The Ju;ngle Book

 

Panthers, tigers and bears! Oh my!

It’s a jungle out there, as Acme Theatre Company presents its annual thank-you gift to the city of Davis on the Art Center amphitheater stage in the form of a free performance of Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book,” as written by Acme alum Briandaniel Oglesby and directed by Emily Henderson.
Kipling’s 1894 book was a collection of fables using animals to give moral lessons, and Oglesby gives the story a modern ecological twist.

This version of the story was commissioned by Big Idea Theatre in Sacramento and opened its 2014 season.

The first thing to observe on the Art Center stage is the set, designed by Benton Harshaw, an innovative use of umbrellas of all sizes, shapes and types, painted in various shades of green and grouped together to form the jungle in which the action takes place.

Costumes designed by Cassaundra Wages are fairly minimal suggestions of costumes — ears and a tail, for example, but the most fun costume of all is for the vulture, Kite (Sophia Waxman) whose voluminous wings allow her to fly all over the stage area and Waxman has perfected the art of swooping and settling, quite vulture-like, on a tree stump.

It is the story of the young boy Mowgli (Gracelyn Watkins), orphaned after his parents were killed by the hungry tiger Shere Kahn (Dedrick Underwood). Mowgli is a puzzlement to the creatures of the forest and there is discussion concerning what to do about him until he is adopted by Raksha (Garnet Phinney), a wolf mother who recently lost her cub. She will raise the boy as her son and teach him to be a wolf.

Mowgli joins the pack of wolves, led by Akela (Ben Kimmel) and learns the ways of the forest, though he never quite “belongs,” and is taunted by his fellow wolf cubs. He is the perpetual outsider just looking for a home.

The story is told by the bear Baloo (Cassidy Smith) and his panther partner Bagheera (Cory McCutcheon), who take on the instruction of the young man-cub. Baloo explains that he is “tasked with the edification of the wolf pack. I teach them jungle law and the stories of us Jungle People.”
In his search for a place to belong, Mowgli briefly joins a pack of monkeys but is fascinated by the dangerous snake Kaa (Laura Britt). To escape, Mowgli flees to the nearby city.

The pace of life in the city, with everyone rushing by, is confusing to the young man-cub and when he is discovered by the humans, they, too, are confused by what to do with him, suggestions which include everything from experimenting on him to locking him up in a zoo.

But he is adopted by a wealthy socialite, DeeDee (McKella von Boxtel), who is determined to civilize him. (Husband Duke is played by Underwood, previously seen in the jungle as tiger Shere Kahn.

(In one of the more clever bits of set design, DeeDee’s home is decorated with paintings, represented by cast members looking through picture frames.)

Still finding himself an outsider, Mowgli can’t find a home with his own kind and decides to return to the forest, but in the years of his absence, the forest has been transformed by clear cutting and his old friends are losing their home.

The play ends on Mowgli’s solution for saving his friends and finding a new place away from the destruction of the forest.

This is a play that will delight children of all ages (I sat next to a toddler who was mesmerized throughout). What better way to spend a couple of hours on a holiday weekend than outside enjoying a delightful play?

The 39 Steps

 

There is only one way to describe John Buchan’s “The 39 Steps,” now at Wyatt Pavilion — silly, frenetic madness and mayhem.

This Patrick Barlow homage to the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film is based on a John Buchan novel. Described by UCD’s department of theater and dance as “a Hitchcock masterpiece with an action thriller, adding a dash of Monty Python,” this production, directed by Mindy Cooper, will have you gasping for breath between the laughs.

The production also celebrates the 110th anniversary of Wyatt Pavilion, the oldest building on campus.

It is a cast of five — Matt Skinner, Kelly Tappan, Daniel Ferrer, Matthew Murphy and Caitlin Sales — who create more than 100 characters, with lightning-fast costume changes, most in full sight of the audience. One actor may change character three times in a matter of seconds.

The only actor who does not change character is Skinner. He appears as the uber-British Richard Hanny, whose brief encounter with a glamorous woman he meets in the theater (Tappan — like Hitchcock leading ladies, she is a striking blonde) leads to numerous adventures that involve chases across moors, streams and bridges, false identities, and even murder (for which he is, of course, falsely accused).

Poor Hanny will be chased through two dozen locations before the play comes to its end.

The parade of police, spies, rustics, traveling salesmen, innkeepers, newsboys and railroad porters are all played by Ferrer, Murphy and Sales, who did not make a visible misstep despite the zaniness of the action. Watching them change hats, coats and accents is as much fun as watching the people they become.

Big kudos to costume designers Maria Delgadillo, Alisa Sakakura and Autumn Ward, headed by Roxanne Femling.

The creative team of Duke Durfee (scenic design), Pamila Z. Gray (lighting design) and Lindsay Putnam (sound design) create great effects, such as a tribute to Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” when Hanny is chased by a crop duster.

(To the best of my knowledge, director Cooper did not, like Hitchcock, have a brief walk-on, but who can tell with all those characters?)

The innovative use of things — like ladders to represent the Forth Bridge, or big photo frames that double as windows through which characters escape — is brilliant.

The pace is breathtaking and the laughs tumble over each other throughout.

Be advised that if you have difficult reading small print, bringing a magnifying glass is advised. The print in the program is so incredibly tiny that I was not able to read it until I got home and could see it under a magnifying glass.

Stupid F###ing Bird

If Conrad loves Nina and Nina loves Trigorin and Trigorin loves Emma while Dev loves Masha, who loves Conrad — we can only be in a Russian tragedy.

“Stupid F##king Bird,” currently at Capital Stage, under the direction of Michael Stevenson, is a hilarious yet reverential homage to Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull.”

The title came about as a joke, playwright Aaron Posner explained. “I was saying how much I loved ‘The Seagull’ and how much I kind of hated it. As I left the room, I literally said, ‘I should do my own adaptation. I should call it Stupid F##king Bird.’ ” And so he did.

This is more or less the plot of “The Seagull” with the themes more or less the themes of Chekhov’s and, like the original, it is all about theater, including a play within a play in which the audience is invited to contribute ideas. But the lines between reality and stage are blurred and the characters often are not aware that they are actors in a play.

Yes, it’s a little confusing, but stick with it. It’s very funny and all comes together. Sort of. By the final bow.

The marvelous Ian Hopps is Conrad, the tortured playwright desperate to get his play appreciated, especially by his mother, Emma (Rebecca Dines), to whom the play is directed.

Hopps made a big impression in Davis Shakespeare Ensemble’s “Bells are Ringing” last summer and does not disappoint in this production, filled with passion, self-deprecation and anguish about his unrequited love for aspiring actress Nina.

Brittni Barger as Nina is a hopeless romantic who longs for a stage career (but isn’t really talented). She is dazzled by the philandering literary legend Trigorin and believes he is her key to fame and fortune.

Dines plays the successful actress and family matriarch Emma, who has had a love/hate relationship with her son for all of his life, which explains a lot about Conrad.

Capital Stage favorite Jason Kuykendall is Trigorin, tall and cool, but easily swayed by the sexual advances of both Nina and Emma. (Warning to the audience: There is a bit of nudity in this show, as well as liberal use of the F-word.)

Comic relief is provided by Jouni Kirjola as Dev, with a smile that comes right out of a cartoon. His smile often hides a breaking heart but he is Con’s BFF and an essential part of his life. Kirjola offers the perfect blend of social awkwardness and charm.

A real find is Wenona Truong, as Mash. The actress comes out of the Capital Stage Apprentice Program and is perfect as the deadpan, perpetually depressed Mash, strumming her ukulele and singing bitter songs to express her unhappiness.

(“My heart has been broken, my heart has been burst / The best that life can offer me is more of the worst …”)

Peter Mohrmann is Dr. Sorn, Emma’s brother, whose role seems to be that of a detached observer, though he secretly has his own feelings of longing, if nobody on whom to focus them. He self-medicates with vodka. He is dying, but nobody knows it. This is the kind of role in which Mohrmann excels and he gives an expected strong performance.

Scenic design is by Timothy McNamara. The set is so impressive it is worth sitting through the intermission to see it changed.

Likewise, Glenn Fox does a good job of lighting, switching from theatrical performance to “reality” by means of lighting changes.

It is Con who tells this story and even as it achieves some success, he’s not happy.

“You know what f-ing sucks about a little success? It just feels like a set up for a new kind of failure — a more painful kind. Because now instead of just my family, I’ll get to have, you know … perfect strangers judging and pitying me, too.”

If the audience is any indication, there’s not a lot of negative judgment in this production. In fact it’s pretty f-ing brilliant.

Treatment

What happens when you put three of Sacramento’s funniest ladies together and tell them to write a play? You get a lot of funny stuff!

B Street Theatre has just opened a brand-new play, “Treatment” by Stephanie Altholz, Tara Sissom and Amy Kelly.

“Buck (Busfield) got us all together and said ‘You’re all funny, despite horrible things that happened to you. I want you to write a play about how funny came out of it,’ ” Altholz said.

A year later, the play is on the stage under direction of David Perini.

Though apparently the life experiences the women have suffered were the inspiration for the play, one would be hard-pressed to figure out who has experienced what. This is a play about other women and can easily be performed by any set of wonderful comediennes.

To write the play, the women decided to go camping so they would have a good atmosphere for brainstorming. Not only did they get ideas, but they decided that this would be the perfect venue in which to set their story. In fact, Sissom took notes on their discussion and those notes became the frame on which they hung the rest of their story.

The setting is a campsite on the one-year anniversary of the death of Jayne’s mother. Jayne (Sissom) has had difficulty saying goodbye and letting go, but she is finally ready to spread Mom’s ashes and has brought her best, lifelong friends, Roxanne (Altholz) and Patricia (Kelly), with her for emotional support.

Roxanne must really love her friend because she is germ- and dirt-phobic, knows nothing about camping and hates what she knows. She looks like she would be more comfortable chairing the local PTA meeting. But she has shown up to support Jayne.

Patricia, on the other hand, loves being there but has brought as much comfort with her as possible, including a slow cooker. Kelly is a remarkable physical comedienne with a wide range of facial expressions that serve her well, expressing everything from glee to depression and just about everything in between.

Jayne wants to commune with nature and has not thought to bring things like tents or sleeping bags or anything else to make it easier to live in the wild overnight. She is centered on giving Mom the best possible send-off.

There is a lot of very funny physical comedy (particularly involving bears), which kept the audience laughing. But as the day passes and the women cope with the various problems that come up, and pass around a large bottle of Jim Beam, walls begin to fall.

Though these are lifelong friends, they discover there are very serious things that they don’t know about each other. Their friendship will be tested, but in the end it is their long-term association with and love for each other that will not only keep them together, but make the bonds stronger.

Oh yeah — and you’ll laugh a lot during the exploration.

The thin plot is not the strong point of this play — the relationship among the women is … and the real-life relationship among the three authors has produced a thoroughly enjoyable result.

Guys and Dolls

 Eimi Taoramina as Adelaide, Travis Nagler as Nathan,
Daniel Silva as Sky and Kirsten Myers as Sarah

 This is a frustrating time to be a critic. Some folks think that “critics” are supposed to find things to “criticize,” but lately the local shows have been so good I have nothing whatever to grumble at.
Another excellent opening this week is the Woodland Opera House production of “Guys and Dolls,” that delightful 1950s Frank Loesser musical, based on the 1920s and ’30s short stories of Damon Runyon. This production is directed by Jason Hammond and choreographed by Staci Arriaga, with musical direction by Jia-Min Rosendale and vocal direction by James Glica-Hernandez.

Set design by Don Zastoupil is minimal and based on a cartoon theme, which works surprisingly well.

It’s a dream cast. While everyone is outstanding, the real stand-out is Eimi Taormina, as Miss Adelaide, the nightclub performer who has been engaged to small-time gambler Nathan Detroit (Travis Nagler) for 14 years and is hoping to finally get him to the altar.

Taormina always has had a sparkle that makes her impossible to ignore when she is on stage. It has been very special watching her progress from “ensemble” to leading roles. This may have been one of her best. She recently announced her impending relocation to the Bay Area, which will be a tremendous loss to several local theater groups.

Nagler, as Detroit, commands the stage. He has the build and demeanor of a jazz-age thug, but underneath the gruff exterior is a heart of gold. He is particularly endearing when shepherding a group of low-lifes to the failing Save-a-Soul mission to help mission director Sarah Brown (Kirsten Myers) look good in front of her boss, General Cartwright (Nancy Agee).

Myers is a beautiful Sarah, with a gorgeous voice to boot. She is dedicated to her calling to bring sinners to God, but is reluctantly willing to compromise her principles if it will help keep the mission on its financial feet. She finds it surprisingly easy with the addition of several Cuba Libras, which she does not realize is an alcoholic drink.

The nefarious gambler intent on deflowering Sarah is Sky Masterson (Daniel Silva) who discovers that he, too, has a heart somewhere as he falls victim to Sarah’s innocent charms.

There are a host of New York characters with wonderful names like Nicely Nicely Johnson (Erik Catalan), Benny Southstreet (Gil Sebastian), Harry the Horse (David Cross) and Big Jule (Spencer Alexander).

It is Catalan who sings the rousing “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat,” made famous by Stubby Kaye in the 1955 movie. Catalan has a powerful voice and gets not only the mission, but the entire opera house rocking with his unforgettable performance.

Bob Cooner is Arvide Abernathy, Sarah’s grandfather and her second in command at the mission. He is wise in a grandfatherly way and offers the timely advice, “But more I cannot wish you than to wish you find your love / Your own true love this day.”

Lenore Sebastian is also fun to watch, first as a New York street person, and then as one of the members of the Mission band.

There are many songs in this show that became classics of the era — like “If I Were a Bell,” “Luck Be a Lady,” “Sue Me” and “The Oldest Established Floating Crap Game.”

Denise Miles’ costumes are fun, especially the costumes for Adelaide and the Hot Box dancers. Arriaga’s choreography is splendid throughout the show.

If this newspaper gave stars, I would give this production five stars. But we don’t, so all I can do is encourage all lovers of musicals to get to the Woodland Opera House and give yourself a treat.