life: his favorite places were Greenwich Village, Key West, Martha's Vineyard, and most importantly: Sausalito, California.
As Uncle Nestor used to say, "There is no use defending good taste."
The play WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS has messages and lessons for all of us; as Shel put it, "I would hope that people, no matter what age, would find something to identify with in my books (or plays), pick up one and experience a personal sense of discovery."
When Shel was amongst us, he never cared what the critics had to say: "I never read reviews because if you believe the good ones you have to believe the bad ones too."
Not that Shel would care, but this critic is giving WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS nothing but superlative grades: set design and directing by Sicko Nicko, original music composed and played by Christian Foster Howes, and acting are rock solid.
Collectively these elements might serve to turn on the LIGHT IN THE ATTIC: your attic.
For tickets, surf on over to www.boxcartheatre.org or call 415-776-1747.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
For better of for worse, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, as performed on the Berkeley Rep stage, leaves few surprises for those erudite members of the audience who have waded through all 482 pages of the thick Russian prose of Dostoevsky's existential novel.
To refresh your memories: college dropout: Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, motivated by his compassion for Sonia, a prostitute, and while in the throes of depressed delusional doldrums, executes a very premeditated double murder of the miserly Pawn Broker: Alyona Ivanovna and her half-sister: Lizaveta.
Immediately following the profitless axe murders, to ensure he gets caught, Raskolnikov begins a self-incriminating flirtation with Police Investigator Porfiry Petrovich.
Raskolnikov was not psychologically adjusted to the sordid, cruel, unseemly world of inequities and poverty he witnessed in Petersburg.
Unable to constructively imagine a better world, Raskolnikov mentally writes an equation: A hundred thousand good deeds--purchased with stolen money--versus the "life of a sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman . . . a louse, a black-beetle, indeed less than a black-beetle . . . an old woman doing harm . . . she severely bit the finger of Lizaveta."
As he is running down the human worth of the Pawnbroker, Raskolnikov busily elevates himself, in delusions of grandeur, to the magnitude of a Napoleon.
Secretly, the Russians always wished that the French, under Napoleon, had conquered them and liberated them from the Byzantine mantel they inherited following the Fall of Constantinople 1453.
Dehumanizing his victim while lionizing himself, the otherwise virtuous Raskolnikov takes to cleaving obstructing skulls with an axe.
Tyler Pierce is nothing short of stunning as Raskolnikov: the audience can nearly smell his acrid sociopathic sweat and feel his guilty, racing pulse.
The tri-dextrous J.R. Horne is triple cast as Inspector Porfiry, Sonia's father: Marmelodov and a Tradesman; he does a remarkable job at all three characters.
If there is a departure from the traditional characters of Dostoevsky it surfaces with the liberties Sharon Ott has taken with Porfiry: this Detective has a curious propensity, or as the French would say: a penchant, to frequently and inexplicably touch Raskolnikov.
Delia MacDougall magically recasts herself four times: Sonia the prostitute, Alyona the pawnbroker, Raskolnikov's mother and the hapless Lizaveta.
The set design, by Christopher Barreca, serves as a fitting metaphor for not only the plot but for the multifaceted, conflicted mind of Raskolnikov.
Sound design, by Cliff Caruthers, jolts the audience from one scene to the next; crackling the transitions like the fried ganglia that make up the landscape of Raskolnikov's tortured consciousness.
In the absence of any set changes, the lighting design, by Stephen Strawbridge, kaleidoscopes the audience, like sparks across synapses fueled by Pure Sandoz, through the fractured homicidal dreamscape of Raskolnikov.
In a sense, we have the Czar of Russia to thank for CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: Dostoevsky was about to be executed for "taking part in conversations against the censorship, of reading a letter from Byelinsky to Gogol, and of knowing of the intention to set up a printing press."
After months of imprisonment in the gulag equivalent to Guantanamo Bay, the seditious Dostoevsky was dragged before a firing squad; only seconds before the fatal volley was to be fired, "the troops beat a tattoo . . . his majesty, the Czar, had spared . . ." the life of Dostoevsky.
Such a close brush with death spurred Dostoevsky to make a vow that he would not waste a single minute of his life; he became more prolific than any extant Russian writer or artist save a paleolithic cave painter near the southern shore of Lake Baikal.
For the brilliantly staged equivalent of CLIFF'S NOTES on CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, call the Berkeley Rep box office at 510-647-2949 or click on berkeleyrep.org.
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