The Burials

The Martin family members — from left, Ryan (Grey Turner), Sophie (Morgan Hendrix-Chupa)
and Chloe (Rebecca Hirsch) — mourn after a tragic event occurs at Sophie and Chloe's high school.

Acme Theatre Company is opening its 40th season with an excellent, powerful play called “The Burials,” by Caitlin Parish, directed by Emily Henderson.

In its 40-year history, Acme has never shied away from controversial subjects and this play about a school shooting and gun control delivers another compelling message that will have the audience talking when they leave the theater.

In fact, leaving the theater, I heard one group talking about how it was “the most real thing I’ve ever seen” and another sadly remarking that “this is the way things are now.”

The cast of nine are uniformly good, with Morgan Hendrix-Chupa outstanding as Sophie Martin, the daughter of Sen. Ryan Marin (Grey Turner), who is running for re-election.

The play is loosely based on the Greek tragedy “Antigone” by Sophocles, in which a desperate young woman single-handedly defies an unjust law in order to bury her brother, and is punished by being buried alive.

This is a multimedia presentation, with three large screens over the stage and TV cameras on either side. The middle screen is for YouTube videos of Ben Martin (Sam Cubbage), son of the senator, leading up to his decision to go on a shooting rampage in his school and end his own life. The one problem with the videos is that the sound needed to be louder; they were not always easy to hear.
Ben begins his shooting rampage on voting day, as his father is on television being interviewed by reporter Zoe Lucas (Jemima Aldas, who also plays one of the schoolteachers, Mrs. Souder). The ability to see each individually on the large screens was a wonderful idea.

The screens are also used to display the many twitter and email messages received by the Martins, condemning them following the shooting.

Turner is excellent as the politician/father, though the character is extremely unlikable. His feelings about his son are hard to accept, as a parent, and his treatment of his daughter, whom he has taught to think for herself, when she has her own strong feelings about the shooting and about her brother, is just downright cruel.

While there is no violence seen on stage, there are vivid descriptions of what happened. We hear of a pile of bodies and attempts to escape. Chloe Martin (Rebecca Hirsch), Sophie’s sister, also has stained knees from kneeling in someone’s blood. (Hirsch has problems projecting and much of her dialogue is lost).

Parish’s script tries to tackle too many subjects for one play. The Martin family must learn how to deal with Ben’s actions and their own grief, to ask how they might have helped Ben and how do they move forward, but, in addition, they argue about what can be done about gun control.

The girls return to school, and face ostracism from other students. Only Sophie’s friend Janette (Wren Arellano Calderon) remains positive and supportive of Sophie, though Sophie wants only to be alone. Janette, it turns out, is hiding anger issues of her own.

Janette’s boyfriend Jayden (Maya Bailey) is angry with Sophie and seems to blame her for his pain at the loss of friends. The fistfight among the four was done very well.

Brianna (Sara Su), a survivor of the shooting, seems to have the most reasonable feeling about the shooting and seems to understand Ben. Sadly, however, Su spoke very softly, and we missed most of her dialogue.

The only negative thing about this show is that there were so few people in the audience. This is an excellently acted play with an important message and I hope that more people will come to see it.

Peter and the Starcatcher

Acme Theatre Company traditionally does three shows a year: an intimate drama in January, a free comedy in the park in May and a large show where everyone gets cast in the summer. Acme members are in the ninth to 12th grade, so their time in the company is only three to four years and every few years, there is a new crop of actors. In the past, the years where the bulk of the cast are new to the company, the shows are less polished than they will be two to three years later.

Happily, “Peter and the Starcatcher,” directed by Emily Henderson, is the exception to that rule. With more “new” people in the cast than “old,” this “Peter” is outstanding. The show is double-cast, and I saw the performance on opening night. You would have thought it was a cast of veteran Acme actors.

Adapted by Rick Elice from Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s 2004 children’s novel, this play tells the story of how a nameless, angst-ridden orphan became the immortal Peter Pan. The (air-conditioned) Wyatt Pavilion became a magical place, without the use of many fancy technical tricks. Sets were created using ordinary rope, a couple of ladders, a few household appliances, a couple of boxes, and, most important, the actors themselves.

In “Peter and the Starcatcher,” the young orphan and his mates are sent on a ship from Victorian England to a distant kingdom ruled by an evil king. There are some marauding pirates, a jungle tyrant, less-than-willing comrades and unlikely heroes. Best of all, there is a mysterious trunk in the captain’s cabin, which contains precious, otherworldly cargo. At sea, the boys are discovered by a precocious young girl named Molly, a starcatcher-in-training who realizes that the trunk’s precious cargo is star stuff, a celestial substance so powerful that it must never fall into the wrong hands.

Jordan Hayakawa is excellent as “boy,” who would later acquire the name Peter (Hayakawa alternates with Garnet Phinney in the role). We first meet him and his two friends Prentiss (Odie Lopez/Antonia Zaragoza-Smith) and the food-obsessed Ted (Sara Su/Gavin Pinnow) on a ship named The Neverland.

Molly (Megan Abbanat/Fiona Ross) is the daughter of an English Lord (Julie Knoepfler/Lee Libbet), and herself an apprentice starcatcher, a group of people dedicated to stopping the power of the star stuff from being used for evil. The two overcome bands of pirates and thieves in their quest to keep a magical secret safe and save the world from evil.

Molly’s father, on the ship The Wasp is a starcatcher and is guarding a trunk filled with magical star stuff to prevent pirates from stealing its treasure. Grey Turner is outstanding as the pirate Black Stache (alternating with James Hayakawa) and has one of the best moustaches ever, a trademark of his family.

Black Stache’s faithful first mate is Smee (Jemima Aldas/Wren Arellano)

Peter and Molly manage to dump the trunk into the ocean and jump overboard during the confusion of a storm. After the storm, everyone and the trunk wash ashore on an island inhabited with hostile natives and a giant crocodile (one of the most clever crocodiles you’ll ever see on stage, created using the plainest of materials).

The island natives are Cypher McIlraith/Rylan Valdepena as Fighting Prawn, Allie Gunther/Anja Nittner as Hawking Clam and Kira Cubbage as Teacher in both productions.

While not strictly a musical, there is a three-piece band, directed by music director Oliver Steissberg, for a couple of musical numbers.

Sophia Nachmanoff and Emma Larson are credited with costumes, and what a delightful assortment of colorful costumes they are!

Henderson’s direction results in a tight cast with no lapses in the action. The two hours pass quickly. This is a show that will delight adults and children alike.

The Beaux Stratagem

The romantic Dorinda (Sophia Nachmanoff), left, attempts to cheer up the grumpily
married Kate Sullen (Megan Abbanat) in Acme's free comedy “The Beaux' Stratagem.”

Restoration comedy, like George Farquhar’s “The Beaux Stratagem,” has always been something the Acme Theatre Company does very well.

Farquhar wrote the comedy in 1707. In 1939, it was partially adapted by Thornton Wilder (an Acme-favorite playwright), but abandoned with the outbreak of World War II. In 2000, Wilder’s 57 page manuscript was rediscovered and, with the permission of the Wilder Estate, Ken Ludwig (“Lend Me a Tenor,” “Sullivan and Gilbert,” etc.) completed the work.

The Memorial Day weekend productions, which are free, have long been a gift to the city of Davis for all of its support of the young people’s theater company — the oldest in Davis (at 39 years, it beats Davis Musical Theatre Company by a year).

The current production is colorful, energetic and just plain silly. Sophia Nachmanoff has outdone herself with costumes that are deliciously over the top, particularly for Lady Bountiful, in an oversized hoop skirt so big and so broad that moving in and around the stage was particularly tricky, but done adroitly by Gavin Pinnow.

No one is credited for makeup design, but the white-face, bejeweled look for everyone was unique and fun, but with some male actors played females and vice versa, sometimes made it difficult to tell who was who.

The fun begins before the show actually starts, as the costumed actors invite the audience to join them in dancing to a Madonna tune. As the music ends, the performers run to the stage and the performance begins.

Jack Archer (Cory McCutcheon) and Tom Aimwell (Cypher McIlrath) are two young gentlemen who have squandered their respective fortunes and now plan to travel through small towns, entrap young heiresses and steal their money. To start, Aimwell poses as a gentlemen and Archer as his servant, the plan to switch on and off as they move to different towns.

They settle in at the inn run by Boniface (Kira Cubbage), whose own daughter Cherry (Sam Cubbage) is attracted to both Tom and Jack, but fears they are highwaymen, come to rob Lady Bountiful’s house

But right off the bat, the men’s plan goes awry when, in the first town, Tom actually falls in love with Dorinda (Nachmanoff), the daughter of the wealthy Lady Bountiful, who specializes in herbal medicine and amputation. She attributes her successes to the fact that her “patients” are so satisfied they never return.

At the same time, Jack makes friends with Mrs. Kate Sullen (Megan Abbanat) whose husband, Squire Sullen (Peter Syverson), is a cruel drunk who actually despises his wife.

In a parallel plot, Tom has a given the box containing the men’s last £200 to Boniface for safekeeping, unaware that he is part of a group of highwaymen, including Hounslow (Odie Lopez) and Bagshot (Emma Larson), who themselves plan to rob Lady Bountiful.

As the plot advances, it focuses more and more on Kate and Jack, who fall in love and want to marry, were it not that she is married, a situation eventually solved by the arrival of her brother, Sir Charles Freeman (Elie Bukowski), and all live happily ever after.

This production has many strong performances and the direction of Emily Henderson kept the action moving crisply at all times.

This is a great way to spend a Memorial Day weekend. Churros and other goodies are available to snack on at intermission and blankets available to rent if the weather turns cold.

Twelfth Night

The enthusiastic crew of Acme Theatre Company are once again giving their yearly gift to the city of Davis in thanks for all the support they receive from everyone throughout the year.  Each year the actors perform a comedy on the outdoor Art Center stage.  The audience is invited to pack a picnic and sit on the grass to enjoy the show (and if it’s too, cold blankets are available to rent and you can even buy socks!)


This year’s play is Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” that wonderful world of ridiculousness, where there are separated twins, mixed up lovers, cross dressing, and lots and lots of chasing and fighting

In fact, there is no special credit given for choreographing the fight scenes, but they were masterful.

This production is set in the Vaudeville circuit 1920s, though the setting is fairly irrelevant to the production, other than the great 20s music that is played before and after the show and during intermission, the show posters on the walls, and the costume choices.  (Note the marquee change for Act 2, which is wonderful)

“Twelfth Night” tells the story of Viola (Fiona Ross), shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria with her brother Sebastian (Braeden Ingram), whom she believes to have drowned.  Viola decides to dress in her brother’s clothes and pass herself off as a page named Cesario, under which guise she enters the service of Duke Orsino (Cory McCutcheon). She finds herself attracted to her new boss.  Ross has a hefty role and does it well.

Duke Orsino is in love with Olivia (Annie Oberholtzer), shining star of stage and screen, who is grieving the death of her father and brothers. Orsino sends Cesario with messages of love to Olivia, who wants nothing to do with Orsino, but finds herself attracted to the young page, who awakens her adolescent hormones and, forgetting her grief, turns her into a horny teenager.  Oberholtzer’s transformation from the stern black-clad, grieving sister into a woman who has rediscovered love is wonderful...and very funny.

(One of the problems with most Acme shows is that there are so few men in the company that women fill in many of the male roles.  They do it well, but it makes trying to figure out who is who difficult, especially when many characters are dressed alike and the names of the actors are also gender neutral!)

Jordan Hayakawa opens the show with comments to the audience and then steps into the action as Maria, Olivia’s personal assistant.  There is something magical about Hayakawa and in no obvious way, she commands attention when she is on stage.

Brother James Hayakawa is Malvolio, Olivia’s loyal, if pompously righteous steward. He is outstanding and displays a talent for tap dancing after he has been played a fiendish trick by Maria.

Toby Belch, a kinsman of Olivia, is one of Shakespeare’s best loved buffoons and Dezla Dawkins does well by him.

Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Gavin Pinnow), is a buddy of Malvolio who puts up with a lot in the hope of an opportunity to woo the fair Olivia.

Irish Harshaw is the clown Feste, Olivia’s fool.  She is petite and appealing and sparkles in each of her scenes.  She also has a lovely singing voice.

Patrick Foraker has appeared in several Acme shows, and has his first speaking role as Curio, one of the Duke’s attendants, which he does very well.

The final performance of this gem is Sunday at 2 p.m.  Do yourself a favor and get down to the Art Center to catch it.

The White Rose

Young activist Sophie Scholl (Michelle Monheit) is accused of distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets
and is interrogated by Anton Mahler (Grey Turner),
Bauer (Skye McIlraith) and police chief Robert Mohr (Gracelyn Watkins).
Courtesy photo

The White Rose was an organization of German students founded in Munich in 1942, with the goal of exposing Nazi crimes and injustices. They wrote and circulated some 15,000 leaflets over the next year and then in 1943, some of the students were arrested for distributing treasonous material. The students were held and interrogated for five days, and then executed.

“The White Rose” is a play by Lillian Garrett-Groag, directed by Emily Henderson and performed by a talented cast of Acme Theatre Company actors at the Pamela Trokanski Dance Theatre.

The play covers the arrest and interrogation of the students, mixed with flashbacks to the formation of the group, its growing passion, and increasing boldness in the name of nationalism.

When it debuted in New York in 1991, it was highly criticized by critics who felt it was overly dramatic and questioned its veracity. (“Fake news” as theater?) However, seen in the light of 2018, it perhaps takes on a bit more importance as we pay attention to the warnings it gives.

Acme has never shied away from asking difficult questions and giving the audience something to think about.

The program, for example, includes a helpful list of five early signs of fascism, which includes such things “Destruction of human rights,” “Controlled media” and “Corporate power being protected — when the rich or elite are voted into positions of power and then use the power granted to them to protect their assets.”

Director Henderson asks, “What do we do when each day brings a new erosion of democracy? What are we supposed to do now?”

She also asks, “What does it mean to be immersed in historical injustice and current inhumanity? To come of age under the reign of a delusional leader? How do personal faith, truth and honor operate when law and morality are in direct conflict? How do you proceed if your country becomes unrecognizable?”

She has a talented cast to try to answer such questions. There are eight characters in the play and two of the roles are double-cast, so 10 actors altogether bring the story of these students to life.
In the production I saw, Eleanor Richter played Sophie Scholl of the White Rose and Gracelyn Watkins was Robert Mohr, the police investigator who spends days trying to get her to confess to her crimes. These two are the heart of this play, Mohr wanting to save this young girl who is the age of his daughter, and Scholl, willing to give up her life to help save her country. Both actors are excellent and their final emotional interrogation scene is riveting.

Grey Turner is mesmerizing as Anton Mahler, the office Nazi intent on punishing the students in the extreme. The blond Turner is the perfect Aryan, with a growing sneer throughout the play and a “Heil Hitler” salute that is crisp every time. (It was nice seeing Turner in the talk-back at the end of the show as a normal, appealing young man and not the unlikable Nazi!)

Others in the show include Cory McCutcheon as Sophie’s brother Hans, Dezla Dawkins, Kieran Cubbage and Sophie Nachmanoff as the rest of the White Rose cohorts arrested, and Skye McIlraith as the guard who sits outside Mohr’s office and escorts the prisoners to and from their cells.
Michelle Monheit shares the role of Sophie with Richter and Garnet Phinney shares the role of Mohr with Watkins.

This is a play that should be seen by more people than I fear it will be. It has a message that is delivered powerfully and it leaves the audience with many things to think about as they watch what patriotic students would sacrifice to save the soul of their country.

Be sure to check out the lobby before or after the show to see the photos and read the bios of the real students whose story this play tells.

The Odyssey

Acme Theatre Company opened one of its stronger productions this week.

“The Odyssey,” an irreverent and witty version of Homer’s classic tale by Mary Zimmerman, is directed by Alicia Hunt, former Acme member, who made an amazing impression in her one-woman show, “Grounded” at B Street Theater two years ago.

“I’ve worked them very hard,” Hunt said, and it shows. This is a strong cast and other than the vocal projection problems in some of the actors, always an issue with Acme, the production is very good.
Don’t expect any help from the program, though. The names appear to have been printed in reverse alphabetical order with no rhyme or reason as to who comes on stage when. Unless a character is called out by name (by someone who can project), it is impossible to know who is who, especially in a dark theater.

And it doesn’t help that there is a typo in the program. Two are listed as Zeus/drummer, when Giancarlo Gilbert-Igelsrud is the only drummer. His drumming is essential to creating many of the scenes. He’s a treasure, with the very best costume of the night. All percussionists should wear flashy gold.

But enough of the complaints. The show opens when McKella van Boxtel walks on stage as a tourist trying to get the history straight and is transformed by two muses (Cassidy Smith and Emma Larson) into the character of Athena, who will help Odysseus (Ryan Johnson) through his travels home from the Trojan War, which ended 10 years ago.

Van Boxtel does a wonderful job, a master of disguise who becomes the ever-present being in Odysseus’ journey.

Smith provides vocals in several spots and displays a beautiful voice.

Odysseus is eager to get home to his wife, the patient and wise Penelope (Garnet Phinney), but Poseidon (Mez) is holding a grudge and refuses to let the hero return home. Penelope spends the show fending off suitors.

Johnson gives a powerful performance as the tortured Odysseus, whose return home involves encounters with characters like the enchantress Circe, the goddess Calypso and the Sirens, beautiful creatures who lure sailors to their death by their singing (Gracelyn Watkins plays both Circe and Calypso as well as one of the Sirens).

Waiting at home with mama Penelope in Ithaca is Odysseus’ son Telemachus, played by the Chris Colfer look-alike Grey Turner. At only 14, Turner is one of the youngest in the cast, yet gives one of the strongest and most memorable performances. This young actor is going to be a pleasure to watch as he moves through his time with Acme.

There is also an absolutely fabulous Cyclops eye for which the tech crew gets high praise.

Odysseus takes this journey home with his BFF Eumaeus (Rocket Drew) who is there at the end to get rid of Penelope’s many would-be suitors and convince her that Odysseus is, indeed, finally home.
This is a perfect show for high school-age actors. As director Hunt says “they are enduring experiences that high schoolers viscerally understand: loss, isolation, searching, adventure and, above all, the pain and beauty of love.

We are very fortunate in Davis that we have such an organization as Acme, which can get high school kids excited about learning the classics and working so hard to bring them to life.

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?

Pronoun

Dean (Meili Monk) lashes out at Josh (Ari Wilk) in the Acme Theatre Company
production of "Pronoun," on stage through this weekend.
Fred Gladdis/Enterprise photo

 He or she? Him or her?

We rarely think about pronouns as we speak to each other or about each other, but in “Pronouns” — the new play produced by Acme Theatre Company and directed by Emily Henderson — we are forced to think about the great meaning such simple words have.

This play, by Evan Placey, was commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival and premiered by youth theaters across the United Kingdom. It was written especially for young actors.

It tells the story of Dean (Meili Monk), a female-to-male transgendered teen in the middle of transition, trying to work through all the trials and tribulations, to say nothing of the hormonal effects of this change. While the issues that transgendered people, especially young people, encounter are many, this play focuses primarily on the interpersonal relations and how his transition affects not only Dean, but also his intimate circle of family and friends — his parents (Benton Harshaw, Sarah Thompson), his sister (A.J. Zaragoza-Smith), and his friends, especially Josh (Ari Wilk), his former boyfriend, who is still in love with the girl he dated for so long.

Dean’s idol is James Dean (Grey Turner), who appears in Dean’s fantasy life and gives him pointers on how to move and behave as a man.

While this is a serious work, comic relief is offered by Josh’s best friend Kyle (an exceptional performance by Ryan Johnson) and his girlfriend Amy (Cassidy Smith), who are planning the most ill-advised wedding you can imagine, arranged by Amy’s best friend Laura (McKella vanBoxtel).
There is also a comic touch added by the ensemble (Cory McCutcheon, Gracelyn Watkins and Megan Abbanat), who become school board members, doctors and any other group that Dean is likely to encounter.

Monk gives a wonderfully nuanced performance as Dean. The actress’ hair is a bit of a difficulty in portraying the transgendered young man, but by the second act, we have become accustomed to it and she is more believable as a he. His impassioned speech to the school board on the subject of tolerance vs. acceptance is powerful and embodies the whole point of the play.

It is a little confusing trying to figure out why the playwright put a man in the role of Dean’s mother and a woman in the role of his father, but Harshaw and Thompson do well as the estranged couple, tolerant of their daughter’s transition but confused by using the male pronoun to refer to him. Their own transition, switching costumes on stage to revert to the proper genders, is one of the most impressive scenes in the play, thanks in great part to Wilk’s lighting design.

As I say in almost every Acme production, this company always has projection problems, even in a theater as small as the Pamela Trokanski Performing Arts Center, so some crucial dialog may be swallowed. If all of them projected as well as Johnson and McCutcheon do, it would be a much more successful production.

But projection issues aside, this is an important production discussing an issue that rarely gets such a sensitive and understanding treatment. It’s the kind of show that Acme does best.

There will be a talk-back after each performance, with director Henderson and a panel of four or five members of the cast, as they explain how they prepared for the show and answer questions from the audience.

(And as an aside, anyone confused by the growing label LGBTQAI, it stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, asexual and intersex, which should cover every possibility!)

Madwoman of Chaillot

From the moment you enter the Brunelle Performance Hall for Acme Theatre Company’s production of “The Madwoman of Chaillot,” you feel as if you are in Paris. The set design by Benton Harshaw is full of bright colors, with the tables and chairs of the outdoor café painted in multi colors, accented by beautiful awnings and bright lighting (by Ari Wilk and Andre De Loera-Brust).

Immediately you begin to be introduced to the colorful, quirky villagers, The flower girl (Sylvie), who pushes her wheelbarrow across the stage; the street juggler (Garnet Phinney); the accordion-playing street singer (Maya Tripathi); the shoelace peddler (Patrick Foraker); an American in pastel plaid seersucker (Ryan Wiegt); and those wonderful whimsical bikes by Peter Wm. Wagner being pedaled back and forth across the stage.

This 1940 comedy by Jean Giraudoux was written during the Nazi occupation of France and is, in the words of director Emily Henderson, “part light-hearted fluff, party heavy-handed fable, part dense philosophy, part political protest, and part Dr. Seuss.”

It also, like some other revived stage shows, seems to have relevance to life today.

Early in the show, we are introduced to the bad guys, “The Machine” — Ari Wilk as the President, Chaitrika Budamagunta as the Baron, Mikaela Manzanzo as the Broker, and Michelle Monheir as the Prospector.

(It should be noted that this show is short on male actors, but the women playing men’s roles do an excellent job.)

They have discovered that there is oil under the streets of Paris and they plan to drill in the center of the city and make themselves rich.

A young man, Pierre (Giancarlo Gilbet-Igesrud), is sent to plant a bomb to start the plot working, but he has an attack of morals and throws the bomb, and himself into the river. The first thing he sees when revived is the waitress Irma (McKella van Boxtel) and it is love at first sight, though they are both too shy to do anything about it.

Aurelia, the eccentric heroine of the piece, who lives in the Chaillot district of Paris, learns of the nefarious plot and sets out to foil the plan and, with the assistance of her friends, real and imaginary, save the city.

Julia Smart-Truco, is a stand-out in her colorful costume and green hair (costume designers Eleanor Richter and Cassaundra Wages). It’s difficult to know if she’s fey or smarter than everyone … or a bit of both.

She enlists the help of her fellow “madwomen” — Constance (Cassidy Smith), Gabrielle (Garnet Phinney) and Josephine (Eleanor Richter) — to hatch a plot. It involves luring The Machine into her basement on the promise that the water is rich with petroleum. (Sarah Zaragoza-Smith gives another outstanding performance in the small role of Sewer Man.)

All of the villagers meet at Aurora’s home and conduct a mock trial, convicting the group without their presence. The Ragpicker (Chris Monheit) gives testimony in the person of the collective rich guys, with a wonderful long monologue in which he brags that “money adores me. It simply won’t leave me alone.” And then to prove he’s really a good guy, interested in the welfare of the poor, “It is a matter of fact faithfully reported in all of the newspapers I own that I spend all of my waking hours trying to get rid of my money.”

Despite the eloquence of his defense, the men are convicted and while the group leaves, Aurelia sets out to put her plot into motion.

When she has succeeded, she sums it all nicely by saying, “Nothing is ever so wrong in this world that a sensible woman can’t set it right in the course of an afternoon.”

Perhaps that will be prophetic.

Scapino

If you’re in the mood for an hour and a half of zany, slapstick fun, there’s still time to catch the free performance of Acme Theatre Company’s “Scapino,” on the outdoor stage at the Davis Arts Center.

“Scapino,” adapted from the original Moliere play, was written by actor, clown and comedian Bill Irwin and humorist Mark O’Donnell. Originally a 16th-century Commedia dell’arte production, it is not surprising that this modern comedy is funny from start to finish.

With pirates, stolen babies, mistaken identities, overbearing mothers and conniving heroes, all this show is missing is music to place it right in the Gilbert & Sullivan vein!

As director Maddy Ryen comments, “ ‘Scapino’ is not a comedy with a lot of depth. It’s heavy on the commedia slapstick and our production … aims to evoke as much of an old-time vaudeville feeling as we can.”

The program explains that it’s set in San Francisco, though other than a backdrop of the Victorian “Painted Ladies,” you’d never know it.

With only 12 people in the cast, this may be the smallest of the annual Acme Memorial Day shows, but the small cast was able to devote more time to perfecting the roles.

Rocket Drew, in the title role, is perfect as the wily rapscallion who plays both ends against the middle, nearly seamlessly. When Octavio (Meili Monk) confesses that he has fallen in love with the lovely Hyacinth (Eleanor Richter), though his mother has already arranged a marriage for him, he turns to Scapino for help.

In the meantime, Scapino’s boss Leander (Isaiah Darshan) has fallen love with the pirate girl named Zerbinetta (Bella Houck, who may have been cast for her ability to laugh endlessly on cue!), and knows that his father is going to be furious. He, too, turns to Scapino for help.

Scapino is aided in all of his machinations by his pal Sylvester (Sarah Zaragoza-Smith). Throughout her history with Acme, Zaragoza-Smith has played a number of pint-sized spitfires and this works extremely well for her in this production.

Actress Maddie Olwert wrote in her bio that she is always cast as “fancy and opinionated elderly women.” Maybe it’s because she’s so good at it. She plays Octavio’s mother, Madam Argante, determined to make the right marriage for her son, partly because of a big secret that is revealed toward the end of the show.

Andres de Loera-Brust is Leander’s dad, Mr. Geronte, and Isa Sultan is Nerine, Zerbinetta’s traveling companion

Making the zany antics just that much more zany are the “Zanni,” a trio of music makers — Patrick Foraker, Mikaela Manzano and Maya Tripathi — who play slide whistles, tambourines, blocks and a host of other noise makers to accentuate the action on stage.

Little kids will love this show even if they can’t figure out what is happening, but there is so much visual comedy going on, one doesn’t need to understand the thin plot, which becomes much easier to follow by Act 2. Adults will love the comedy, the corny jokes and the subtle references to current pop culture.

With a barbecue outside the Arts Center starting at 5:30 p.m. and the free show beginning at 7, this is an early evening, but lots of fun for all. Bring your chairs and/or blankets to sit on the grass, and don’t forget a sweatshirt when the sun goes down.

i Gelosi

The talented actress Vittoria (Sarah Zaragoza-Smith) keeps a tight rein
on her patron, the Duke of Mantua (Garrison Koebere), right,
and her lovelorn ex-boyfriend Orazio (Cassidy Smith), left,
in "I Gelosi," which kicks off the Acme Theatre Company's
36th season on Friday, Jan. 22. Courtesy photo

 It is generally believed that I Gelosi (translated as “the jealous ones”) was one of the earliest Italian acting troupes. It was formed in Milan, Italy, in 1569, and performed throughout Europe. Some say the group was the inspiration for today’s slapstick comedy. They performed commedia dell’arte, noted for its quick pace and clever, dark humor.

The 2008 play “I Gelosi,” written by playwright David Bridel, is loosely based on the original I Gelosi and is now being presented by Acme Theatre Company at the Veterans’ Memorial Theater, under the direction of Acme alum Hope Raymond.

“These were the ‘rock stars’ of their time, creating theater loved by all classes of people,” Raymond writes in her program notes. In fact, I Gelosi was the first troupe to be patronized by nobility and even performed for the king of France.

The play begins in a graveyard — a clever device to introduce the audience to the characters by name, as they all arise from their prominently displayed engraved headstones.

The group’s leader, Francesco (Andrés de Loera Brust) gives an introduction to the play before the actual play begins. He stood head-and-shoulder above the others in the cast, not only because of his height, but because of his command of the stage, and his unfailing projection, which made every word he spoke easy to understand.

My consistent complaint about Acme is the failure of many of its actors to project, especially in a venue as large as the Veterans’ Memorial Theater. This time I sat close to the stage and could hear almost everyone well, though there were a couple whose lines never made it over the apron.

Francesco and his two friends Giulio Pasquati (Ari Wilk) and Simone di Bologna (Benton Harshaw), are penniless performers, squabbling over which one must play the female part. In an unconventional move in an era when women were not permitted on stage, Francesco decides to hire Isabella Andreini (Avery Burstein), whom he marries — not for love, but more for convenience.

Isabella is not only an actress but a writer and if her performing on stage was scandalous, reading her works from the stage was even more so, though little is made of that fact in the plot of this show.

Though one of the newest, youngest members of Acme, at age 15, ninth-grader Burstein gave an experienced performance and held her own against the more seasoned actors.

The Orazio Padovano (Cassidy Smith), star-struck nephew of the Duke of Mantua (Garrison Koeberer), also comes a groupie and introduces Vittoria Piisimi (Sarah Zaragoza-Smith) into the company. The competition between Isabella and Vittoria forms much of the conflict in the story

More conflict arises after Francesco has an affair with the libidinous Sylvia (Julia Smart Truco), mistress of the Duke.

But thanks to the Duke’s reviews, I Gelosi are invited to perform in the court of Charles IX, King of France (Rocket Drew). With his thin build and oversized crown, Drew looks like he could have walked out of the pages of a Dr. Seuss book.

Charles is the son of Catherine de Medici (Chaitrika Budamagunta) and I fear that her projection was nonexistent and I missed just about all of her lines.

Riding a wave of popularity, Francesco makes a terrible mistake, thinking that he could use the stage as a platform to express his anger with Pope Gregory and the aristocracy, with the audience’s blessing (kind of like saying “I’m so popular I could walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and the people would still love me.”)  It backfires, however, and I Gelosi is driven from the court and find themselves penniless, right back where they started.

Undaunted, Francesco, Giulio and Simone decide to start all over again.

In real life, Isabella died in childbirth in 1604. Francesco was so overwrought that he disbanded the troupe and retired from the stage. The stock commedia dell’arte character Isabella is named in her honor.

In presenting this look at “I Gelosi,” Acme has done honor to the forerunner of much of what the young acting company has become famous for. And once again, dedicated Acme alum Dan Renkin deserves much credit for the sword-fighting skills of the actors.

Argonautika

In her notes to Acme Theatre Company’s production of “Argonautika,” director Maddy Ryen says the story is basically a road-trip tale. Road trips follow essentially the same format — a bunch of buddies get together to go off on adventures, whether by motorcycle (“Easy Rider”), cars (“Blues Brothers”) or maybe on “Trains, Planes, and Automobiles.”

This dramedy by Mary Zimmerman, who has been making a name for herself updating many of the old classic stories, gives us Jason, who gathers a bunch of his buddies, hops on a boat and sails off for many adventures. These include chase scenes, battles, sexy babes, a lot of ingested substances, a monster or two to be defeated and a bittersweet, if not quite as expected, return.

This show closes Acme’s 35th season. While I am usually impressed with what a group of young people can do, the closing shows of any season are usually the best, when the newcomers have had a year to hone their skills and learn how it all works. Thus, this show, which seems to have a cast of thousands, doesn’t have a weak performance in the bunch.

One of my perpetual complaints is that not everyone knows about “projection” and dialog is often difficult to hear, but placing the audience on the stage of the Brunelle Theater gives the cast a full house, and makes it almost impossible to miss any line of dialogue in this lively production.

The plot is pretty silly, but I’m sure it meant something to the Greeks at the time. Jason (Trevor Rinzler), the rightful heir to the crown of Thessaly, is sent by one tyrant king, Pelias (Tina Simson, in an amazing beard that looked left over from a Christmas display), to the kingdom of another tyrant, King Aeetes of Colchis (Chris Monheit), to retrieve the golden fleece — which looks like a table mat-sized piece of sheep’s hide, but which is the symbol of authority and kingship.

Pelias expects that Jason will be killed on the journey and thus be no longer a threat to his throne, but the adventurer is assisted by the gods Hera (Callie Miller) and Athena (Meili Monk), who help him and his buddies out of many scrapes.

All of these actors give wonderful performances, with Rinzler the zealous, committed young hero; Simson, her gender hidden by her long beard and white hair, suitably conniving; and Monheit deliciously strong and evil.

Miller is a beautiful Hera, who pledges herself to Jason after he carries her across a stream, while Monk, resplendent in red, the perfect partner to Hera.

All of Jason’s buddies are excited about the upcoming adventure, but head and shoulders among them all — literally and physically — is Ricky Houck as Hercules. He gives a powerful, yet funny performance as a kind of not-too-bright jock whose strength is crucial to the start of the journey. But his devotion to and love for his partner Hylas (Colin French), is beautiful to watch, and painful to experience his later loss.

Houck later becomes the feet to sister Bella Houck as Boreas, the fearsome giant with the huge fists who does battle with Jason.

Sarah Zaragoza-Smith makes an impression as she joins the Argonauts midway through their journey as Dymas, and Mikaela Manzano as the Son of Pelias also brings a bright enthusiasm to the group.
Camila Ortiz is a demure Medea, daughter of Aeetes, before she became the monster we all remember. She is loving toward Jason, after being shot by an arrow from Eros (Elise Turkovich).

Good work by costume designers Cassaundra Wages and Eliza Buchanan for the arrow Medea wears for the rest of the show and for the white gown that gets redder and redder as she appears to bleed for the next several years.

Eden Tomich and Benton Harshaw have designed a beautiful ship for Jason, split in half to allow for fight scenes and an amazing pre-journey chant sequence.

Katie Sanger and Meli Monk provide the original music while Andres De Loera Brust and Wil Forkin’s lighting design is a great help in many scenes.

Though the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece may be one of the oldest tales in the world, it still has a message for today. Though we may not be dealing with monsters, harpies and gods, the story of feuding kings sending their young men off to die for the cause still rings true.

The Heart of Robin Hood

Maid Marian and her clown Pierre run away to the forest and attempt to join Robin Hood's gang of Merry Men in Acme Theatre's “The Heart of Robin Hood.” From left are Much Miller (Camila Ortiz), Robin Hood (Benton Locke-Harshaw), Maid Marian (Callie Miller), Pierre the clown (Wil Forkin), Wil Scathlock (Tina Simpson) and Little John (Aaron Hirst). Courtesy photo

Was there ever a more perfect play for a bunch of exuberant adolescents than “The Heart of Robin Hood”? Written by David Farr and directed by Emily Henderson, the production is this year’s gift to Davis by members of Acme Theatre Company, with free performances set on the Davis Arts Center stage through Monday.

Everyone knows the story of Robin Hood, right? Lovable rogue running through Sherwood Forest with his band of Merry Men, robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Wikipedia lists 68 movies either about Robin Hood or featuring Robin Hood, dating back to 1908. (They say the best of all the movies was the 1938 version featuring Errol Flynn.)

There are movies made in England, Italy, Germany, Russia, India and Japan. There are animated films, including one featuring Tom and Jerry, and another one starring vegetables.

In his “The Heart of Robin Hood,” Farr puts his own spin on the story, borrowing from Shakespeare now and then, and making it a rollicking good time. The cast members were always in motion, making use of the whole area, including the trees and the grassy hill (no need to build a prop tree when there is a real tree growing out of the stage that can be climbed!).

There were umpteen sword and/or stick fights (kudos to fight director Dan Renkin), and everybody, on and off stage, looked like they were having a marvelous time.

This is more of a feminist version, where Robin Hood (Benton Harshaw) really is an outlaw, who robs from the rich … and then keeps what he gets. But it is Marian (Callie Miller), the bored princess who is looking for adventure, who goes into the forest with her friend Pierre/Peter (William Forkin) disguised as a man (Martin of Sherwood) who helps Robin find that he really gets more satisfaction from helping the poor. (He also learns that girls aren’t so bad after all.)

Forkin has a big role, as play announcer, castle jester and Marian’s best friend. He is flamboyant as Pierre, and brave as his alter-ego, Peter.

Miller has an awful lot of on-stage time and she just gets stronger as the play progresses. She also does surprisingly quick costume changes. (It always amazes me how you can put on a hat and suddenly nobody recognizes you!)

Likewise, Harshaw is more like a big kid playing with his friends (Aaron Hirst, Tina Simpson and Camila Ortiz), but as things get more serious, he becomes more adult and responsible and, of course, his reward for that is the hand of the princess, once she takes off her hat and he can recognize her.

The man you love to hate is Colin French as the sleazy Prince John, determined to wed Marian before her father (Noah Papagni) can get home to stop the marriage. He’s deliciously evil at every turn.

Eliza Buchanan plays Alice, Marion’s social climbing sister who wants to marry well, and the more titled the better. Buchanan’s performance sneaks up on you and you suddenly realize what a very good actress she is.

Trevor Rinzler and Sky Falyn play siblings Jethro Summers and Sarah Summers. I’m not sure if Rinzler is old enough to be in Acme yet. Falyn definitely is not, but both of them were extremely good as the children of a man ultimately hanged for non-payment of taxes. Their dog Plug (Sarah Zaragoza-Smith) gave the perfect salute on the death of Prince John’s hitman, Guy of Gisbourne (Ricky Houck).

“The Heart of Robin Hood” is fast, fantastic, fabulous fun, presented by a group of young actors who know just what they’re doing. They give the audience a simply splendid time.

Temperatures were cold on opening night, so dress warmly, but Acme also has blankets to lend if you need them. There is a pre-show barbecue, and at intermission there are cookies and hot chocolate for those who want them.

Dan Renkin (Feature Article)

Benton Locke-Harshaw as Robin Hood, crouching; Dan Renkin, fight choreographer;
and Callie Miller as Maid Marian rehearse for the Acme Theatre Company
production of "The Heart of Robin Hood," set for Memorial Day weekend. Renkin,
a Davis High School graduate now working in New York theater,
flies home every year to teach young Acme actors
realistic-looking sword-fighting skills.
Courtesy photo

When Robin Hood’s merry men engage with the Sheriff of Nottingham’s posse in Sherwood Forest this weekend, you can be sure that their swordplay will be a) realistic and b) safe.

This is due to fight coordinator Dan Renkin, a Davis High School graduate now working in theater in New York, who has returned to his hometown every year for the past six years to work with the young actors of the Acme Theatre Company to teach them the fine arts of stage fighting and handling those unwieldy swords.

Acme will present “The Heart of Robin Hood” Friday through Monday at the Davis Arts Center. The free production is its annual gift to the community as thanks for local business and community support of the company for high school-aged thespians.

Renkin never imagined he would have a career in theater, much less in New York. In fact, his whole career was really a series of fortunate accidents.

He remembers that as a young kid he enjoyed the productions of the Sunshine Children’s Theater, but didn’t get involved himself until some friends were doing a summer show with Acme at the Pence Gallery.

He came into the production late, but “they said ‘you can be one of the people we’ve never seen before for the funeral scene at the end.’ And so I got to stand around thinking ‘I’m not sure what I’ve gotten myself into, but this is really fun!’ ”

He graduated from Davis and headed off to UC Irvine to get a liberal arts degree “because that’s what we do in my family,” but in his second year, he realized he really missed doing theater.

“I wonder if they do that here,” he thought.

Renkin found an active theater program and began getting involved. He was also taking film classes on the side.

“Then there was a moment when I realized I had screwed up and had accidentally taken the first two quarters of the theory class that was required for the film major, but not for the minor,” he said. “There was no reason not to go ahead and get a second B.A. in film. I had no idea what was coming next.”

What came next was the recommendation of a friend who was working at the New York Conservatory.

“She spent a year on the phone with me saying ‘not only is this a really good program, but this would be a really good place for you.’ ” And so he went to New York.

He enrolled in the Circle on the Square Acting School and felt right at home immediately when the first person he met when he entered the building was Paul Shapiro, a fellow graduate of Davis High School. (Renkin later would collaborate with another DHS graduate, Ari Kreith, who runs Theater 167 at Manhattan’s West End Theater.)

“One of the teachers was B.H. Barry, the first fight director ever to win a Tony and the man credited with the birth of fight directing in America,” Renkin recalled. “He taught stage combat, which I had a little smattering of in undergraduate (days), just enough to convince me that it was not meant for me. I’m not athletic.

“But his teacher had been Errol Flynn’s stunt double, so he had certain standards for how you perform. All his drinking buddies and peers were people like Harold Pinter, writing very earthy, kitchen-sink stuff, not like Noel Coward, and he wanted to figure out how to make the fights natural like that.”

Barry found that he would treat fight scenes the same way he would treat them as an actor. It was easier to stage and the actors could remember it better; they also performed it more convincingly because they owned it.

“It became kind of an existential thing. And that made sense to me,” Renkin said. “That’s when the thing that was most terrifying to me became fun. When someone is quite literally the most skilled in the world at this thing that they do and they invite you to come learn more about it, you go!

“So I started going to his class. I assisted him on my first Broadway show, hoping that there would eventually be a second.”

Renkin also began filling in when Barry was unable to teach a class and eventually he began doing his own fight choreography (“I find mall atrias, for some reason, are a great inspiration for choreography ideas — I could slide down this railing, and jump over that table …”)

Then, six years ago, he was contacted by Acme Artistic Director Emily Henderson about helping with a show. She explained that Libby Renkin, Dan’s mother, had come to an Acme show and mentioned that her son did fight choreography and might be able to help out on their next production.

“So I cold-called this total stranger and said ‘I’m doing this play and it has 17 different fights and do you think you could come for a week?’ He said sure,” Henderson said. “It was really wonderful. He knew our style and everything worked perfectly.”

Added Renkin, “We had to explain to the kids who I was, and that I had been in Acme and graduated from Davis High and was now working in New York. When I told one of the students the year I graduated he said, ‘That’s when I was born.’ I responded with something completely unprintable, and we got along famously after that.”

It has been a win-win situation for everyone. Acme actors have learned professional fighting from a master, Renkin gets to come home on a regular basis to visit his parents, and Davis reaps the benefits of one of Acme founder Dave Burmester’s success stories.

How many other young-adult theater groups have an official fight choreographer who learned from the guy who learned from the guy who was stunt double to Errol Flynn and who introduced fight choreography to this country? Pretty cool.

Stop Kiss

Acme Theatre Company has never shied away from controversial material, and with its production of “Stop Kiss” by Diana Son, directed by Betsy Raymond, the company has done it again.

Raymond explains that the play is a 360-degree love story, “one that plops us down in the middle of the action and invites us to explore in all directions. This play jumps backward and forward in time within a period of months, pivoting around a kiss and an assault, both of which challenge Callie and Sara’s lives.”
We watch the relationship between Callie (Danielle Schlenker) and Sara (Eden Tomich) develop from acquaintance to friendship to something deeper. It is a story told with sensitivity and one that anyone who has ever fallen in love can identify with.

Schlenker and Tomich give polished, adult performances through which we understand their growing affection for one another and feel heartbreak at the gay bashing that changes the lives of both forever.
Callie is a traffic reporter for a New York TV news station. She rides around in a helicopter and confesses that she isn’t really a journalist. She lives in a spacious, if perpetually messy, apartment.

One of her good friends is George (William Forkin), a former boyfriend to whom she often turns for a meal, a date, words of comfort or for casual, friendly sex.

Into her life steps Sara, whose cat Callie has agreed to board. Sara is an elementary school teacher from St. Louis who is new to the city and eager to be shown around. She left her family and former boyfriend back in Missouri to take a job in the Bronx. She is focused and loves a challenge. She is Callie’s exact opposite.
The women quickly become friends, a friendship that gradually morphs into a different kind of attraction. Schlenker and Tomich handle the relationship adroitly as we watch the approach/avoidance as both are feeling attracted, but both afraid to voice (or act upon) their feelings. The sexual tension comes in the form of gestures started, but not completed, meaningful looks, statements started, but not finished.

The deepening rapport between these women is touchingly restrained. Their faces during a sleepover date when Sara asks Callie to share the couch bed with her in hopes of luring the cat out of hiding convey their feelings clearly.

Callie finally decides to confess her feelings while the women are walking alone in a park at 4 a.m. and gives Sara a kiss. Rather than being a “happily ever after” kiss, as it would have been in normal romance, the kiss turns into a nightmare for the women, and displays the ugliness of violence as well as the tenderness and joy of a first kiss.

This play was written in 1998, and while it has a fresh feeling that is sadly relevant to today, there are things that make it feel dated. As Callie is giving her statement to the police detective (Andres de Loera-Brust), the detective is looking for the salacious, and seems to be blaming the women for provoking the attack. I would hope that this insensitivity would not be the case in a city like New York today.

DeLoera-Brust gives a good performance as someone who is trying to be sympathetic while at the same time barely hiding his own prejudices about the situation.

(There is also a scene where Sara is taking vinyl records from a bag and discussing them, which is not relevant to the plot, but which is somewhat jarring in this digital music era.)

We watch Calllie’s feelings for Sara deepen during the latter’s hospitalization, when she comes to accept and admit publicly her feelings for Sara.

Forkin, as Callie’s casual boyfriend, and Ricky Houck, as Sara’s ex-boyfriend, give restrained performances as the confused men who are trying to wrap their heads around the relationship between their former girlfriends. (Forkin has some wonderful lines, i.e., when he hears that Sara won her two-year teaching job in the Bronx by placing first in a contest in St. Louis, he asks, “What did the loser get in this contest?”)

Also in the cast, giving fine performances, are Tina Simson as Mrs. Winsley, witness to the attack, and Eliza Buchanan as the sensitive nurse who cares for Sara. She is the only person who really understands the feelings between the women and gives Callie the opportunity to be more open about her emotions.

Before seeing this play, I wondered about its relevance to such a progressive community as Davis and whether it was as important to be performed here as, perhaps somewhere in the Midwest. However, during the question-and-answer session following the show (there is one after each performance), I realized that maybe we aren’t quite as enlightened a community as I thought we were.

While no one was judgmental of the two female characters, some of the questions seemed to rise out of an unawareness of the level of hatred against the gay community, and perhaps this play is one way of raising the awareness to different levels.

Congratulations to all involved in the presentation of this important work.

The Rememberer

Acme Theatre Company is presenting “The Rememberer” by Steven Dietz at the Brunelle Performance Hall at Davis High School through Sunday, Aug. 10.

“The Rememberer” tells the story of Joyce Simmons Cheeka, a member of the Squaxin tribe from the Southern Puget Sound area who, in 1911, was removed from her family and placed in a government-run Tulalip Indian school, where she is forced to give up her own language and the customs of her people in order to be “Christianized and civilized.”

The Indian boarding school movement began in this country after the Civil War. The Tulalip School was established in 1868 with only one dormitory, but by 1907 the school had a capacity enrollment of 200 students, ranging in age from 6 to 18.

The schools across the country reached peak enrollment in the 1970s, with 60,000 students enrolled. However, due to reports of abuse occurring in such schools, enrollment began to decline and by 2007, most of them had been closed.

In preparation for telling Cheeka’s story with respect, director Emily Henderson explains that a small group of students — the Dramaturgy Team — met regularly to study the Indian Boarding School system, the history of the Pacific Northwest and the Squaxin culture. This team then designed a series of weekly workshops to share the information they gathered with the rest of the cast.

I think the end result is a presentation that would make Cheeka proud. “The Rememberer” is the story of one woman’s journey through two worlds and the way she learns to weave them together.

As with too many Acme productions over the years, this play suffers from poor projection on the part of too many of the actors. While some of the more experienced actors did a wonderful job of getting their words out to the audience, some others, while getting the mood of a scene just right, tended to lower their voices, making it almost impossible to hear what they were saying.

Still, I was able to follow the story of young Joyce, who manages not only to learn the ways of the white man, but still honor her own heritage by becoming the “rememberer” for her tribe, the keeper of tribal history and lore.
Eden Tomich is the adult Joyce, who acts as a narrator for the play and who moves around the bare stage with the dignity of her character, remembering the time when she was young, learning the lessons of her people from her grandfather, Mud Bay Sam (Wil Forkin) and grandmother Emily Sam (Meili Monk).

The death of the grandfather is particularly touching because Joyce realizes that the job of being the “rememberer” now falls to her; it is what she was trained to be.

As the young Joyce, Camila Ortiz plays the role with a gentle dignity, a spark of fire as she speaks up for her rights, and always giving her character a nobility far beyond her years.

Andres de Loera-Brust was outstanding as Dr. Buchanan, the physician who founded the Tulalip School and also served as Indian agent for the reservation. He was empathetic, while still maintaining firm control of his students. He shows Joyce there can be kindness in the white man’s world.

Brian Stewart also turned in a strong performance as Mr. Conrad, the teacher you love to hate, in a battle of wills and ideology with a stubborn Joyce.

Cassidy Smith was the stern Superintendent who espouses the philosophy that you must “kill the Indian to save the man,” and Megan Kraft was Miss Brennan, the sewing teacher who won’t let Joyce sew a fish on a quilt, while Danielle Schlenker is the nurse who is more gentle and sympathetic to her young charges and who makes Joyce her assistant during a flu outbreak at the school.

Trevor Rinzler is a young Indian boy whom Joyce comforts while Chris Farmer is Henry, Joyce’s cousin whom she loves to tease.

A cast of nearly 40 actors bring this story to light, on a multi-level, mostly bare stage, but with nice touches such as the sinks at which the school girls line up each day to brush their teeth. Nice job by designer Brian Stewart.
The lighting design of Wil Forkin added greatly to the mood of the piece.

After 33 years, I despair of ever having an Acme show where projection is uniformly good, but I do wish it had been a bit better with this piece. Still, despite losing so many bits of dialog, this was an excellent production, giving an education to the audience about a piece of history of which we may not have had much knowledge before.
The members of Acme, and especially director Henderson, have done themselves — and Joyce Simmons Cheeka — proud.

The Tempest

Acme Theater Company is doing it again. This weekend the group is presenting its 31st Memorial Day program free to the city of Davis for its support throughout the company’s history.

This year’s gift is Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,”which can be seen at the Davis Arts Center’s outdoor amphitheater and is, as always, completely free. Bringing your own blankets or chairs is recommended.

(Barbeque items are also for sale starting at 6:30 p.m., before the show begins. But you have to pay for those!)

“The Tempest,” performed by Acme for the first time, is described by director Betsy Raymond (who is directing for the first time) as “full of romance, slapstick comedy and magic and is also a play woven with revenge, manipulation, and moral gray areas.” Whew. That’s a lot.

In fact, at the end of the play, I saw some Acme alums standing in a circle trying to explain pieces of the plot to each other, and a young woman was talking with people sitting next to me, saying “Well, I read this in 10th grade, but I got nothing.” A man was telling his wife that he didn’t have time to read the synopsis on his cell phone at intermission, so had missed a lot of the plot.

The company, at least in Act 1, was also battling for audience attention with the cars on Covell Boulevard, and the train whistles; both of which seemed to have died down by Act 2.

However, with all of that, the group put on an excellent performance in which some actors stood head and shoulders — sometimes literally — above the rest, though all did a fine job.

Colin French, is playing Ariel, a puckish spirit who is bound to the magician Prospero (Brian Stewart), who rescued him from a tree, where he was imprisoned by a witch. French, a sophomore (with two more years to mature in Acme) gave the standout performance of the evening. It was a thing of magic, as he runs hither and thither, popping in and out and just enjoying his role to the hilt.

No slouch, either is the Prospero of Brian Stewart. Prospero is the exiled Duke of Milan, secretly enjoying being imprisoned on an island with all his books and not having to run a country, but whose goal is to restore his daughter, Miranda (Danielle Schlenker) to her rightful place on the throne.

To help him achieve that goal, he manipulates a meeting of Miranda with Ferdinand (Matthew Fyhrie), son of Alonso, King of Naples (Andre Martinez), who believes his son perished in the shipwreck. Schlenker and Fyhrie make a beautiful young couple, who fall in love at first sight.

Also bound to Prospero is Caliban (Benton Harshaw) son of the witch who bewitched Ariel. Harshaw gives an intense performance, particularly effective when he uses a gravely voice to express his feelings toward Prospero.
Leo Goldstein gives a performance worthy of Ray Bolger as Trinculo, the king’s jester, with floppy limbs and seemingly very few bones in his body. He is friends with Stephani (Tina Simpson) and the two of them have many drunken revels together and they plot with Caliban to overthrow Prospero, a plan that is easily quashed.

Another excellent performance is turned in by Raphael Gorga, as Gonzalo, a Neopolitan courtier who was helpful to Prospero and Miranda when they were shipped off to sea, and is now an advisor to Alonso.

Set design for this show is by Brian Stewart and Aaron Hirst, who have created a blank canvas on which the action takes place, aided by the lighting design of Arina Ushakova and Wil Forkin. However, the set design takes in the specific qualities of the Arts Center, by using the trees and the many doors into the building as part of the action.

This is a high-energy show, which shows good promise for Betsy Raymond’s future directing career. The price is right and you won’t be disappointed if you stop by the Arts Center to see a performance.

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.

Romeo and Juliet

Those talented actors at Acme Theatre Company are tackling a Herculean task — they are putting on not one, but two simultaneous productions of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

One version has the regular mixed-gender cast, the other is an all-female version. As if that weren’t daunting enough, of the 43 actors, 20 are new to Acme, an always interesting situation, as the newcomers haven’t learned all the ropes yet.

I asked director Emily Henderson why she decided on such an ambitious project. She explained that the seeds were planted when she played Juliet in an all-female production at Wellesley College. Reading about UC Davis’ all-female/all-male/randomly mixed production when she was in high school was also part of the decision.

When auditions were held, she still hadn’t decided what kind of production it was to be. And given the number of strong actors, the decision to do two productions was made.

The productions are set in some dystopian time period where the House of Escalus rules with an iron fist, determined to bring peace to Verona and keep the warring houses of Capulet and Montague from disturbing that peace. The doors to the Brunelle Performance Hall are guarded by armed soldiers, who place a band around the wrist of each member of the audience. We are warned that the band must be worn at all times.

We are then directed to the stage of the theater, where chairs have been set up. The 500-seat Brunelle theater is so large it was felt that the intimacy of the play would be lost and so the audience becomes spectators on the streets of Verona.

I saw the all-female cast on Friday and the “regular” (for lack of a better word) cast on Saturday, and was glad that I had “committed myself to four hours of Shakespearean tragedy,” as Henderson put it. The feel of each production was unique and quite different from the other one.

As with all Acme shows for 30 years, the entire production suffers from actors who have not yet learned to project, and so while the actors who were good — were very, very good — there were also parts of each show that were impossible to hear.

The prologue, for example, in the all-female cast was so muddled that I couldn’t understand a word and so had little idea what was going on with the cast members on stage. Surely it would be better with the next cast, but no. I still have no idea what was said or what was going on, though it was a dramatic moment for the director and lighting designer Arina Ushakova, it was mostly lost on at least myself and my husband.

Callie Miller and Margaret Starbuck play the star-crossed lovers in the female production and one could not ask for better. Miller was lovely and innocent, falling in love for the first time. Starbuck as the young man who falls in love at first sight was a delight to watch as he experienced the feelings that come with that love. The balcony scene was a real high point and made one realize how very special it is when age-appropriate actors play these roles.

Miki Benson was an endearing Mercutio, Julia Smart Truco was outstanding as Benvolio, as was Eliza Buchanan as Juliet’s cousin Tybalt. Special kudos to Kashmir Kravitz as Friar Lawrence, whose dedication to the role was so great she even got a man’s haircut. Meili Monk gave a solid performance as Juliet’s nurse. Deanna Gee, in the small role of the servant Sampson, was very funny.

The alternate cast production was much more testosterone-driven. While Henderson approached the two casts with identical stage directions, she was surprised to discover that the cast dynamic resulted in quite different shows.

“With two casts, I built in entirely different directions,” she said. “The creativity that I thought has been coming from my head is truly coming from the energetic relationship between me and the actor.”

Eden Tomich and Antonio De Loera-Brust are the title characters in this production. Tomich is a strong-willed Juliet, determined to follow her heart’s desire. DeLoera-Brust is an athletic Romeo with a quick temper and a love for his Juliet, which is palpably aching. The death scene for both was heartbreaking.

Cole Yambrovich’s Mercutio was as fiery as his red hair, Matthew Karoly gave a warm performance as Romeo’s loyal friend Benvolio, and Katy Zaragoza-Smith did well with the complicated emotions of Juliet’s nurse, a wonderful comedienne, yet able to plumb the depths of her feelings of sadness as the losses begin to mount.

Daniel Tutt was a commanding and icy-cold Lord Capulet, banishing Juliet from his house if she refuses to marry Count Paris (Aaron Hirst).

I would be hard-pressed to say which of the two productions I enjoyed more. There is enough difference in the two casts that my recommendation would really be to see both and make up your own mind.

Special recognition needs to go to Dan Renkin, a loyal Acme alum, who once again flew in from New York to direct the fight choreography.

Radium Girls

I am continually amazed that Acme Theatre Company, whose young members spend a maximum of three, possibly four years, performing with the group before moving on to college, continue to present some of the most professional theatrical productions around.

The company also continues to present shows that make us laugh and think, and especially leave us with topics to talk about, topics that may have a historical context, but that are relevant even today.

“Radium Girls,” by D.W. Gregory, covers one of those topics. At the dawn of the 20th century, according to program notes, radium was full of glowing promise and represented the bright potential of scientific progress. The Curies were celebrities and radium’s fantastical healing properties were an overnight sensation. Radium-infused toothpaste, hair creams, medicinal waters and make-up were made quickly available to the public.

In 1917, the U.S. Radium Corp. opened a factory in Orange, N.J., and began hiring young women to paint the small, glowing numbers on watch dials. The job paid well and the work was challenging, but appealing, until the dial-painters began experiencing health problems, which were not properly diagnosed.

When studies linked the strange physical conditions — rotting jaw bones, various cancers, necropsy of extremities — to radium, U.S. Radium Corp. covered up the findings and insisted that their plant was “clean” and presented no danger to the workers.

“Radium Girls” follows the case of three young women — Grace (Camila Biaggi), Kathryn (Eden Tomich) and Irene (Margaret Starbuck) — as they first work for the plant and then, one by one, begin to get ill. After Irene’s death, Grace and Kathryn decide to bring a lawsuit against the plant, and the plot is on.

Grace is the longest-lasting and hardest-fighting of the trio and we watch her character grow throughout the play. Her formal education ended at age 15 and she starts as a naive thing who trusts that her employer will take care of her, but she learns a lot along the way and ends up much stronger for it. It is a beautiful performance by Biaggi.

The play, which is staged at the Pamela Trokanski Performing Arts Center on Del Rio Place (a perfect venue for Acme!), is directed by Maddy Ryen and includes eight actors, six of whom play many different roles. There is not a weak performance in the lot.

Will Kingscott is the other actor playing only one role, that of Arthur Roeder, the president of U.S. Radium Corp., torn between his drive to lead his company and to deny any responsibility for the girls’ illnesses, and his deeply embedded desire to be a good guy. We want to hate him, but Kingscott makes us feel the character’s dilemma. In the courtroom, and later at the cemetery, he is so guilt-ridden that he cannot look Grace in the eye.

In addition to playing Irene, Starbuck also appears as Kathryn Wiley, the lawyer whose determination kept the suit active but who, in the end, uses the girls for her own group’s purposes almost as much as their employer does.

Miki Benson and Wil Forkin are perfect as the newspaper reporters hungry for every gruesome detail about the girls’ illnesses and giddy with delight when some new tragedy befalls them. They are too sadly reminiscent of the paparazzi, celebrity reporters and talking heads of today.

Forkin also plays Grace’s long-suffering, devoted boyfriend, Tom, who stands by her through the early days of what ultimately will be her fatal illness.

Antonio De Loera-Brust is both Von Sochocky, the man who originally founded U.S. Radium and who developed the radium paint that is killing the workers, and the attorney who represents the corporation in the lawsuit, who attempts to buy the girls’ silence with a fairly low settlement offer.

In smaller roles are Katy Zaragoza-Smith, Brian Stewart and Matt Fyhrie, all of whom deliver the goods for their many characters.

Kudos also to whoever had the idea of using radiation green to light the back of the stage during scene changes!

Despite the depressing topic, there are some lighter moments that break the tension, but ultimately there can be no happy ending.

Director Ryen has created a tightly woven production that should remind all of us how little practices have changed in the business world today, as far too many corporations still value profits over the welfare of their workers.