SHE STOOPS TO COMEDY REVIEWED NOVEMBER Reviewed by Jeff Smith THE MIRACLE WORKER Reviewed by Jeff Smith
SHE STOOPS TO COMEDY
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Since its inception in 2003, the San Francisco Playhouse has continued to distinguish itself as one of the bay area's premier theaters of ANY size.
Currently the Playhouse is staging SHE STOOPS TO COMEDY, a confirmation that Bill English and Susi Damilano are dedicated to the daring; in possession of cutting edge creativity and have the raw courage to unmuzzle it and let it entirely off its leash.
The script is rife with conspicuously intelligent wit and riddled with dexterous, leap-frogging word play: the characters seem to share an amphetamine confluence of consciousness.
The play is nothing short of gut-wrenchingly hilarious.
The audience is advised to wear seatbelts: SHE STOOPS TO COMEDY has a warp-speed, cerebral intensity that Max Headroom would have called a blip-vert: it could crash your hard drive if you have dulled your senses on prime time programming, mall movies, decaf lattes or matching furniture, dinnerware and socks.
To reluctantly invoke an overused 60's cliché, this opus is tres avant-garde.
While is not accurate to identify the play with a genre, it bears the slightest resemblance to the comedic farcical shtick of NOISES OFF or the convoluted FRENCH LIENTENANT'S WOMAN: the actors are the characters, the characters are the actors and, in a sense, the actors-characters are also the writer-directors.
It is here that any actual collision with Marty Kaplan and Harold Pinter is averted.
David Greenspan delightfully blurs the edges between cast and character, script and dialogue, acting and directing; and tosses out gender identity as a trifling, superfluous irrelevancy of the literal minded.
At its core, the play pivots about summer stock Shakespearean theater in Maine: a production of AS YOU LIKE IT to be specific.
To recapture her estranged lover, an actress i.e.Alexandra Page, played by a man i.e. Liam Vincent, gets cast as Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT.
As Rosalind, Alexandra is essentially cast a woman who plays a man to catch a man i.e. Orlando, who is played by the character Alison Rose who is played by the real life actress Sally Clawson.
The play might have more layers than your cerebral cortex or most wedding cakes; fortunately, like good cake, it can be enjoyed whether or not the layers are separated or completely deciphered.
If you are a closet intellectual, theater effete or elite, and want to side-step the pabulum for something brilliantly funny this is your opportunity.
To reserve tickets visit www.sfplayhouse.org or call 415.677.9596 or hike on over to 533 Sutter Street at Powell.
NOVEMBER
Reviewed by Jeff Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Given the mountains of corroborative evidence provided by nearly ten thousand homogenous years of political life on our planet, one might conclude that the most urgent task awaiting anyone who has ascended or descended to public office, is the problem of converting the public trust into vast personal gain.
This whole kleptocratic prestidigitation must be masked by bombastic buffoonery, destiny or divine right, high-blown pomposity and regal posturing.
With sufficient arrogance, even a mediocre politician may thoroughly convince a fatuous public that he or she is entitled to freely loot the public coffers, exercise executive sexual privilege and to extort whatever advantages and gains his or her public office can pry away from the state or the economy.
NOVEMBER by David Mamet, currently being performed by A.C.T., explores the unbridled, unhinged and unapologetic rapacity with which a nominally fictitious American President exploits the highest office in the land.
A simple tradition of pardoning the White House turkey becomes the springboard for first attempting to squeeze a $100,000 donation out of the Turkey Growers of America.
Then the plan escalates to $200 million extortion scheme, before collapsing into a tertiary fall back scam wherein the President deeds most Martha's Vineyard over to an obscure Native American tribe with the proviso that he personally gains half interest in the casino envisioned for what was once a pristine National Seashore Preserve.
As Plato argues in THE REPUBLIC, "he who is willing to serve is unfit to serve."
This paradox is handily demonstrated in this whacky parody of political life inside the Washington beltway.
Some things are difficult parody: divorce, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, politics, TV evangelism, late night TV commercials and professional wrestling being a few.
Parody involves a gross exaggeration or distortion of all that is risible regarding the topic which is to be satirized.
Politics is already a gross exaggeration before it even swaggers up to the election stump.
To parody the traditions set forth by Nixon, Family Bush and Clinton, Mamet has to really push the envelope; at times his comedy works too hard and has too much of an bite.
Maybe Mamet has become a victim of his own success: no one cautions him that his humor, at times, sets the audience's teeth on edge.
Andrew Polk—as the soon to be lame duck president—is the engine of this strenuous comedy.
As the bumbling Charles Smith, his oval office talk, like Nixon tapes, is peppered with racial slurs, homophobia, raw cynicism, opportunism and rabid anti-Semitism.
The parody is so heavy handed at times, that the audience occasionally feels bludgeoned by it.
The play is indisputably funny although it feels like we are indulging Mamet in a way we would not indulge a lesser known playwright.
For tickets to comedy bordering on verite call the A.C.T. box office at 415-749-2228 or visit act-sf.org .THE MIRACLE WORKER
Reviewed by Jeff Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
No amount of foresight or foreshadowing can adequately prepare an audience for, emotionally insulate an audience from, or psychologically brace an audience for, the heartwarming conclusion of William Gibson's THE MIRACLE WORKER as performed by the Ross Valley Players.
Bring a hankie, a Kleenex, a sponge or a squeegee.
Throughout the play, the cast iron, hand water pump—critically instrumental to the denouement—is clearly visible, nearly center stage, forewarning you, indeed urging you to brace yourself, for the miraculous conclusion which essentially marks the real beginning of Helen Keller's incredible life.
Great directing by Linda Dunn breathes realism, warmth and fresh drama into this amazing story that deserves to be told over and over on stage, screen and television.
An absolutely stunning performance by the unassuming upstart: Samantha Martin, bring smiles to the lips, tears to the eyes and the house to its feet at the closing curtain.
Samantha, as Helen Keller, is obviously limited in her avenues of communicating with the audience: speaking, given Helen's handicaps, is clearly not an option, and both physical and facial animations are also curtailed by her character.
None-the-less, Samantha communicates volumes to the audience regarding the dark, silent prison within which Helen is tragically sequestered almost from her birth.
With the help of Anne Sullivan—played by Megan Pryor Lorentz, with all the emotional richness, dogged perseverance and dark troubled complexity that her character deserves—Annie is transported from a life of benign neglect, low expectation and feral savagery to the richness of an inquisitive young girl urgent to discover life and the world.
Tom Reilly is nothing short of aristocratic, as the dapper Captain Keller: Helen's doting, misguided, yet well meaning father.
Lauren Doucette is wonderful as Kate Keller: a mother who must repeatedly wrestle, and subdue her own heart, for the sake of Helen's progress.
Although the play is biographical and rooted in the disturbing realities of both Helen's and Anne's challenging lives, there is a wisp of comedy provided by the effete James Keller—artfully played by the itinerant Brook Robinson.
If you, like this crusty reviewer, mistakenly assume you know all you need to know about the commensalism of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller, then you are woefully mistaken.
For tickets to this inspirational miracle within a miracle, contact the Ross Valley Players at www.rossvalleyplayers.com or call 415-456-9555 when you are NOT driving, operating heavy equipment or sitting in an audience.