ENCHANTED APRIL A WINNER CRAZY FOR YOU a Must See Show MISS JULIE at the Aurora Theatre

ENCHANTED APRIL , By Matthew Barber, From the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim, Directed by Michael Butler. Center REPertory Company 1601 Civic Drive in downtown Walnut Creek. www.centerrep.org 925.943.7469 April 2- May 2, 2009

ENCHANTED APRIL IS A PLAY TO ENJOY

In this age of plays filled with deep psychological meaning, violence and no formal construction it was a pleasure to visit Walnut Creek’s Center Rep to enjoy a charming well-constructed play with a beginning, middle, end with likeable characters. Michael Butler has corralled a top-notch cast who perform as an ensemble carrying off his deft directorial touches with hilarious results.

The played, based on the 1922 novel and was made into a successful movie in 1992 and adapted into a stage play earning a Tony nomination during its Broadway run in 2003. This post World War I romantic comedy of four diverse English women transported from the depressing rain-drenched England to a rented Italian castle surrounded by spring flowers and a trellis draped with Wisteria is in the mold of Barbara Cartland, one of the most successful writers of romance novels of all time. The play really is more attuned to a woman’s psyche but that did not prevent many of the men in the audience laughing and nodding agreement with the humorous lines. Some of those humorous lines, reminiscent of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Bracknell in the “The Importance of Being Ernest” are delivered with haughty perfect timing by the multi-talented local favorite Wanda McCadden as the indomitable widow, appropriately named Mrs. Graves. For example: “Dotage is preferable to condescension” and “Inheritance is so much better than acquisition!”

The story is introduced through the words of Lotty Wilton (Lizzie Calogero) breaking the fourth wall with a prolog and epilog. Calogero, a mainstay at CenterRep, puts her indubitable stamp on the role with enough energy to play all the parts. In all starts in dreary, rainy England emphasized by the first act taking place on a first act set with a four tier bank of umbrellas as thunder and rain cascades back stage. It is the perfect setup to contrast with the bright, sun draped, flower strewn Italian court yard complete with a two level stone castle of act two which brings spontaneous audience applause. Similarly, three drab and one exotic women are transformed as the enchantment of the bucolic environment seeps into their personae.

Lotty Wilton, an unhappy middle-aged homemaker, with a stodgy husband Melleresh (Alex Moggridge), finds rental advertisement for an Italian castle available in the month of April. To share the cost of renting she enlists the partnership of Rose Arnott (Suzeanne Irving) a mousey housewife married to a successful globe-trotting author Frederick (Steve Irish) whose attentions to her are distant. Lotty’s advertisement to obtain two more women to share the castle attracts the fore-mentioned Mrs. Graves and Lady Caroline Bramble (beautiful Maryssa Wanlass) a lost soul disappointed in love and floundering in the English social scene.

When the women arrive, an Italian maid/cook Constanza (Kerri Shawn), whose dialog is in Italian, meets them and her hysterical performance steps up the humor a few notches. Melleresh arrives on the invitation of Lotty. Frederick arrives to consummate a tryst with Lady Bramble. They too are transformed into attentive loving husbands. Moggridge’s brief stint in a towel that only partially covers his nakedness brings the house down. Antony Wilding (Joseph Rende) the owner of the castle plays a pivotal role in completing the enchantment for all involved. Except for the marginal performance of Rende, there is not a weak link in the cast although they all are not given equal opportunity to display their skills but the exuberant yet nuanced emoting of the cast is infectious and it invades the audience before the evening ends.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

CRAZY FOR YOU: Musical with a book by Ken Ludwig, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and music by George Gershwin. Directed by Brooke Knight. Broadway By The Bay, San Mateo Performing Arts Center, 600 N. Delaware Ave, San Mateo. 650-579-5565 or www.broadwaybythebay.org. Through April 19, 2009

IT WILL SET YOUR FEET TAPPING

Broadway by the Bay (BBTB)starts off its 44^th season with a spirited highly professional production of Crazy For You, not quite good enough to make you forget the superb 1999 Paper Mill Playhouse staging that ran on PBS Great Performances but is highly recommended for a two hour and 40 minute (with a 20 minute intermission) evening of song and dance to tickle your fancy. I hope that you were fortunate enough to tape that TV show for your archives since there are no DVDs available. If not, your best bet is to race off to San Mateo and see this show a couple of times.

The Broadway staging in 1992 won the Tony award for Best Musical. Although loosely based on 1930 Girl Crazy, it is compilation of songs from many shows. Like 42^nd Street, this show shares its memorable music with the dancing. Maybe that should be the music shares the stage with the memorable dancing since the hero, the son of a rich NY banker, Bobby Child (Steve Perez), whose only goal is to dance on the stage.

The show starts back stage at the Zangler Theater where Bobby auditions for Bella Zangler with disastrous/humorous results. Bella has the hots for, and is rebuffed by, dance captain Tess. Enter Bobby’s Mother (Lois Lazich), with the rich, spoiled Irene (Erica Wyman) whom he has been engaged to for 5 years. Bobby is ordered to go to Deadrock, Nevada, to foreclose on a rundown Gaiety Theatre. Bobby fantasizes dancing with the Follies girls in a show stopping number (I Can’t Be Bothered Now) with the sexy girls in marvelous pink costumes. What a great beginning. The tone for the entire show has been set.

Off to Dead Rock where the lackadaisical males sing I’m Biding My Time before Bobby meets Polly (Melissa WolfKlain) enthusing in song Things Are Looking Up and they dance up a storm ending with a kiss. True love never runs true and animosity rears its ugly head when she discovers Bobby is the one sent to foreclose on the beloved theatre. What better way to save the theatre than to put on a show in the mode of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Bobby enlists the help of the Follies girls who are on leave between shows. Lank Hawkins (Cameron Weston), the owner of Deadrock Saloon is not pleased since Polly is the only girl in town and he wishes to marry her.

Rejected Bobby is heartbroken, but he decides to put on the show disguised as Zangler. Melissa WolfKlain gives a great interpretation of the plaintive “Someone to Watch Over Me." What an entrance the Follies girls make in there bright costumes and vivacious ways that entice the local gentry and dance up a fantastic storm with “Slap That Bass”. The first act ends with I Got Rhythm, an eight-minute tour de force that has no equal.

The fun continues into the second act with the rousing Real American Folk Song and a dance number to bring down the rafters. Erica Wyman has her turn to stop the show with a sexy, raunchy Naughty Baby.

There is much more to tell but that would remove the fun of seeing the show. Steve Perez gives a very creditable performance as the protagonist Bobby and those times he sings off key is hardly noticeable. Melissa WolfKlain is the only equity actor and is great as a singer and dancer. The show really belongs to the dancing ensemble and the Follies Bergere finale is glorious. Highly recommended.

Kedar K. Adour

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

Lauren Grace and Mark Anderson Phillips in Aurora Theatre Company's production of Miss Julie Photo by David Allen

MISS JULIE by August Strindberg, directed by Mark Jackson from a version by Helen Cooper, with Lauren Grace, Mark Anderson Phillips and Beth Deitchman. Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA. 510-843-4822 or www.auroratheatre.org. Through May 10, 2009.

MARK JACKSON PUTS HIS STAMP ON STRINDBERG’S MISS JULIE AT THE AURORA

Selecting Mark Jackson, San Francisco Bay Area’s Golden Boy, to direct August Strindberg’s naturalistic drama Miss Julie was a bold move by Artistic Director Tom Ross. He is a perfect fit for Helen Cooper’s earthy translation of Strindberg’s 1880s misogynistic play that set standards for future writers. Jackson has a distinctive self-conscious style utilizing in-your-face physicality and excessive banging of furniture. He attempts to emulate Pinter who is a master at writing pauses into his dialog. Where Pinter was successful, Jackson’s use of the pregnant pause becomes interminable. He has put his stamp on this production with questionable success.

The action takes place in the kitchen on the estate of a never seen Swedish Count whose powerful influence is pervasive and oppressive symbolized by his boots always being on stage. Cook Christine and Jean, valet to the Count, are discussing the erratic nature of Miss Julie, the Count’s daughter. She is cavorting shamelessly with the Games Keeper during their Midsummer Eve celebration. Julie enters the kitchen to entice Jean to dance with her. There is an agonizing pas de deux where Julie humiliates Jean by playing the master to his servant, forcing him to kiss her shoe. The relationship gradually changes as the well-read and well-traveled Jean insidiously gains the upper hand but still remains a member of the servant class even though he insists “I wasn’t born to grovel.” Julie decries the fact that she is “half man and half woman” because her feminist mother instilled in her the equality of the sexes. Julie’s former fiancée has jilted her after he refused her demand to jump over a riding whip.

Julie’s recurring dream involves being on a pedestal, desiring to fall becoming one of the common people. Jean’s dream is the direct opposite as he attempts to climb higher to reach the level of the ruling class. Jean’s subservience is amplified when he violently polishes the Count’s boots and is in fear of the front door bell indicating the return of his master, the Count. Julie’s flirtation/seduction leads to a violent assignation that she deems as love but he considers want.

Strindberg entwines psychology and symbolism with his take on women’s role in society, class distinction and interpersonal relationships. The fact that Julie has “degraded” herself makes it imperative that she leave the estate. Jean’s persuasive guile encourages her to steal her father’s money, ostensibly to run off to idyllic Lake Como and set up a hotel. This comes to a crashing halt when truth will out and Julie wishes to bring her pet bird along: “It is the only creature I have loved.” She would rather kill the bird than turn it over to another. Angry Jean cuts off its head intimating that another solution for her was to commit suicide.

Religious Christine who is Jean’s bedmate and possible future wife, attempts to win him back by taking him off to church. She threatens to tell all, forbidding them to take any of the horses and admonishes Julie “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter kingdom of heaven.” Jean’s bravado vanishes and he reverts to the servile role when the bell sounds indicating the return of the count. Typical of Jackson’s directorial style, Julie cuts her throat on stage rather than do the deed off stage. It is very dramatic.

The performances of Mark Anderson Phillips and Lauren Grace brilliantly create the tension Jackson desires sharing blame for their actions. Beth Deitchman blossoms in her final scene with her religious diatribe as she stalks off to church. Guilo Cesare Perrone’s set is a perfect replica of an 1890s kitchen with effective lights cues by Heather Basarab. David A. Graves original music and sound design are superb.

Running time 85 minutes without intermission.

Kedar K. Adour

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com