Blue Man Group

“I loved it. Brave, adventuresome, amusing, challenging and those drummers rock! The woofers and subwoofers they used blew my hair backwards!” was a comment on Facebook by someone attending The Blue Man Group’s performance this week at the Sacramento Community Center.

The Blue Man Group is unique. There is definitely nothing like it anywhere. The group’s website even says “Blue Man Group cannot be explained; it can only be experienced!” It describes itself as “an explosion of comedy, music and technology.”

The group was founded in 1987 by Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton and consists of three actor-musicians who wear bald caps, painted with electric blue latex paint. (There are four Blue Men listed in the program, so there is no way of knowing who is on stage for any performance.)

They do not speak, but interact silently with the audience. They play drums, sometimes with colored liquid poured onto them so that it splashes into the air. They play intricate PVC pipes, they are backed up by “Blue Man Swing,” a small combo group located on two platforms above the stage. And there is lots of technical stuff going on, with strobe lights, special game-type characters projected, and lights turned out into the audience.

Technical elements sometimes can be problematical, and the curtain on opening night was held for 45 minutes while they fixed a technical glitch (which I guess was fixed, because nothing seemed to go awry during the performance).

There is a cameraman to videotape certain portions of the show and project it on the back screen, especially when the group is interacting with the audience, not only the people in the “poncho section” (the first three rows, where people are almost guaranteed to get splashed and are given complimentary ponchos when they arrive), but also climbing on the seats of the back audience, creeping up the aisles and peering intently into the faces of unsuspecting audience members.

There is an electronic message crawl above the stage, sending notes out to the audience. On opening night the audience was invited to speak “Happy Birthday” to someone and someone else was called out, informing him that he had not updated his Facebook status in the past minute and a half.

The audience loves it and it begins a nice bond between the performers and the audience.

The finale is a many-minutes-long dance party, with the audience standing and batting huge multi-colored balls around while a cannon on stage shoots streamers of paper out into the audience.

As I read this, I realize that they are right — you can’t explain Blue Man Group, you can only experience it. Some members in the audience left long before the end, others were screaming wildly for an encore.

Critics were offered earplugs in case we wanted them. I wore mine and at one point removed them and quickly put them back in again. The noise level can be ear-shattering, but if you are used to rock concerts, I suspect this is part of the attraction.

It is definitely a not-to-be-missed experience, if only to say you’ve seen them. It’s not going to be to everyone’s taste, but if this rather stilted description sounds good to you, you’re gonna love it!

One thing is for certain … you’ll never think of Twinkies the same way again … or marshmallows either.

Three Sisters

It was an auspicious beginning for Davis’ newest theater — The Art Theater of Davis — as it presented its first production, Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters,” directed by co-founder Timothy Nutter, who is also credited with original script adaptation and set design.

I have to make one comment first off. If you know nothing about Chekhov, or about this play, it would behoove you to do a little research before seeing the show. While the program gives the names of the characters and the actor who plays which character, Chekhov rarely uses the actual name of the character in his script. Other than the three sisters, their brother and his wife, nobody else is called by his or her program name.

Baki Tezcan, for example, gives an excellent performance as Vershinin, the lieutenant colonel commanding the artillery battery in town, who enters into an affair with sister Masha, but it was not until I got home that I realized which character he was because he is only referred to by his military title in the script.

Steve Buchanan plays Tuzenbach, in love with youngest sister Irina, but is only ever called “Baron” in the play.

The only reason I knew that the servant they call “Nanny” is named Anfisa was because I had met the actress when the show was in rehearsal.

Trying to keep up with which actor plays which part is impossible.

The program also gives no help as to how much time has elapsed between the acts. Act 2 takes place nearly two years after Act 1, but as the set is the same, the characters are the same and, I believe, the costumes are the same, how are we to know how much time has elapsed, which is an important thing to know, given the changes that have happened in the family during those two years.

Act 3 is a year later and takes place in a bedroom though since the family has been talking of moving to Moscow, there is no way until well into the act that you realize this is not a Moscow apartment, but a bedroom in the house seen in the first two acts. One should not assume that everyone in the audience is familiar with the play before they see it.

However, this should not have any reflection on the actual performances by the actors, which were, for the most part fine.

Sarah Cohen gives a stern and compelling performance as oldest sister Olga, the matriarch of the family, following their father’s death the year before. Olga is a spinster who does not have much joy in her life. She longs to have married “any man, even an old man” if one had asked her, but she has compassion in her soul and takes a job (school headmistress) she does not want in order to have a home for her aging servant, Anfisa (Scarlet O’Connor, a beautiful job as a doddering old woman fearful of being fired because she is no longer capable of doing her job).

The middle sister, Masha is played by Tatiana Ray. She is 21 at the start of the play and unhappily married to Kulygin (Adam Siegel, who has serious projection problems throughout the first three acts). Her behavior, especially in Act 2, where she vacillates between hysterical, uncontrollable laughter to the depths of depression, bent over, holding a pillow in front of her as perhaps her barrier against the world, might indicate that she suffers from manic depression. She also has the most biting wit and the clearest perception of the family condition.

Irina (Claire D’Angelo) is celebrating her 20th birthday at the beginning of the play. She is young and idealistic and full of dreams of her future life in Moscow, where she knows she will find true love. Ultimately she suffers the greatest loss and though her dreams have been squelched, she resolutely decides to move to Moscow anyway.

Tyler Shaffo is Andrey (Andrei), the youngest child and only male in the family. He, too, plans to move to Moscow, where he knows he will have a shining career as a professor, but by Act 2 his dreams have faded. He is saddled with a shrewish wife and a baby and is stuck in a job as secretary to the County Council. Shaffo has the perfect look of a young Russian intellectual.

Natalia (called Natasha in the play) is played by Cheryl Leohr. She enters the family as a very shy, insecure girl, in love with Andrei. She dresses poorly and much fun is made of an inappropriate belt that she wears (though it appears to match her dress nicely … perhaps costumer Ania Mieszkowska could have made it just a bit more inappropriate!). By Act 2, however, she is a mother and throughout the rest of the play she gradually becomes the boss in the house, especially after Andrei runs up a huge gambling debt and has to mortgage the house in order to pay it.

Patrick Hunt is particularly good as Chebutykin, the old doctor (“nearly 70″), who starts the play as a fun person who has given up drinking and is living a clean life, but later reverts to his old ways and while drunk blurts out a shameful family secret. Irina is his favorite of the three sisters and he is forever bringing her gifts (some speculate that as Chebutykin once had an affair with the girls’ mother, that Irina is really his child, though there is nothing in the plot to address that).

The smallness of the theater (a little gem of a space carved out of part of Third Space, the multipurpose space housing shops, studios, workshops, etc. on Olive Drive behind Redrum Burger) brings the audience into the family and makes us all feel, at times, like uncomfortable guests at a dysfunctional family dinner.

Grapes of Wrath

Today’s newspapers are filled with stories of climate changes that are wiping out crops and causing the price of some goods to skyrocket, anger over migrant workers taking away jobs for the locals and greedy bankers ready to foreclose on homes and turn families out on the streets.

Was there ever a more perfect time for the revival of John Steinbeck’s Depression era story, “The Grapes of Wrath,” now at UC Davis’ main theater.

The climatic change was the yearly dust storms that rolled across the plains, killing off crops and making the soil uncultivable. The migrant workers of the 1930s were “Okies,”coming from Oklahoma to California on the promise of farming work, as welcome then as are today’s Mexican migrant workers. And haven’t there always been heartless bankers ready to foreclose on a family’s mortgage in order to line their own pockets?

“The Grapes of Wrath” was the perfect choice for director and Granada Artist in Residence Miles Anderson. Anderson writes that by the age of 14 he had read all of Steinbeck’s great novels and that his mother’s upbringing in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was “deprived and penniless,” so this story of the Joad family resonated with him.

He also found it significant that UCD is located in a farming community, just 150 miles north of Salinas, where Steinbeck lived and worked.

In Frank Galati’s adaptation of the story (which won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1990), music is added (by orchestra members Kristen Guggenheim, Stephen Robinson and Cole Sutliff), though this is not a musical. The musical numbers are stuck in at certain points to lend an air of period authenticity and strike the proper tone, a lovely background for a funeral and a lively accompaniment for a camp dance, for example.

John Zibell, the only Actor’s Equity actor in the production, is a wonderful Tom Joad, very noble, very dedicated. Tom has just been released from prison (“on parole,” he has to tell everyone who assumes he has escaped!) and returns to find his family home abandoned, the family having packed up and preparing to move to California because of a flyer they received saying that 800 jobs are waiting to be filled.

The family piles into a marvelous wreck of a truck (on loan from the San Francisco Opera) and proceed through several adventures, both good and bad, to head for California. On the way they bury both Grampa (Ned Jacobson) and Gramma (Lindsay Beamish), both of whom are delightful oldsters, totally devoted to each other and bereft at the thought of leaving their lifelong family home. Grampa has to be drugged to get him on the truck.

Ma Joad is a wonderful character and Janlee Marshall gives her both pride and stoicism, a woman whom life has tried to beat down, but who refuses to give up on hope. It is she who is determined to keep the family together.

Cooper Wise is Jim Casy, the former preacher who has lost his ability to preach because he just doesn’t believe any more, though when needed, he can manage to find words for grace before meals, or for a burial.

There are others in this cast who are also strong and add to the overall success of the work. David Orzechowicz is Pa Joad, a hard-working sharecropper who is determined to believe that he will find work if he can just get his wreck of a truck to California.

Amanda Vitiello is Rose of Sharon, all “growed up,” married, pregnant and already feeling beaten down by life, even more so after her husband Connie’s (Kyle Roddy) desertion and the death of her child.

The children, Ruthie and Winfield are double cast and played — on the night I attended — by Ella Kroll and Geoffrey Votaw (who is so cute he steals the show, though very professional while on stage). In other performances the roles will be played by Isabella Park and Django Zibell (“Tom Joad’s” real-life son).

Anyone who has seen the movie will remember Henry Fonda’s iconic “I’ll be all around” speech, as he prepares to leave his family to spare them having to hide him from the police. Fonda gave it the weight of any major speech, but in this production, Tom is just talking to his Ma and it’s his way of letting her know that he is leaving … and that he plans to work for better working conditions for people like the Joad family.

Steinbeck shone the spotlight on cruel and inhumane treatment of some people by other people, but he also showed that there is goodness and hope in the world. It is a message that we would all do well to remember, whether we are the downtrodden, or those in a position to do something about the conditions of our fellow man.

Romeo and Juliet

In fair Verona does Sacramento Theater Company set its scene.

That would be Verona, New Jersey, 1930.

Two mob households, both alike in dignity – the Italian Capulets and the Jewish Montagues.

For Sacramento Theater company, this is the first time in its 69 year history that it has presented “Romeo and Juliet,” but director Ed Claudio’s updated vision proves, once again, that the themes of family conflict and young love haven’t changed since the time of Shakespeare and remain relevant today.

The character of Romeo has always bothered me.  He’s head over heels in love with Rosaline, to where he cannot eat, cannot sleep and risks sneaking into a ball at the enemy Capulet home in hope of seeing her.  But on viewing the young Juliet, all thoughts of Rosaline dissolve and suddenly he is head over heels in love with Juliet.  Does not bode well for a lasting relationship.

Good thing he doesn’t live long enough to attend another ball and see another beautiful girl. (oops...spoiler alert!)

Despite the failings of Romeo’s character, there are no failings in the performance of Andrew Joseph Perez, a handsome, muscular young man with a six pack he’s not embarrassed to show off.  Perez appeared in the recent Capital Stage production of “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” where he played a wrestler. A lot of the moves he perfected in that production come in to play in his fight scenes in this production, and he climbs Juliet’s balcony effortlessly...more than once.  (Not surprisingly, Perez is also the fight choreographer for the production)

Denver Skye Vaughn may be a recent university graduate, but her Juliet looks every bit 15, a waifish figure who has to display a range of emotions from giddy young girl experiencing her first love, to defiant daughter who is going to have her Romeo despite the feelings of her dictatorial father, to fearful wife, taking a potion which will knock her out long enough for everyone to think her dead, to distraught widow, unable to live with her husband dead.  She nails each emotion and takes the audience along with her for the roller coaster ride.

Amazing how much can happen in the space of a couple of days!

Despite all the murders and suicides in this play, usually classed as a tragedy, there’s a lot of funny stuff.  In fact, act 1 is hilarious.  Director Claudio explains that there are many elements of comedy before and even after the deaths of some of the major characters in the story.  With comedienne Amy Kelly as the Nurse you can’t help but have laugh out loud scenes.  She is larger than life and dominates nearly every scene in which she appears.

There is little comedy, however, in Kirk Blackinton’s Capulet, whose rage at his daughter more than just borders on domestic violence.  He is a smoldering cauldron whose sadness at the death of his daughter comes a little too late.

Matt K. Miller is back on the STC stage as the wise Rabbi Laurence, a departure from the Friar Laurence of the original.  (Some dialog changes had to be made, as a rabbi is unlikely to invoke the name of “Holy St. Francis” which became “Jumping Jehosaphat”)

The supporting cast is very strong, with Dan Fagan as Benvolio, Sean Patrick Nill as Tybalt, Jeb Burris as Mercutio, Kristine David as Lady Capulet.  Kevin Frame and Ernestso Bustos, as a cop and the Constable are also quite effective in their characterizations.

Scenic designer Anna Katharine Mantz has designed a beautiful wooden set with many levels, the house of each of the families on opposite sides of the stage.

This is a beautiful looking, strongly acted production which has something for everyone, from broad comedy to exciting fight scenes to delicious eye candy to sexy romance to tear-jerking tragedy.  What’s not to like?

South Pacific

 

Before the start of the opening performance of the Davis Musical Theater Company’s excellent new production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “South Pacific,” producer Steve Isaacson shared that it was exactly 30 years ago that night when his wife, Jan, woke him to announce that the two of them were going to start a new theater group.

Thirty years later, DMTC is going stronger than ever, with this new production proof of the pudding.  And, sadly, the message of this show rings as true today as it did when it premiered in 1949. Themes of xenophobia, hatred and fear of people who are not like “us” permeate this story of a young Navy nurse on a South Pacific island falling for a handsome middle-aged French ex-patriate,, but unable to make a commitment to him when she discovers that he has children by a Polynesian woman.

While this show has many memorable tunes, like “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Younger than Springtime,” “Bloody Mary,” and “I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right Outta My Hair,” it is the bitter song, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” sung by Lt. Cable when he realizes that his inbred distaste for people with dark skin will prevent him from marrying the young girl he has come to love which still rings true today.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
of people whose eyes are oddly made
and people whose skin is a different shade...
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate...

Director John Haine has a first-rate cast for this show.  Laura Woodruff plays Nellie Forbush, the nurse who struggles with the idea of mixed-race children.  She is a strong personality, yet softens when with Emile deBecque (Travis Nagler), the plantation owner she has known only a few days.

Woodruff and Nagler have powerful voices and a lovely chemistry together.  Nagler is not a pretty-boy leading man, but a strong, barrel-chested man who exudes both strength and tenderness.

DeBecque’s children are played by Mckenna Lincoln and Andrew Montano, who are the least likely looking siblings you’d want to see, looking quite different from one another, but so darn cute it doesn’t matter.  Both have mastered their lines in French beautifully.

Bloody Mary, the Tonkinese woman who sells grass skirts and shrunken heads to the military is portrayed beautifully by Dannette Vassar in a role that seems tailor-made for her.  Vassar does not have the vocal power of some Marys, but with clearly modulated tones, the power of her “Bali Hai” comes across just as well as any other.

She is also a woman who is looking for a good future for her daughter, Liat (Ana Chan) and has eyes on Lieutenant Cable, newly arrived on the island, as a mate for the young girl.  She has no qualms about prostituting the girl if it will get her a rich American husband.

Scott Scholes is simply wonderful as Lt. Cable.  He is innocent, idealistic, tortured by his conflicted feelings for Liat...and has a great set of pipes on him too.

The military hierarchy come in the persons of Captain George Brackett (Richard Lui), and Commander William Harbison, played by Ben Bruening, who has been absent from the DMTC stage for 8 years.  It was such a welcome familiar face to see again.

Comic relief is provided by Seabee Luther Billis (Gabe Avila), a wheeler-dealer who knows what he wants and how to get it.  His duet with Nellie at the base’s Thanksgiving Day festival was very funny.

This is a large cast who move well on stage, thanks to the choreography of Katherine Coppola.

The small DMTC budget is never enough for lavish sets but the set and lighting designs of Steve Isaacson managed to create a very believable South Pacific isle.  The silhouette of the volcanic island Bali Hai against a plain sky which changed colors at various times in the day was the perfect effect, and deBecque’s plantation was lovely.  There was even a beach shower with real water for Nellie to wash that man right out of her hair.

This one’s a real winner. 

Elemeno Pea

There is a moment early in the production of “Elemeno Pea” — currently at the B Street Theater under the direction of David Pierini — that sets this particular production a step above the mere run-of-the-mill character study comedy that playwright Molly Smith Metzler may have intended it to be.

The character Michaela (Melinda Parrett), a billionaire’s latest trophy wife and mistress of the expensive manor on Martha’s Vineyard, has just returned home unexpectedly. She has had a terrible shock and she needs the support of her paid assistant and friend-for-hire Simone (Lyndsay Kail). Simone is, at the moment, entertaining her sister Devon (Stephanie Altholz) for the weekend (with Michaela’s permission) in the estate’s luxurious guest house.

Michaela bursts through the door and falls into Simone’s arms, starting to bare her soul, needing Simone’s support The two women are sitting together, Michaela revealing a stream of very personal things she and Simone have discussed before and suddenly she realizes there is someone else in the room.

Without moving her body or doing anything obvious, we see Michaela change from the vulnerable woman she had been back into the in-charge matriarch. We see an ever-so-slight change in facial expression, an invisible mask coming over her face, a determined relaxation of the body, the smile just a touch more gracious and more phony, the emotions suddenly put in check as she steps into hostess mode and greets the visitor.

It’s an amazing transformation, with Parrett barely moving a muscle, but it’s an obvious change. It could have been played much differently, more broadly perhaps, but this subtle transformation is an indication of what a well-directed, tightly performed work this is. Parrett is a wonder throughout the play, whether she is the center of the action or a part of the background, her emotions always apparent in the way she sits, the way she moves, the way her mouth trembles ever so slightly.

But Parrett is only one of the talented cast of five that includes Lindsay Kail as Simone, a talented author, unappreciated by even her family, who put her dreams on hold and sold her soul to the devil, in exchange for a hefty salary, a chance to live in luxury, wear designer clothes, travel around the world, and have everything she thinks she wants.

The price is being at the beck and call of Michaela 24/7. We see the conflict in Simone, who professes to love her life, but whose nervousness at the way her sister Devon treats the house gives her away as she carefully and precisely returns duck decoys to their rightful place when Devon moves them.

Devon (Stephanie Altholz) has just come through a terrible relationship, is working at the Olive Garden and sleeping on a beanbag in her mother’s basement, but she wouldn’t trade it for all of Simone’s luxuries, if it means giving up who she really is. She does not have an unexpressed thought and she quickly becomes the raspberry seed in Michaela’s (and Simone’s) wisdom tooth, refusing to relax her principles even when a handsome bribe is offered. Altholz makes her the character to whom we most relate.

Alex Robertson plays the handyman Jos-B (because Michaela already had a Jose … think about it) who appears to be Michaela’s puppy dog, flattering her with pet names, chaste kisses and overt sexual banter while he really hates the woman and has no compunction about talking about his real feelings behind her back. He is another of Michaela’s “friends for hire” who does not hesitate to drop the charade when the situation presents itself.

Rounding out the cast is Kurt Johnson as Ethan, longtime friend of Michaela’s husband, and Simone’s fiancé. Ethan is a caricature of the stereotypical Martha’s Vineyard resident, in salmon-colored trousers and absurd bleach-tipped coiffure and a vocabulary full of verbal texting shortcuts.

It is difficult to understand what Simone sees in him, unless it’s her chance to finally express her independence. Johnson plays this character to the hilt and seems to be having the time of his life doing it.

This is a very funny play that pits lives of the rich vs. the lives of the rest of us. The rest of us come out the winners.

Closer than Ever

One of the many outstanding songs in “Closer Than Ever,” a musical revue at the Sacramento Theatre Company, is called “The March of Time.” In it, the four performers – Jerry Lee, Kristen Heitman, Andrea St. Clair (who may be familiar to Davis Musical Theatre and Woodland Opera House audiences), and Nick Adorno sing about getting older:

I wasn’t ready for the burnouts
I wasn’t ready for the jokes
I wasn’t set for seeing cellulite
Or being parent to my folks…

The song was particularly meaningful to me the night we saw the show because that afternoon we had attended a birthday party for a 79-year-old friend, attended by lots of people we had not seen for many years. I was struck with more gray in the hair, more artificial parts, more stooped shoulders, more canes. We were all victims of the march of time.

While Broadway has been presenting many shows lately, hoping to draw a younger audience, as it must if the American Musical is to survive, this little 1989 off-Broadway revue shows there is still relevant material to appeal to an older audience.

The show was cobbled together by Richard Maltby Jr. (lyricist) and David Shire (composer) from songs they had written that had been cut from previous shows. The end result is an evening of short stories, which, without dialog, eloquently capture the human soul (according to director Robert Marra).

Maltby himself has said he believes people are more interesting in real life than when they are stage characters. “I would like to see songs that are at least as complex as my friends.”

You probably have never heard of most, if not all, of these songs, but I overheard more than one member of the audience walk out of the theater saying, “Now I have to buy the CD.”

Some of the highlights include the poignant “She Loves Me Not,” which deals with unrequited love … in some surprising permutations.

St. Clair does a very funny rendition of “The Beat, The Tiger, The Hamster and The Mole,” making her case for the irrelevance of men.

The ensemble number “There’s Nothing Like It,” the most energetic of the songs, talks about the things we do to our bodies in the name of fitness. It had the audience in stitches.

In “Miss Byrd,” Heitman shows how one can make the most of one’s coffee break, while St. Clair sings the poignant, life-changing anthem “Life Story,” which could be the life story of many of us.

Act two opens with St. Clair, Heitman and Adorno singing “Three Friends,” about the love/hate relationship among lifelong friends … and the value of those relationships.

Pianist Samuel Clein joins in the first-act finale and also with Heitman on “There,” while Rod Verette, the bass player, gets to shine with her in “Back on Bass.”

Jerry Lee, who seems to be everywhere these days, has some wonderful songs, maybe the most emotional of which is “If I Sing,” a tribute to the lyricist’s father and his contribution to his son’s appreciation of music.

Lee also joins with Adorno in the lovely “Fathers of Fathers,” beautifully expressing the parenthood experience.
Adorno and Heitman discover the positive points of a second marriage in “Another Wedding Song.”

“Closer than Ever” is probably a show you’ve never heard of, the songs are songs you’ve never heard before and yet anyone who has the good fortune to catch this little gem at Sacramento Theatre Company is certain to recommend it to all of their friends.

Woodland Honors an Opera House Treasure

“It’s been a good run, but I just have to shake things up a bit,” said Jeff Kean, current managing director and company Pooh Bah for the Woodland Opera House. Kean, who leaves his job after 18 years at the end of the month, says it’s been “an interesting confluence of events” that has led him to his impending retirement.

Kean arrived in Woodland in 1996, after working for four years in Texas.
While Kean started out wanting to be an actor (“I started at age 15, as a mugger in a play”), he quickly realized that the real fun for him was in working behind the scenes. He credits one of his acting instructors, who had been a professional actress in New York for many years, for giving him the real story of the kind of life he could expect as an actor.

“I wanted to have a home and a house that I live in. You’ve gotta be willing to go on the road for months and I didn’t want to do that, so I switched over to design my last couple of years,” he said. “I then went to grad school and got a couple of paying gigs. Somehow I transitioned into management because people needed managing. But I enjoy that.”

And the Opera House has enjoyed his management. On Saturday night a ceremony was held to honor the soon-to-be-retired manager, with participation from many Opera House members, as well as member of the community.

Each member of the audience was handed a life-size paper cut-out of Kean’s head in one of the many roles he played in the 2008 production of “Tuna Christmas.” Our instructions were that we were to raise the cut-outs whenever we heard the word “Jeff” coming from the stage.

 Kean and his fiancée, Laurie Weidner, were seated in thrones in one of the side boxes of the theater, drinking champagne from Waterford crystal glasses, while Master of Ceremonies Steve Cairns opened the festivities with a video of members of the community, with comments about the guest of honor.

There was a telephone call from Lou Anderson, former stage manager of the Opera House, now living in Arizona, who reminisced about his time working with Kean.

“I’ve been lucky to get good staff people,” Kean said in his interview. He singled out Don Zastoupil set designer for eight years. “Brilliant set designer. His stuff was just incredible,” said Kean, also mentioning current tech director John Bowles, “a wonderful guy, who creates great stuff.”

Outgoing Opera House board president Mike Patmas commented that thanks to Kean, the Opera House was “well-managed, solvent, in the black, with money in the piggy bank.”

Kean lists as his management highlights “running at least a break-even operation. We established an endowment fund, which is doing really well. We’re generating income to pay for maintenance, so that’s really a safety net for us. Very few theaters have a safety net. We’ve got one.”

In addition to running a break-even operation, the Opera House has purchased a building which they own outright. “That’s a wonderful addition. We have two studios over there, a shop and a costume shop and storage. Having that is a major advantage.”

And then there were all those theaters he helped design. In 2006, Woodland passed Measure E, which would allocate funds for the improvement of the Opera House and expansion of its program. First Kean worked with architects to plan an expansion of the current building, but only got as far as adding an elevator and five new bathroom stalls for women before the economic downturn happened. When things began to pick up, he again worked with an architect to design a theater using the old State Theater space, but that plan fell through. Then he worked to plan turning unused space at the adjacent Daily Democrat into a theater expansion, but so far nothing has come of that.

“That’s politics,” says Kean, who shrugs and adds, “They’re supposed to redo the City Hall, redo the library, redo the Opera House, redo all the pools in town, reopen the one that’s been closed and do roads. So far they have done some road work. The pool remains closed, City Hall is just like it was. The library is almost closed. And the Opera House got an elevator and five new toilets. That’s what the citizens of Woodland got for $60 million.”

When asked if it was frustration with politics that caused him to leave his job, he replied, “No. I’ve lived here a long time. I’m used to it. But if the State Theater project had gone forward, if I had seen some determination on the city council’s part to follow through on that project, I would have been honor bound to stay and see it through. I couldn’t have left. I would have seen it through and got it up and running, which probably would have been another four or five years.” He added: “The city voted $3 million dollars to expand the Opera House out of the sales tax money. We’ve used about half a million for design of the building that didn’t work and elevators and the bathrooms and all that. As far as I’m concerned there’s still two and a half million on the table.”

On stage, Mayor Skip Davies expressed his good memories of working relations with Kean and added, “the city isn’t going to forget its obligations to the Opera House.”

Kean was also presented with a state proclamation, signed by State Senator Lois Wolk, D-Davis, which listed his many accomplishments, including the five extra bathroom stalls in the women’s bathroom.

“My legacy is five extra stalls in the women’s room,” said Kean with a laugh. “I’m putting a little plate in the second stall from the window on the right. It says ‘Jeff Kean sat here for 13 years.’ You know actors. They like to leave their name in theaters! It’s exactly where my chair used to sit when it was my office. I couldn’t ask for a better legacy. Leave ‘em laughing.”
In addition to a memorial bathroom stall, the “green room” of the Opera House is now being renamed the “Kean Room.”

Kean seems most proud of the fact that he has built such a competent team that he knows he is leaving the Opera House in good hands. “Angela Baltezore is an excellent administrator, she’s a good director, she can act and she runs a great education program. She’s a good teacher.”

As for Kean, he admits to being tired. Before Woodland, he had never stayed in one place for more than four years, but he’s been here for 18. “It just isn’t fun for me any more,” he says.

Of course there is also his fiancée moving to Southern California for her job and it’s no fun facing a long-distance relationship either. He’s ready to take some time off to smell the roses and walk on the beach before deciding where his life is headed.

“Woodland is a wonderful place,” he says. “I enjoyed everything I’ve done here, but I just wasn’t enjoying theater any more and that really was alarming. It wasn’t hard, but it became a chore. I didn’t want it to be a chore and I was in a position to do something about it. The theater transition was going to be seamless and into the hands of people I trust.”

Something's Afoot

“I’m sorry, the bridge is out. You’ll have to spend the night” was the title of a show more than 35 years ago, at the original Palms Playhouse. It is also the theme for the new murder-mystery musical currently at the Woodland Opera House.

“Something’s Afoot,” by James McDonald, David Vos and Robert Gerlach, and directed for Woodland by Jason Hammond, is a gem of a piece that is the musical version of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians.”

The premise is that five people are invited to spend the weekend in a mansion on an island. Each of them, of course, has his or her secret, and unbeknownst to each other, they all have paths that cross. Of course, after all have arrived, a terrible storm comes up, which washes out the road and the bridge and they are stuck there. The master of the house, Lord Rancor (whom we never see, except in portrait), is found dead by the butler minutes after the guests arrive.

As the show progresses, the cast begins to be killed off in bizarre ways and the hunt is on for the killer.

Director Hammond has assembled a marvelous cast to play the quirky guests and staff of the manor house. Patricia Glass is Miss Tweed (a salute to Christie’s Miss Marple). She is a no-nonsense gal who takes charge of the investigation once the bodies begin to pile up (the police can’t be contacted, of course, because the phone lines have been cut)

Hope Langdon, the ingenue who is just thrilled to be included for this marvelous weekend (though she doesn’t know why) is played by Jennieke Cohen. She has a wide-eyed innocence and is awed by everything, especially the unexpected visitor Geoffrey (Eddie Voyce). The script calls for Hope to be blonde and one lyric had to be changed because the actress is a brunette … but I was probably the only one in the theater who noticed that!

Voyce is perfect as a member of a British college rowing club who fell overboard in the storm. He has the “shoulders back, chin up” stereotypical attitude we often see in British movies.

James Glica-Hernandez steps out of the orchestra pit and onto the stage, making his Opera House debut as a singer in a book musical. He’s the evil nephew who has come to the manor house to find the will of Lord Rancor and discover if he is the legal heir or not. Based on his performance, I suspect this will not be the last on-stage performance for the Opera House’s resident musical director. He was very funny and has an amazing voice.

Nancy Agee is Lady Grace Manley-Prowe (erroneously introduced by the butler as Manley-Pro, which defeats the humor of her name!), a proper older English woman who is indignant to discover that she is not going to have the weekend alone with Lord Rancor. Agee plays it for all it’s worth, though as the bodies begin to fall, she does loosen up a bit for the delightful “Carry On.”

Col. Gillweather, a military friend of Lord Rancor’s, is played by Jeff Nauer, who may have the best death scene in the show. He makes it hilarious.

Jim Rollans plays Dr. Graburn, a small role that should teach the character not to answer phones in someone else’s house.

The house staff consists of Clife, the butler (Spencer Alexander), the first of the cast to fall. His part is important, but very brief.

Chris Cay Stewart as Lettie, the copper-haired Cockney maid, is very funny, and Flint, the handyman (Colin Coate), is deliciously crude. The two may have the best song in the show, “Problematical Solution,” which describes an escape method Clive can offer the saucy maid.

Director Hammond is also the set designer and has created a marvelous manor house, despite the confines of the Opera House stage. The audience will have a great time discovering the surprises that pop up throughout the evening.

Oh — and that portrait of Lord Rancor on the wall is actually of Jeff Kean, Woodland’s soon-to-be-retired managing director, who also is the voice heard on the recording played at the end.

I am an unabashed fan of this show, having played the doorbell in the orchestra of a production in 1984 (I rang it five whole times — my first, and last, theatrical performance), so I am very critical of how this show is treated, and I am pleased to say that under the direction of Hammond and the talented actors, it is alive and well and in excellent hands.

Cabaret

Between 1929 and 1933, Christopher Isherwood lived in Berlin, which formed the backdrop for stories he wrote on his return to London, published as “The Berlin Stories.”

One such story, that of writer Clifford Bradshaw and cabaret singer Sally Bowles, was dramatized by John Van Druten as the play, “I am a Camera” (later made into a movie).

In 1966, John Kander and Fred Ebb won a Tony Award with their musical version, which they called “Cabaret.” The musical, of course, was made into a very popular film vehicle for Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey in 1972. Anyone familiar with the movie might be confused by the stage production, which is quite different from the film.

The Davis Musical Theatre Company last produced “Cabaret” in 2005 and has opened a new production at the Jean Henderson Performing Arts Center.

There are four outstanding performances in this production. Joshua Smith as the Master of Ceremonies (or Emcee) at the Kit Kat Club, where most of the action takes place, is a perfect blend of comedy, decadence and dispassionate observer of the changing society around him. With a twinkle in his eye, he leers at the audience and makes fun of serious things. His performance is a delight.

Likewise, Dalton McNeely — last seen as “the round-headed kid” in Woodland Opera House’s “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” and Marius in “Les Miserables” — gives strong voice to Cliff Bradshaw, a man somewhat out of his element in decadent Berlin and with the sexually forward Sally Bowles (Katherine Coppola). While the delivery of McNeely’s spoken lines is somewhat soft, when he begins to sing, he fills the theater.

The character of Cliff has gone through many permutations in the various versions of the story. He has been heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual. In this production, there is no hint of homosexuality, though McNeely’s chemistry with Coppola is not strong.

Steve Isaacson plays the old Jewish grocer, Herr Schultz, finally finding his love with the landlady Fraulein Schneider (Mary Young, who was born to play this role!). The story of Schultz and Schneider is significantly more important in the stage musical than in the movie, and the bittersweet relationship, and ultimate end of it, is poignant.

Isaacson’s tender handling of the feelings between the two of them beautifully mixes dignity with deep sorrow, as well as optimistic nationalism. The audience knows what lies ahead for him, but Schultz is convinced that, though he is Jewish, he identifies as German, and as a good German, he will be safe.

Scott Scholes is listed in the program as “tenor soloist,” but his rendition of the solo lines in “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” is superb and sets the tone for the gradual acceptance of Nazism with spine-chilling effect.

Coppola is a beautiful Sally and has a pleasant voice, though one could not describe her as a “belter.” Her rendition of the title song was a bit anemic, and one didn’t get much of a feeling of deep affection between her and Cliff.

Gabe Avila is Ernst Ludwig, who meets Cliff on the train to Berlin and is responsible for his choice of living space and his introduction to the Kit Kat Club. Ludwig is a likeable character until we realize that he is working for the Nazis.

Dani Barnett plays Fraulein Kost, a bubbly young woman with a lot of male “cousins.” She exudes exuberant sexuality.

Though unseen through the costume, Tomas Eredia makes a great gorilla in “If you could see her through my eyes,” delightful in his pink tutu.

This production is directed and choreographed by Jan Isaacson, with music direction by Jonathan Rothman and costume design by Jean Henderson. Steve Isaacson is the set designer, and the Emcee gets high marks for making it down the very narrow stairs without tripping!

The K of D

Laura Schellhardt’s “The K of D” seems a strange choice of a play for Acme Theater Company because it was written as a piece for one woman, playing 16 different characters.

Director Maddy Ryen explains that “The author’s notes on the play says: ‘This play was originally created as a one-actor play. It might be performed with more than one actor. I look forward to seeing what that looks like.’ ”

Given the author’s blessing to shape the play to fit a full cast, Ryen was happy to have a script that would use 12 talented actors, rather than the smaller cast shows that Acme often does in the wintertime.

“It has been quite interesting to see what it looks like,” says Ryen. “Many moments in the script feel very different with a full cast of characters than they would with a single actor alone, and it was a new experience interpreting a script originally intended as a one-woman show. It gave us a lot to talk about in rehearsal.”

“K of D” (which means “kiss of death”) tells the story of Charlotte, a young woman who can’t quite find a way to proceed in her life because of one traumatic event, witnessing the death of her beloved twin brother Jamie, hit and killed by a car. His last act before dying was to kiss her goodbye and ever since, it is said that anything she kisses, dies.

Is that really true, or not? It has become an urban legend told by the town’s young people as they sit around a campfire scaring each other, and trying to make sense of both Jamie’s death and Charlotte’s “kiss of death.” They are both horrified and titillated by the idea of the death of one of their own, and Charlotte’s power to cause death.

In here program notes, director Ryen admits that “there is a lot in this play that I still can’t make sense of…” but the cast does a first-rate job of exploring those things, whether any conclusion is reached or not.

“The Girl” (Callie Miller) acts as the story’s narrator. Miller does a masterful job of keeping the action moving and displaying a number of emotions, from happiness to sadness to sympathy to concern. She was wonderful to watch.

Camila Ortiz was Charlotte, the traumatized girl who is on stage most of the time and who has no lines, but whose face tells multiple stories of her past, her relationship with her parents, her despair over the loss of her brother, and her feelings of alienation from her peers.

Jake Kelly is Quisp Drucker, who appears to be the leader of the group of five young people processing the tragedy of the death of Jamie McGraw, though The Girl explains that the real leader is Becky Rae Voss (Tina Simpson), the bubble gum cigarette blowing girl who has the answer to everything.

It was Cole Yambrovich, as Trent Hoffman, who had the strongest presence. Like Howard in “Big Bang Theory” his role was not big, but he made an impression. Aaron Hirst played his quiet brother Brett, who spoke when it became necessary.

The group was rounded out by Meili Monk, as Steffi Post, who played it in a Sandra Oh-ish way and was fun to watch.

Charlotte’s parents were Alice Moylan, an uptight woman dealing with her own insecurities, and Brian Stewart, an overbearing father who has an iron hold on Charlotte, which she is trying to remove.

Kenya Oto has the very small role of Jack Whistler, and William Forkin plays his son, the man who killed Jamie. He has a swagger and a sneer that make him instantly the villain of the piece.

Sydney Maguire plays a series of Johnny’s girlfriends. Her part is very small, but she did a great job of creating different characters for each of the roles.

The Paula Trokanski Dance Workshop is a great venue for Acme and it must be satisfying to play to a full house. Director Ryen has done an excellent job shaping this one-woman show into an ensemble piece that plays to Acme’s strengths. And high marks for whoever devised the firefly scene, which was magical.

Santaland Diaries

What does a newly arrived wannabe actor do in New York when he can’t find a job, when his dreams of being on “One Life to Live” don’t pan out?
Well, Aaron Wilton as David — using the journal of David Sedaris as adapted by Joe Mantello — is going to tell you in Capital Stage’s funny, irreverent production of the one-act, one-man show, “The Santaland Diaries,” directed by Janis Stevens.

Despite its name, this is not a show for the kiddies, so don’t bring them along, but prepare yourself for a rollicking good time.

Wilton is likeable and energetic, and he uses the entire theater for his stage, bouncing around the actual stage, and then bounding out into the audience to lounge on the stairs, or direct a comment to a member of the audience. He brings everyone into his world as he describes how he came to be Crumpet, the Elf in Macy’s Santaland, during one December.

He describes the interview process, his thrill at being hired and then the intensive training that he goes through, following regulations contained in the “Elfin Guide,” a very thick binder. He explains that “most of the managers are former elves who have worked their way up the candy-cane ladder, but retain vivid memories of their days in uniform.”

Then comes a tour of Santaland, which is described for us in glowing detail, including the “Oh, my God” corner, where people first see Santa and the long line ahead of them, and the “vomit corner,” where nauseous children lose it all.

The next day is elf dress rehearsal and David receives his costume. “My costume is green. I wear red-and-white striped tights, a yellow turtleneck, forest green velvet smock, and a perky stocking cap decorated with spangles. This is my work uniform.” (The costume is based on a design by Gail Russell.)

The set by Olivia McGiff is a surprise, because you wonder how they are going to dress up the very bland stage on which David begins his monologue, and suddenly the wall opens to reveal a dazzling set, festooned with all the Christmas trappings and a chair for Santa.

The diary continues through the experiences dealing with children and their parents. “It’s not about the child or Santa or Christmas or anything, but the parents’ idea of a world they cannot make work for them.”

There is one unfortunate section of this play that bothered me a lot. It is Sedaris’ description of the day the special-needs kids come to see Santa. It’s very funny and the audience laughed uproariously, but the playwright makes a lot of use of the “R-word,” a word that can be very painful and offensive to parents of special-needs kids.
I tried imagining how the audience would have reacted if he had used the “N-word” instead and decided I could not let that pass without comment, as I know parents of special-needs kids who are very upset about the common usage of that offensive word. It tainted, for me, what had been a very enjoyable comedy.

The moment passes, however, and “David” makes it through the rest of his stint at Macy’s, turns in his Crumpet costume and goes to say goodbye to the manager. “Suddenly I loved this woman … I felt certain … together we would share a special moment.”

Uh. Not so much.

Do yourself a favor and take in this comedy. It will put you in good spirits for the coming holiday. There’s even an elf called Dreidle, an attempt to appeal to everyone!

It's a Wonderful Life: The Musical

 

Unless you have been living under a rock since 1946, you are familiar with the beloved holiday classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

It’s the show that proves that we may not know what impact we make on the lives of others, but suicidal George Bailey — with the help of an angel, Clarence — gets to find out how his life changed his hometown of Bedford Falls.

By way of disclaimer, I have to admit that this was never my favorite Christmas movie, and I’m not sure that music improves it, but the Sacramento Theatre Company has a winner in its production of “It’s a Wonderful Life: the Musical,” this year’s holiday offering.

The show — with book and lyrics by Keith Ferguson and music by Bruce Greer — was first performed at the University of Michigan in 1986. Performances followed in Warsaw, Ind., in 1988; Milburn, N.J., in 1990; and Washington, D.C., in 1992. In 2005, a staged reading was held at the Shubert Theater in New York, as a benefit for the Actors’ Fund of America.

The show was the holiday choice for the Majestic Theater in Dallas in 1998 and became its annual holiday production for five consecutive years.

Now “It’s a Wonderful Life: the Musical” is making its Northern California premiere, directed by executive producing director Michael Laun.

The original music for this show is rather odd, reminiscent of “The Music Man,” lots of popular music of the 1940s, and “Les Mis” all rolled into one. The choreography is lively and done well, the voices are for the most part quite good and yet the show drags a bit, which is really due not to the production or the performances, but to the nature of the story, which takes forever to do the set-up to George’s emotional breakdown.

It’s a wonderful cast of 27, some of whom are double-cast and alternate within roles. Jerry Lee is George, who, as a young man, had grand plans to see the world, then go to college and become a famous architect. Instead, being the good son, he gives up his plans in order to save the Bailey Building and Loan Association, following his father’s death.

It is brother Harry (Sean Patrick Nill) who gets to have the opportunities George hoped to have, while George stays in Bedford Falls and marries Mary Hatch (Jackie Vanderbeck), with whom he has four children. Vanderbeck is spectacular, the perfect wife to George, as self-sacrificing as he is, and the actress has a gorgeous voice to boot.
George’s nemesis, Mr. Potter, the richest man in town, is played by Gary Martinez. I have seen Martinez in the role of the angel, Clarence, several times and it’s odd to see him be such a mean old man, but he is perfect in that role.
As for Clarence, the second-class angel hoping to win his wings, Jim Lane is endearing and, though bumbling, eventually finds his footing … and earns his wings.

Michael RJ Campbell plays George’s absent-minded Uncle Billy, distraught at the loss of an $8,000 deposit, which brings the Building and Loan to the brink of ruin. Campbell, frequently seen as the larger-than-life Ghost of Christmas Present, seems to be a shadow of his former self, though he still gives a larger-than-life performance.
Anthony Dicorti and Jerald Bolden play the town cop and taxi driver and give good performances, but are probably best known because their character names are Ernie and Bert. (Muppet people claim that any connection between these characters and the beloved Muppets is strictly coincidental.)

Laura Woodruff deserves mention, playing Violet Bick, seductively sweet on young George, and later Ruth Bailey, Harry’s wife. She has a classic beauty and shines on stage.

The four Bailey children are each double-cast, but it is the youngest, ZuZu (Emily Trnka, alternating in the role with Noa Solorio), who catches the audience attention as she recites her famous line about every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.

Sacramento Theatre Company has produced several Christmas classics, which are repeated many times over the years, and it is clear there is now a new show that will enter into circulation and be presented many times in years to come.

Not in the Stars

People have been asking me for years why I don’t review shows at the B Street Theater in Sacramento.  I have heard wonderful things about productions there, but when I started working for The Enterprise, it was not on my list of theaters to review.  The criterion was that if there was a Davis person in the show, or in some other way involved with the show, I could review it.  But that was never the case with B Street.

Recently, however, Buck Busfield, the Producing Artistic Director of B Street, realizing how many people in Davis come to his shows, convinced The Enterprise to let me add that theater to the list of places where I go, and so I went off on Sunday to my very first B Street production, “Not in the Stars,” a romantic comedy written and directed by Busfield.  Apparently it is a B Street tradition that Busfield write an original show each year during holiday time.

This show, in fact, was originally a one-act produced in 1994, the cast including Kurt Johnson, also in tonight’s cast.  It was reprised in 1996 when B Street was going through financial difficulties.  The cast then included not only Johnson, but also Elisabeth Nunziato and Dave Pierini, both appearing again in the current production.

Busfield decided to resurrect the show and expand it into a full evening’s entertainment.  It is still a work in progress, he explained to me, saying that they had made major changes before opening night and would probably continue to tweak the show as it continues through January.

The show actually made me kind of angry.  It was so amazingly good, so tightly written and so beautifully acted, that I was upset I had missed years of similar productions.

While this is the annual Christmas show, this is not a play about Christmas.  There is a red couch on stage and a character wears a green coat, but direct reference to any December holiday is nonexistent.

What is existent is a very funny script, with three seasoned actors, each playing 2 characters whose live intersect in two acts.

Act one centers on book editor Yvonne (Nunziato), nervously waiting for a blind date, Clare (Johnson) to arrive.  Yvonne is a bundle of neuroses, having been married to a man who left her for her best friend, and having had her share of bad dating experiences.  So self-protective is she that she rejects Clare on first sight, deciding after one look that they are not destined to be soul mates.

Clare has his own neuroses to deal with.  He’s an actuary whose job it is to calculate risks and he opens a dialog with Yvonne, a dialog that sizzles, as the two dance the dance of two neurotics who are better suited for each other than either is willing to admit.

Pierini plays two roles in the first act, that of Mac, a hapless telephone repair man whom Yvonne mistakenly thinks is Clare, and later a waiter at the restaurant where Clare and Yvonne end up going for dinner.  The dialog between the three at the restaurant progresses like a well oiled machine, displaying how attuned these actors are to each other and how well they work together.

Act two centers on Mac, at home with wife Maria (Nunziato again), complaining about the “nutcase” he visited earlier in the evening, the only real connection between Act 1 and Act 2  Mac is the guy who knows everything and wants to make sure you realize that. We’ve all known them. The person whose only interest in what you are saying is so he can top it or expand it or tell you how you’re wrong. He’s not a bad guy and he obviously worships the ground his wife walks on, but at the same time, he doesn’t listen to a thing she says and hasn’t a clue how dissatisfied she is.

Maria is a mousy woman who only wants a night out by herself to get away from Mac for an hour or so.  Nunziato has changed clothes from the bold take-charge costume of Yvonne into a muted pastel outfit of Maria, whose very clothes show how closed she is. (Costume design is by Paulette Sand-Gilbert.  I also liked the change to a pink lipstick match her other muted colors.)

Maria leaves a bewildered Mac and takes herself to a local hotel bar, where she meets Paul, the bartender, who becomes a good sounding board for her, until Mac, worried that she is out in the world all alone, finds her and interrupts her conversation with Paul.

Back at their home again, Maria’s solution to taking back her life is ingenious and had the audience in stitches.

The show ends with Mac examining his actions and...did he learn anything?  A simple telephone call may change everything.

A Christmas Story

It was 30 years ago this year when the now-classic movie, “A Christmas Story” appeared on the screen.  Partly based on Jean Shepherd’s book, “In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash,” the film was released just before Thanksgiving in 1983 and became a surprise hit. By the time Christmas rolled around, the movie had already been pulled from most theaters because it had been "played out". After complaints were lodged at the theater owners and the studio, the film played on select screens until after the first of the year 1984.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of this movie, the Winters Community Theater is repeating the stage version, by Phillip Grecian, first staged by Winters in 2005. This time around it’s Howard Hupe in the director’s chair, assisted by Ellie Yeatman and Jesse Akers.

It’s a big show for Winters, with 15 characters played by 13 actors, most of whom give strong performances.

As Ralph, the grown up “Ralphie,” who narrates the story throughout, Scott Taylor was a perfect choice.  He has a good rapport with the audience, a winning smile, and he makes us all remember our childhood and the adventures we had. In fact, based on the chuckles throughout the play from many men of a “certain age” in the audience, it was easy to see why this hits such a resonant chord..

Sam Peterson is the young Ralphie, his heart set on an official, Red Ryder, Carbine-action, 200-Shot, Range Model, Air Rifle for Christmas, but knows he’s fighting a losing battle because his mother is convinced he’ll put his eye out.  Peterson’s Ralphie is often shy except in the company of his buddies Flick (Ulysses De la Cruz) and Schwartz (Garret Matheson).  Ralphie enacts many fantasies, such as conversations with Red Ryder himself (Greg Lanzaro, who also plays Santa Claus and a Tree Seller)

Trent Beeby reprises his role from the 2005 production as Ralphie’s father, known as “The Old Man.” He’s the perfect sit-com Dad.  Never really utters anything profound, is a bumbling “fixer” of things like the furnace (at which time he excells in unintelligible expletives that shock his family), but is obviously a loving father.

Mother (played by JoAnnMay) is a housewife in the shadow of all those housewives of the 50s.  She’s Beaver’s mother, Jim Anderson’s wife, and Donna Reed all rolled into one.  She runs the house quietly and efficiently, while all the time letting her husband think he’s in charge.  The only battle she doesn’t win is the battle of the famous “leg lamp,” which The Old Man wins using the answers to the questions she gives him.

Jackson Olton is Randy, Ralphie’s younger brother, who has little to say because he spends most of the play wrapped in several layers of warm clothing to protect him from the elements when he goes outside.

Kyle Gardiner is an evil Scut Farkas, the school bully who shows his true nature when Ralphie finally gives him his comeuppance.  He is also Santa’s elf, perhaps the only elf I’ve seen with an evil glint in his eye.  Great facial expressions for Gardiner.

There are a couple of scenes off the stage in a classroom set up on the same level as the audience.  DonaAkers is the teacher, Miss Shields, whom Ralphie hopes to impress with his great writing skills.  Sadly, the scenes are all but unintelligible to the opposite end of the auditorium.  We were aware there was talking going on but other than Miss Shield’s shriek of “you’ll put your eye out,” the rest of the dialog was not able to be heard.

The trio of girls, Sophia Tolley as Esther Jane (who has a crush on Ralphie), Emilla Orosco as Helen, and Paige Davis as Alice were all very cute, especially huddled together giggling, and casting sidelong glances at the boys.

This is a fun family show which should be enjoyed by audience members of all ages.

When we left the theater, I asked my husband if he had ever had a  Red Ryder, Carbine-action, 200-Shot, Range Model, Air Rifle and he said that he wanted one.  He said he never did, because his mother thought he would put his eye out.

Spring Awakening

“Spring Awakening,” the Tony Award-winning rock musical directed by Granada-in-Resident Artist Stafford Arima, opened this week in the UC Davis Main Theatre in Wright Hall on campus.

When I saw the Broadway production in Sacramento a few years back, the audience was mostly middle-aged people who were decidedly uncomfortable with the sexuality of Act 1 and who did not return for Act 2.
Needless to say, this is not the situation with the university audience, who may have tittered nervously during the “masturbation song,” but who gave the show a standing ovation opening night. Reports are that the second night was sold out.

“Broadway’s most talked-about musical” — with book and lyrics by Steven Sater (based on the play by Frank Wedekind) and music by Duncan Sheik — won eight Tony Awards (out of 11 nominations) in 2007 and has acquired a cult following.

It is set in the repressive Germany of the 1890s, a Germany where corporal punishment is the answer to every parental or educational problem and “communication” had not been invented yet. Young pubescent Wendla (Lea Michele look-alike Jessica Walsh), for example, asks her mother where babies come from after her sister gives birth. She is yelled at and told that it happens when a man and woman love each other and are married.

As that is the sum total of her sex education, it is not surprising that when she and boyfriend Melchior (Elio Gutierrez) experiment with sex (in an amazingly realistic scene on the floor in the front of the stage), the inevitable happens and Wendla has no idea why she is pregnant.

The Geeky Moritz (Marcos Sastre III) seems to spend a good part of his time on stage, bent over to cover a growing erection. He finally finds relief masturbating behind the closed door of the bathroom, while his father yells at him to come out.

She said, “Give me that hand, please, and the itch you can’t control.
Let me teach you how to handle all the sadness in your soul.
(insert lyrics here better not printed)
She said, “Love may make you blind, kid, but I wouldn’t mind at all.”

Teryn Gray brings the most poignancy to her character Ilsa’s song, “The Dark I Know So Well,” wherein she describes the abuse she is suffering at the hands of her father.

I don’t scream, though I know it’s wrong
I just play along
I lie there and breathe
Lie there and breathe

Along with masturbation, premarital sex and child abuse, “Spring Awakening” also tackles the subjects of sadism and masochism, suicide, homosexuality, incest, partial (or perhaps only questionable) nudity, abortion, reform school and a finale that could have been predicted at the end of Act 1.

It also includes a whole song, complete with appropriate hand gestures, whose title cannot be printed in a family newspaper.

“The Sound of Music” it ain’t!

However, despite the grim nature of the subject matter, the UCD actors give it a professional-quality performance (I actually liked it better than the Broadway production I saw) and should be applauded for their success.
Skylar Collins, Anna Kritikos and Jonathan Conklin deserve kudos for their performances in multiple roles as the token adult female and male characters.

John Iacovellli’s scenic design, of multi-level platforms on massive scaffoldings, added to the cold, impersonal atmosphere of the story, and Michael Palumbo’s lighting design was particularly spectacular, especially the rainbow-colored cloud at the finale.

Music director Erik Daniells led an ensemble of six who performed quite well, though I never did figure out where they hid them during the show.

This production of “Spring Awakening” is a strong show with an important message and it is playing to exactly the right audience.

Crazy Horse and Custer

 

“Crazy Horse and Custer,” a new play by Jon George, directed by Michael Laun, opened on Saturday at Sacramento Theater Company, to incredible controversy...so much so, that I am somewhat uneasy writing any review of this show.  I have the feeling that no matter what I say, it is going to offend someone, but I will take a stab at it anyway.

“Speaking not just for the Plains Indians, but for all Native Americans, Crazy Horse tells of what was lost forever for his people when they won at the Little Big Horn. George Armstrong Custer, the “Boy General” of the Civil War, speaks for all  those American qualities he cherished and ultimately died to secure for himself and his country. Crazy Horse and Custer goes beyond the iconic images of these two warriors to explore the men behind the myths and the imperatives in their characters that drove them to a conflict greater than the battle they fought.” So reads the press release from STC.

Controversy over the play arose when Doug Bissonette, a member of the Lakota tribe and representative for the estate of Crazy Horse, claimed that the play misrepresented the warrior.  Though Louis Leonardo, who plays the role in this play, traveled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and met with the family of Crazy Horse, when the family read the script, they asked that the play not be presented.

Wilmer Mesteth, spiritual leader of the Ogala Lakota, said, “This play is based on fiction and we don’t understand in our culture what they are trying to portray and we feel that it is offensive.”  He also added, “Lakota people respect our leaders, our chiefs, our ancestors. We don’t do such things as this. We are reverent about our leaders, we don’t make jokes about our leaders. The ways people talk about leaders in the press, we don’t do that.”

Articles in “Indian Country” talked of protest and drum circles planned for opening night.  I wasn’t sure what we were going to be walking into.

But, in fact, there were no protests, and two invited members of the Ogala Lakota, guests of Sacramento Theater Company and the playwright, were introduced to the audience before the play began.

As to the portrayal of Crazy Horse, I can only speak as a white woman and what I saw in the incredible performance of Louis Leonardo was a portrait of a noble man, a bit of a loner, who describes his experiences growing up and learning respect for the earth and its creatures, who dispels the myths about the “savage Indians.”  He describes the tradition of warring between tribes (which did not include the sort of slaughter we have seen on movie screens for decades).  He talks of falling in love, and losing that love.  He displays his pride in himself and his ancestors and respect for ancient tradition.

Ultimately he shows how the battle of Little Big Horn set the stage for all that has followed, including moving masses of people to reservations, the loss of land, the slaughter of buffalo and all of the atrocities committed on all tribes of Native Americans, and the manipulation by the American Government.

A quote in the program, from the research unit of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian says, “Jefferson suggested that if the various Indian nations could be encouraged to purchase goods on credit they would likely fall into debt, which they could relieve through the sale of lands to the government.”

In contrast, the equally incredible performance as George Armstrong Custer by Kirk Blackinton reveals a megalomaniac with eyes on the White House, a former wunderkind convinced of his invincibility, and still maintaining, even in death, that the world today would be significantly different if other generals around him had listened to his advice.

The structure of the play gives the first act to a long monologue by Crazy Horse, followed in Act 2 by a shorter monologue by Custer, and closing with a brief dialog between the two former adversaries.

Scenic Designer Renee Degarmo has done the best she could do to create “the great plains” on the tiny Pollock stage (and succeeded surprisingly well), and a great deal of the atmosphere is thanks to the wonderfully subtle lighting design of Ron Madonia.

This is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and now that it’s out there, under Laun’s deft directorial hand and the fine performance of Leonardo, perhaps there will be a change in sentiment about the portrayal of one of the great names in Lakota history.  I feel it is an important play for all of us who learned our history from books and movies, which vastly distorted the reality of the Battle of Big Horn

Oliver!

One thing about the actors of Davis Musical Theatre Company, when they are good, they are very, very good and “Oliver!” — directed and choreographed by Jan Isaacson — is very, very good.

While the sets are more utilitarian than lush, there is nothing merely utilitarian about the performances. Arieh Simon, in the title role, is the perfect Oliver Twist. He’s the right age, his thin frame makes it believable that this is a workhouse kid, and he’s a marvelous actor. He also has the vocal ability to hit the high notes in “Where is Love.” It’s an engaging performance.

Michael Mechanick is Fagin, the charismatic bad Pied Piper with his band of child thieves; he gives a memorable performance as a man who is getting older and wondering what the future holds for him. And for a guy of size, he is wonderfully light on his feet.

(Director Isaacson hits a wrong note, though, with the box — about which Fagin is so secretive and protective — being used as a prop in “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two” with all the boys putting jewelry in it, when later Fagin is so worried that Oliver might have actually seen it.)

Jimin Moon is an electrifying Artful Dodger, the well-dressed head of the pickpockets in Fagin’s entourage. He and Oliver have good chemistry and Moon’s performance is unforgettable.

The Beadle, Mr. Bumble (Brian McCann), and the workhouse housemother, the Widow Corney (Dannette Vassar), nearly steal the show. Both actors are at the top of their game in “I Shall Scream,” which had the audience screaming with laughter.

It is not often that much is said about the funeral parlor owners, Mr. Sowerberry (Scott Scholes) and his wife Mrs. Sowerberry (Katherine Coppola), but these two actors are also excellent. Assisting Scholes’ performance is his pasty complexion and serious expression.

Brooke Flores is Charlotte, working for the Sowerberrys, and Shane Osterhoudt is Noah Claypool, her cruel boyfriend who taunts Oliver.

Kellee Thompson is Nancy, the long-suffering chanteuse with a warm heart. She is locked in an abusive relationship from which she cannot escape because she loves the guy and knows that he needs her, yet she sacrifices much to help Oliver. Thompson has a strong set of pipes and belts out each of her solos with gusto.

Nancy’s friend, Bet, was given a robust performance by Erin Piepgrass. Piepgrass is older than traditional Bets, but she is striking on stage and it’s hard to ignore her.

The bad guy in the story is Bill Sikes (written as both Sikes and Sykes in the program … being a person of the “y” persuasion, I naturally prefer the spelling “Sikes.”), played by Gabe Avila in this production. He is dark and brooding and though from his more diminutive frame you wouldn’t think he could be very intimidating, he has a chillingly cold bloodthirstiness about him.

Sikes’ dog, Shadow is played by Avila’s own dog and gives one of the more polished canine performances I have seen from a non-professional dog.

DMTC veteran Michael Manley was a warm and compassionate Mr. Brownlow, the man who rescues Oliver. He’s the guy everybody hopes for as a grandfather.

Dani Barnett has the small role of the flower vendor in the Act 2 opening and it should be noted that she has a beautiful voice. The other vendors — Summer Rejmankova, Jonathan Kalinen, Katherine Coppola and David Ewey — also were quite good.

Isaacson’s choreography was energetic and sometimes a bit over the top but well performed and particularly fun in numbers like “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two” and “Oom-Pah-Pah.”

Costume design is by Mary Hickman and all work well, though I did wonder how Oliver managed to find a jacket somewhere between his escape from Sowerberrys' and meeting Dodger.

This is an entirely entertaining and satisfying production. The DMTC family invites you to consider yourself at home, consider yourself part of the family … and have a good time watching them perform.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical

There are more sequins, feathers, glitter, wigs and platform shoes than you can shake a stick at in the touring musical production “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” which opened this week at the Sacramento Community Center Theater. There were dancing paintbrushes, twirling cupcakes, all sorts of flying things, and every animal unique to Australia, from kangaroos to frill-necked lizards, all dancing and singing their way into the audience’s hearts.

“Priscilla” is the musical version of the 1994 movie about three drag queens traveling across Australia’s outback in a big bus on their way to a gig in Alice Springs. The book is by Stephan Elliott (who wrote the original screenplay and directed the film) and Allan Scott, and the music is the most eclectic assortment of covers you can imagine. Everything from Dionne Warwick to Madonna to The Village People to Giacomo Puccini … and John Denver? … among others. There is even a brief salute to ABBA.

The story focuses on Tick/Mitzi (Wade McCollum) and his desire to travel across the outback to meet his 8-year-old son Benji (Shane Davis), whom he has never seen. He brings along two friends, the flamboyant Adam/Felicia (Bryan West) and former drag queen, now transsexual Bernadette (Scott Willis). The three will get an act together to perform in Alice Springs, at a club owned by Tick’s estranged wife Marion (Christy Faber).
The three travel in a bus they name Priscilla, which is so much a part of the story that it’s surprising it didn’t get its own curtain call. It is a bus of many colors, conceived and designed by Brian Thomson, with an interior decorated like a tacky desert motel. The electrified bus moves, rotates and becomes a video screen for some amazing light shows.

This high-energy show is one sizzling production number after another, each bringing thunderous applause from the audience, but while the plot follows that of the movie, the intensity of the glitz robs the story of the poignancy that made the movie special. There are moments of introspection and of tenderness, a sweet love story developing between Bernadette and Bob (Joe Hart), the mechanic who repairs Priscilla and then comes along for the ride, and the emotional meeting of Tick and Benji, but it felt as if the soul of the piece was missing.

However, nobody in the audience was missing anything, as everyone thoroughly enjoyed the 500 or so costumes, 60 wigs, 150 pairs of shoes (nobody can wear a pair of impossibly high heels like a drag queen!) and more than 200 hats and headdresses — there are 65 wig changes, the fastest one taking about 15 seconds.

And there’s a flying Greek chorus, too. The “Divas” (Emily Afton, Bre Jackson and Brit West) who pop in or are lowered down from the flies in a rotating collection of amazing costumes to accompany the stars in such numbers as “It’s Raining Men,” “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and “MacArthur Park.” It’s “flying by Foy,” the most prolific theatrical flying service in the world, the company that elevated stage flying to a modern art form.

The three hero(ine)s of this production face homophobes and bullies and their own fears and insecurities, but as their bond of friendship deepens, they maintain their dignity throughout and triumph in the end … looking simply fabulous, of course.

The Miser

The Woodland Opera House’s Rodger McDonald has directed a production of Moliere’s farce, “The Miser,” and wisely cast himself in the title role. This is the kind of role that McDonald does so well, and once again shines in this production.

Harpagon is a penny-pinching irascible old skinflint fixated on his fortune and may well have been the inspiration for such characters as Scrooge McDuck, Oliver Twist’s Fagin, and Jack Benny. He has money hidden all over his house and has buried some of it in the garden and spends all of his time skulking around, afraid that someone will discover his hiding places.  He insists that banks are not to be trusted (hmmm...)

Supporting McDonald is a uniformly talented cast including Matt Wieringa as Cleante, Harpagon’s style-conscious son, in love with the neighbor Marianne (Jen Smuda-Cotter), whose only fault is that she comes from a poor family and has a sick mother, and thus is no fitting bride for his son, according to Harpagon, though he fancies the comely maid himself.

In the meantime, Cleante’s sister Elise (the captivating Sara Matsui-Colby) is in love with Valere (Matt Taloff in an outstanding performance), who has taken a job as stewart to Harpagon in order to be near Elise. But Harpagon has plans to marry his daughter off to a wealthy man of his own choosing, Seigneur Anselm (Steve Mackay).

The action picks up when Harpagon announces he plans to marry Marianne immediately, but assistance comes in the person of the match-maker Frosine (Analise Langford) whose quick thinking helps to smooth things over.  Langford has some of the funniest lines in the play (“What’s the point in marrying an old man if widowhood was not in the marriage contract?”)

Through it all, Harpagon is focused on keeping track of his money and when some of it disappears, he demands that everyone be arrested, those in the house, in the town, in the suburbs, and even in the audience, as he breaks the fourth wall to accuse members of the audience of being in on the plot to rob him.

It’s a fast-moving, convoluted plot that is only resolved by discovery of heretofore hidden blood lines linking some of the members of the cast.

Even before the story begins, the audience is in for treats by the “zanies,” masked figures who act as clowns (and later become characters within the play, and then back into their zanies attire again).  Director McDonald explains that these are “the spirits of drama originating from Commedia which comment and interact with the story, along with moving the furniture.”  They have evolved into our modern day circus clowns.

Set design for this production is by John Bowles, who has created a utilitarian set with Harpagon’s ingenious chair at the center.

Denise Miles’ costumes are beautiful, except for Harpagon, whose tattered bedclothes and threadbare head covering reflect the miserliness of his soul.

“The Miser” is not necessarily a non-stop laugh-out loud play, but for an evening of fun and diversion, it definitely fits the bill.