The Whale

Charlie is dying. He’s 600 pounds and housebound. He is grieving the loss of his partner Alan, and he is eating himself to death. His apartment is littered with the detritus of a diet of junk food: candy wrappers, pastry boxes, KFC buckets and a vat of some sort of sweet drink.

His COPD will take him soon — maybe tonight, because he’s having chest pains. But he refuses to go to the hospital because he has no insurance.

Charlie is the unlikely hero of Samuel D. Hunter’s “The Whale,” presented by California Stage and directed by Shawn O’Neal. The play is the recipient of the 2013 Lucille Lortel Award, Best Play, the 2013 Drama Desk Award for Significant Contribution to Theatre and the 2013 GLAAD Media Award, Outstanding Theatre.

Joel Mario Rickert gives a memorable performance as the reclusive Charlie, who teaches writing courses over the internet — but doesn’t use a webcam because he doesn’t want to be seen.

The most important person in his small circle is Liz (Melita Ann Sagar), a nurse, who visits every day, brings food, takes his vitals, and tries to encourage him to go to the hospital. They have known each other for many years and truly like each other.

But it is Elder Thomas (Thomas Dean), a young Mormon on his “mission” who makes the biggest impact. Fortuitously catching Charlie in the middle of one of his spells, he helps quiet the pain and get him back on track. He wants to tell Charlie about Mormonism so that he can be redeemed before his death. Elder Thomas, though filled with Mormon zeal and that fresh-faced missionary smile, is hiding his own secrets, we will learn later.

Along comes Ellie (Soren Lipman), who is Charlie’s rebellious 16-year-old daughter, from a brief marriage to her mother Mary (Aviv Hannan). Charlie has not seen the girl in 14 years, since he left her mother for Alan, but she keeps him up to date on the girl’s progress. Ellie has tracked him down and wants to meet him. She finds him disgusting, yet at the same time fascinating. She stalks out in anger many times, but she keeps coming back.

Despite the many obvious potentially negative aspects of this play, it is a surprisingly uplifting story of love, truth, raw emotion — and maybe redemption. No, Charlie is not converted. No Ellie does not fall into his arms and tell him she loves him. But it’s all OK in the end.

Charlie is a gentle, sensitive soul, beaten down by his circumstances, who affects those around him and who, conversely, is affected by them as well. There are wonderful conversations about Mormonism (it does not come out untarnished), parenting and taking control of your life.

This is an unusual play, but unique and one that is likely to stay with the viewer for a long time to come.

A Revolutionary Mind

The cast of “A Revolutionary Mind,” presented by California Stage, includes Marion Jeffrey as Susan, surrounded by Michael Erwin as the Professor, Joe Monroe as Alan and Berman Obaldia as Raymundo Gleyser. Courtesy photo

 Leslie Lewinter-Suskind (“Italian Opera”) is introducing her new play, “A Revolutionary Mind,” at California Stage Theater’s R25 Arts Complex. The production is directed by Ray Tatar.

Drawing inspiration from the life and disappearance Argentinian filmmaker Raymundo Gleyzer, this play centers on Susan (Marion Jeffery), a boomer generation activist who was ready to set the world on fire and make it a better place for everyone.

But first she had to marry Alan (Joe Monroe); then the birth of a daughter, and then a son, intervene with her plans to save the world.

The show itself bounces back and forth seamlessly among three time periods — the present day, Susan’s college years and her dialogs with her professor (Michael T. Erwin) and conversations with Raymundo Gleyzer (Berman Obaldia) as she tries to make sense of her life and what she has accomplished. It also deals with the very real disappearance of her daughter, whom she has raised to be an activist and who went off to film atrocities around the world, like Gleyzer.

The success of this powerful plan rests on the performance of Jeffery as Susan. She is mesmerizing. She has the ability to transform from the modern-day subservient wife to the passionate student to the frustrated activist and back again with the mere turn of her head and slight change in her expression. It really must be seen to be appreciated.

Matching Jeffery in intensity is Obaldia as Gleyzer, a larger-than-life figure whose passion for recording the atrocities he sees around him and sharing them with the world ultimately will lead to his torture and execution. It is he who extracts the most guilt from Susan as he points out that while she has the desire, she gave it up in exchange for a husband and a suburban home where she gives dinner parties serving Swedish meatballs or fondue and attends meetings about the condition of the world.

(“How do you silence the real world so you can hear the real world?” she asks in anguish. Any frustrated activist in the audience will identify immediately!)

Erwin as the Professor is a nice, tell-it-like-it-is character who takes no excuses from Susan and always challenges her to be better than she thinks she can be.

At the same time, husband Alan (Monroe) is himself frustrated, wanting to be supportive of Susan, but tired of her leaving the family, whether physically or emotionally, to try to change the world.

As the play begins, he is dealing with the American Embassy, which has called to let the family know that their daughter is missing. The encouraging and then discouraging news of the daughter permeates the evening, and is driving Susan’s conflicted emotions, realizing that it was she who instilled in her daughter the need to change the world, which has led to this dangerous situation in which she now finds herself.

(According to his bio, “A Revolutionary Mind” is the first theater production for Monroe, and he certainly shows promise for future productions.)

While I found this play excellent and very moving, I also found it depressing. The collegiate Susan’s passionate hopes for her future are shared with her professor and sound like they came right out of a Bernie Sanders speech. (Maybe they did.)

The more that Susan, her professor and Gleyzer talk, the more one realizes that we have not come nearly as far as we hoped we had. We are still fighting the battles they fought during the civil rights era, only now we are fighting for the rights for even more categories of human beings. We still do not have universal health care or schooling available to all. Atrocities are still happening in foreign lands. The battle goes on, as it has for centuries.

I don’t know if this will be a wake-up call for all former passionate activists, but it certainly will leave you wondering how you might have done things differently when you had the opportunity. And does the life you have lived leave you satisfied with your own role in changing the world from the comfort of your air-conditioned house?

Caifornia's Everything Man

It’s likely that Ray Tatar is a familiar sight to many who visit California Stage. Tall and white-haired, the theater company’s hands-on artistic director greets every patron cheerfully.

Tatar’s theater roots go deep—although he’d initially planned a career in film. A theater gig in Southern California at Knott’s Berry Farm would eventually change that course, however. After graduation, Tatar worked in Hollywood as an intern on many TV series and films, including Funny Girl, but realized it just wasn’t his passion.

“I just couldn’t get film into my heart. Live theater always excited me,” Tatar said.

This week, Tatar finds new excitement at California Stage, directing Leslie Lewinter-Suskind’s A Revolutionary Mind, which opens June 17. The production explores the tumultuous Vietnam-era 1960s—a period that unarguably shaped Tatar’s outlook and ethos.

Back then, he attended UC Berkeley, where he worked at the Magic Theatre and received an MFA in directing. In the ’70s, Tatar ended up in the United Kingdom, where he worked at a theater for the deaf in London. Tatar also taught method drama at a junior college in the area—a job he got thanks to a connection he had with famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg.

When he returned to the states, Tatar worked as a drama critic for a TV station in Los Angeles, and in 1977 was named executive director of the LA Stage Alliance. In 1982, he went to work for the California Arts Council, serving under then-Gov. Jerry Brown and helping to raise millions for the theater community.

That same year, however, he also wanted a change and moved to Sacramento, where he founded the Sacramento Area Regional Theatre Alliance. SARTA, which bands together local organizations, actors, technicians and administrators to produce and promote work in the region, helped Tatar realize just “how powerful that kind of [organization] can be to service theater and community.”

Tatar only planned to stay in Sacramento for a few years, but after meeting and marrying his wife Susan, he decided to make it his home.

These days, Tatar is still active in the theater community, discovering new works for California Stage, including A Revolutionary Mind. The show, told in flashbacks and flash-forwards, tells the story of protesters who marched against the war in Vietnam.

“It’s a different type of play,” Tatar said of its unusual structure.

Its activism storyline and counterculture themes are also meaningful for him. “The heroine represents to me the boomer generation—we who marched against the Vietnam War, and who wanted to make the world better. We didn’t succeed.”

Tatar says the play speaks to the legacy of that generation and passes down the message to future generations.“We may not have been successful,” he said of the ’60s, “but maybe our grandchildren will be.”

Happy Armenians

The country of Armenia has not had an easy time of it throughout history. It has been occupied by different dynasties from Ottoman to Iranian to Russian, among others. And then, between 1915 and 1918, during WWI, was the Armenian genocide, which killed 1.5 million victims and sent millions of women, children and the infirm on death marches into Syria (sound strangely familiar?) It is now a small sovereign state, bordered by Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, and you don’t hear much about Armenia these days.

Playwright Aram Kouyoumdjian seeks to rectify that situation and to bring Armenia to light. His play, “Happy Armenians,” presented by California Stage and Vista Players at the Wilkerson Theater, supposes that there are parallel universes. In our universe all these terrible things happened to the people of Armenia, but in a parallel world, Armenians not only eluded the history of oppression and persecution, but actually became the most powerful country and has dominated the world for 600 years. Its main enemies are the warlike Swiss, whom they must guard against.

The only problem this parallel Armenia has is that the King (Gregory DePetro) is childless, and he will die within a month. His heir can only be his nearest blood relation, who happens to be Levon (Daniel Hubbard), a history teacher from Los Angeles, in our universe.

By some mysterious process that the beautiful scientist, Siran (Heather Lynn Smith) has been perfecting for some 10 years, Levon is taken from our universe and moved to the parallel Armenia where he is expected to learn all there is to learn about running the country in the little time the King has left.

Kouyoumdjian has been working on this idea for several years and says that “the script started coming to life earlier last year, as Armenians around the globe were commemorating the Genocide’s centennial.” He knew he wanted to write a play that commemorated the genocide without being a “Genocide play.”

And, in fact, he has done just that. “Happy Armenians” is a comedy, which may not be full of big belly laughs, but the humor is often subtle (like references to the warlike Swiss), and gets much of its humor from how various tragedies in our world were handled in parallel Armenia. (Their Wall Street equivalent is wonderful).

This production is fortunate in that all five of the cast members originated their roles in Los Angeles, so have been playing these parts for a long time and have perfected them.

As the King, DePetro is regal, sincere, and convinced that he is leaving his Kingdom in good hands. He is quite cavalier in his treatment of his enemies and at times reads like a Star Trek script.

His queen, Jade Hykush, dedicates her performance to her grandparents, who were survivors of the Armenian genocide, so for the actress, this role is very personal and we feel the intensity of her emotions as she first does not believe her healthy appearing husband is really dying and then her anguish at his death.

Hubbard, as Levon, starts out as a befuddled man who can’t understand where he is and what he is doing there, but over the course of the 90-minute play grows in confidence and willingness to assume his responsibilities on the death of the King, of whom he has become quite fond.

Smith’s performance as Siran is at the soul of the play as it is she who convinces Levon that he is indeed the right person to assume the crown. It is also obvious that she is falling in love with him, and she will be a fitting queen for him to support and help him rule the country.

Rounding out the cast is Tavis L. Baker, as Patrick, the only non-Armenian in the King’s circle, who must keep his true identity secret, for xenophobia exists in this Armenia as well. He is confidante to the King and becomes friend and advisor to Levon as well. It is clear that these two will not only continue the King’s vision for the empire, but improve on it, using Levon’s knowledge of history from his own universe.

A big part of the effectiveness of this play is the original music of Ara Dabandjian, whose recorded themes hit just the right emotion of various scenes. Likewise, the lighting design of Henrik Mansourian and Kirk Glover create a perfect atmosphere for any universe.

As we watch Levon step into his new role as King, we might wonder what the world would have been like if we had lived in this parallel universe, which seems so logical and orderly, instead of the one we inhabit.

Third Date

THE THIRD DATE actor Gary Weinberg

When you hear that there is going to be a whole show about prostate cancer, it may give you pause. Surely not the way you want to spend an hour and a half of your life.

However, “The Third Date” by Robert Lautz is not a depressing show about a disturbing subject. Along with the inevitable poignant moments and a lot of information about prostate cancer there are also a lot of laughs because, let’s face it, cancer can be funny. Really! It’s what gets us through the really rough times. This is a witty, revealing and enjoyable play. Trust me.

This one-man show, directed by Maggie Adair Upton, is part of two new plays being presented at the Wilkerson Theater as part of California Stage Theater Company’s “Sac Solo Series 4.” (The other is “Sleeping in the Middle of the Bed,” written and starring Richard Winters.)

This the second play by playwright Lautz, a former Davis resident whose “The Meaning of it All” premiered at the Wilkerson Theater three years ago. At that time I said that it was a promising start and that I hoped it would not be another five years before we see more from Lautz.

Lautz took that as encouragement. Using his own experiences as a cancer patient, and working with dramaturge Lauren Sullivan, he has improved upon his freshman entry and is solidly in his sophomore year as a playwright.

Gary Weinberg plays Richard Montauk, a successful advertising man whose life is thrown into turmoil when he is diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. He’s kind of an unlikable male chauvinist pig whose wife has divorced him, but who, at the start of the play, is at the beginning of a possible new relationship and is uncomfortable, not quite knowing what could happen.

He then takes us back through his diagnosis, his endless treatments, his medications, his fights with the insurance company, the frustration with doctors. It’s a no-holds-barred journey which includes the dreaded digital prostate exam, the colonoscopy and endless humiliating procedures (as a woman who has gone through several pregnancies, I took fiendish glee seeing a man put in those compromising positions that we know all too well!)

There is no pussy footing around with terminology either. He calls a penis a penis. Many times. In fact, at one point he reads a whole bunch of colloquial euphemisms for that appendage, similar to the list for “vagina” in “The Vagina Monologues.”

There is helpful information to be had too, like the fact that chemotherapy kills testosterone and that if a man ever hopes to function sexually again, he must take Viagra every night, not for sexual performance, but to ensure that he will continue to have nocturnal erections which will keep his musculature in shape.

Women will also identify with his reactions to hot flashes, another side effect of the chemotherapy.
At the end of his treatment, he is broken, physically and emotionally and ready to re-examine his life and decide how to reshape it in order to become a better person.

Weinberg gives a marvelous performance in a 90-plus-minute piece that is loaded not only with the day-to-day thoughts of a cancer patient, but also a lot of technical information and jargon. Director Upton has cleverly used the device of Montauk referring to his journal to read the audience bits that he has written during his journey … it is obvious that it gives actor Weinberg a chance to remember where in his delivery he is, but it works and is a forgivable crutch, given the amount of material he is dealing with.

Weinberg was also dealing with a sweltering theater at the premier performance. Though the air conditioning worked at the start of the play, by the end of it, everyone in the audience was fanning themselves and Weinberg had sweat pouring off his face.

I sometimes think that the California Stage organization and its three theaters are some of the best theater in Sacramento that nobody has heard of. The small Wilkerson Theater had fewer than 25 people in the audience for its opening performance, which is a shame, as this is a good play with an important message and should have a wider audience.

One additional note: The play is dedicated to Cathy Manzano, a “Birch Lane Mom” who lost her battle with breast cancer in 2009.

“The Third Date” runs Saturdays only (matinee and evening performances) through July 4.

Italian opera

When playwright Leslie Lewinter-Suskind was a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma, she wrote a play called “Italian Opera,” which won an excellence in play writing award.

Fast-forward through marriage, four children, nine grandchildren and travels around the world, and now the play has been rediscovered and graces the theater at California Stage, under the direction of Ray Tatar.

Why this gem of a comedy-with-music has lain dormant lo these many years is anybody’s guess, but how lucky we are that it has finally been revived to be enjoyed by Sacramento area audiences.

This is a farce that lampoons all of the excesses of elements of Italian opera, particularly of the 19th century. There are divas, love, affairs, murder, suicide — all that fun stuff that makes opera so enjoyable.

Everything about this production is perfect, starting with the set, designed by Niels Larsen and constructed by Buzz Weitz, a large living room with interchangeable pieces that turn it into a different luxury villa (a pillow, a hat rack, a floral arrangement, family photos). Funny and clever.

Then there is the dream cast, talented actors and singers all. Katherine Cooper is Lucrezia, barren wife of the sterile Mario (Jonathan Blum), having an affair with Nemorino (Michael R.J. Campbell), the philandering husband of Vestalina (Naomi Wilson), the mother of his nine children, all of whom look like their father.

And there is Janet Motenko, delicious as either the maid Zerbinetta or the maid Berta, depending on whose villa is being featured. Her performance as narrator and everything else (including parish priest) is so wonderful it has to be seen to be believed.

The costumes, from the 1930s era (designed by Jeanette Trimble), are perfect. Most wonderful is the costume switch from Zerbinetta to Berta and back again, which brings laughter every time.

There must be a plot to drive the action and give a reason for characters to break into song. Lucrezia discovers she is pregnant by Nemorino, but because she has not been intimate with her husband for more than three years, it’s going to be difficult to pass the child off as his.

The lovers conspire for ways Lucrezia can seduce her husband but hilarity ensues when Vestalina begins to get suspicious, and Mario reveals his own shameful secret.

The songs, also by Lewinter-Suskind (arranged by Peter Kagstrom and David Taylor and played by Jane Fanucci on the piano), are perfect examples of what you might hear in a real opera, from romantic arias to humorous duets and emotional death scenes. (It’s opera; of course everybody dies!)

In fact, the final death scene had me wondering, as Vestalina leaps to her death, if the whole thing had been a shaggy dog story.

The play is very funny, well crafted, wonderfully acted and a real treasure that I hope large numbers will come out to see. You don’t need to know (or appreciate) opera to enjoy this play. It stands on its own as a unique comedy with music.

The Year of Magical Thinking

The recipe for an instant five-star production in the Sacramento area: cast Janis Stevens.

I have seen Stevens in several productions — including one-woman shows “Master Class” and “Vivien” — and she now adds another stellar performance, playing Joan Didion in Didion’s stage adaptation of her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “The Year of Magical Thinking.” The play is currently at Sacramento’s Wilkerson Theater (formerly California Stage), under the impeccable direction of Ray Tatar.

Didion’s husband, author John Gregory Dunne, suddenly died of a heart attack one night as she was mixing the salad for dinner. The play details her travel through grief during that first awful year, a year in which her daughter also was dying of many infections in many hospitals (she finally did die the following year).

“This happened on Dec. 30, 2003,” the character begins the play, staring out into the audience. “That may seem a while ago, but it won’t when it happens to you. And it will happen to you. The details will be different, but it will happen to you. That is what I’m here to tell you.”

As her husband lay on the floor of their apartment being attended by paramedics, Didion took charge. She got the paperwork in order, she followed in a second ambulance to the hospital — the “wrong” hospital, she notes, planning to move him as soon as he was stable. She stood in line to fill out paperwork. She took charge.

But he was dead. She knew he was dead when she had a social worker assigned to her, but in her mind she felt that if the doctor didn’t say the words, maybe her husband wasn’t really dead. She demanded answers from the physician. The social worker gave him permission to give her the facts. “It’s OK,” he said. “She’s a pretty cool customer.” She was cool on the outside. Inside she was crumbling, but she coped. She took charge.

Life changes in an instant 
 an ordinary instant

I don’t know what experiences Stevens may have had with personal loss, but she nailed the emotions of someone trying to make sense of something that makes no sense. Whether she is cool and calm, talking about moving from day to day, alternately making arrangements for burying her husband, and then visiting her dying daughter, or whether she allows herself to crumble, briefly under the weight of so much pain, it is a journey that those who have been through themselves will find very familiar.

She admits that she sounds crazy when she can’t give away her husband’s shoes, even weeks after his death (though she has given away bags and bags of his clothing), because when he comes back he will need shoes.

If she corrects an error in the galleys of his book, completed shortly before his death, will he be upset with her?

A grieving person straddles two worlds, the real one in which she lives, and the magical one in which somehow, the deceased is still present and may be coming back. Stevens handles this dichotomy beautifully, its symbolism represented by the yin-yang design on the stage floor.

The set design by Ken Kurtis is stark, but the sweeping design painted on the walls neatly suggests the “vortexes” that a grieving person goes through during their year of magical thinking, trying to find a way to the “new normal.” Grief comes in waves, at times when you least expect it. You may think you’re doing fine and then the memories flood in and you have to deal with them. For someone like Didion, for whom being in control … “being right” … is so important, the vortexes are perhaps more painful.

The only unfortunate thing about this wonderful production is that there were only 20 people in the audience the night I saw it. The show deserves a larger audience, even if the thought of dealing with someone’s grief is a scary thing. The script is not really a downer, but has enough humor to keep the audience snickering with Didion throughout.

Try to catch this show. It will be a night you will long remember.

It will happen to you. The details will be different, but it will happen to you.

The Meaning of It All

“The Meaning of It All” is a first play for 50-something Davis playwright Robert Lautz, who has been working on this play for five to six years. What opened on Friday night was version 11.4 (he says) of the idea he first pitched to California Stage director Ray Tatar many years ago.

This final version came about with help from dramaturg Rick Foster, and with Franco Renosto adding Italian translation of some of the script to make the actors sound authentically Italian.

California Stage’s small Wilkerson Theater was the perfect venue for this intimate comedy, and the beautiful set of Kurt Kurtis was so inviting that members of the audience were stepping onto it to have their pictures taken by friends in the audience before the show started. This, despite the presence of alchemist Calvino Mezzo Zucco (Brennan Villados) doing busy work to set the scene for the play that was about to begin.

“The Meaning of It All” takes place in Pisa in the early 1500s. The plot involves romance, comedy and alchemy. Calvino, an inventor and part-time alchemist, is about to be married to Alonza (Chelsea Barone). Alonza’s father believes Calvino has invented a process for turning lead into gold and the young chemist is scrambling to make it happen so his chances of marrying Alonza are not ruined. In the meantime, he accidentally discovers a universal solvent that dissolves anything, and he thinks this may solve all his problems.

At the same time, Calvino’s brother Savio (Tony Hutto) was fired from the University of Pisa and is moving into Calvino’s barn until he can figure out what he is going to do with his life.

When Savio’s friend Luca (Arturo Gonzales) shows up, depressed about the disappearance of his girlfriend Mona (Katie Dahl), Savio invites him, too, to join him in the barn.

Alberto Domenici (Mahlon Hall), the son of a wealthy merchant, has come to be a wedding guest, but he has heard about Calvino’s formula to turn lead into gold and is determined to have it for himself.

While this is not a rollicking comedy, it does have its chuckle moments. There are nice relationships among the couples and between Calvino and his brother. Alberto is the villain you love to hiss.

The play itself may have needed to go to version 12. There are things that work beautifully and things that don’t. Characters Luca and Mona seem to serve no real purpose, other than Mona being the cause of jealousy at one point. The actors are fine (especially Dahl), but their story doesn’t add much to the plot, except perhaps to muddy it a bit.

Villados does a wonderful job as Calvino, though he was sabotaged by a terrible wig that didn’t fit well, looked like it hadn’t been washed in months, and kept falling in his face so he was forced throughout the entire play to keep pushing it back almost constantly. (You’d think an alchemist who works with fire and dangerous chemicals would know better than to let his hair grow so long!)

Brother Savio fared better and was not forced to wear a wig at all, which allowed us to concentrate on his character rather than his hair, and actor Hutto gave an engaging performance.

Barone was a perfect spitfire of an Italian wife. The couple’s fight on their wedding night was one of the funnier scenes in the play. The double entendres and downright blatant sexual comments had the audience howling.

Hall’s Alberto Rossinio Domenici looks as if he had been born sneering. He is the aristocrat who is used to having his own way, and isn’t above a little breaking and entering, and a lot of threats and blackmail, to get it.

Aside from the wigs, Jenny Plummer’s costumes were lovely and reflected her years working with Renaissance fairs.

“The Meaning of It All” is a promising start. I hope it’s not another five years before we see more from Lautz.

The Mystery Spot

What do Santa Cruz’s Mystery Spot and Sylvia Plath have in common?

They are both part of playwright Steve Lyons’ new play, “The Mystery Spot,” now at California Stage in Sacramento, directed by Ray Tatar.

Lyons, whose plays have won multiple awards and been produced in London, Edinburgh, New York City, Boulder, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and elsewhere always knew that he wanted to write a play that used the setting of The Mystery Spot, a tourist attraction in Santa Cruz which refers to itself as a “gravitational anomaly.”

The play was one of four selected for the Ashland New Plays Festival in 2008 and had a staged reading at City Lights Books in San Francisco. It won first prize in a playwriting contest by Actors’ Theatre of Santa Cruz County in 2010.

A great part of the appeal of this staged production is actor Nick Koehler’s interpretation of the principal character Dingo. Dingo is from Oroville and has come to UC Santa Cruz for the women. He has discovered that by sitting on the quad with a cup of Starbucks coffee and an IKEA catalog, and pretending to read Sylvia Plath he can catch the attention of the ladies.

Koehler is just so darn engaging. He’s hormone infused without being either offensive or cloying.

The trick works and Dingo catches the eye of Liz, a Women’s Studies major (Emily Kentta), who actually questions him about his thoughts about Plath (nobody has ever done that before and he tries, successfully, to bluff his way through her questioning).

Kentta gives a solid performance, especially as she learns the truth about her relationship with her mother.

On learning that there is a whole department for studying women, Dingo declares himself a Women’s Studies major, though is disappointed because there is a lot of reading and not a lot of hands on projects involved.

In the meantime, to pay the bills, Dingo gets a job as a tour guide at The Mystery Spot which just, coincidentally, happens to be owned by Liz’s mother Shirley (Michele Koehler), who has a rocky relationship with her daughter.

Into the picture comes the spirit of Sylvia Plath (poet Bonnie Antonini) and the Angel Celestine (Mahlon Hall), who is sending her back to earth to learn something (which is not made clear to her–she has to figure it out for herself).

Antonini sparkles in this role, at times both moody and sultry as she plots for a way to remain on earth rather than return to the afterlife.

Also part of the cast is Mr. Williams (William A. Bergen), who takes several tours of The Mystery Spot trying to convince others that everything is just an optical illusion, and intent on suing Shirley for perpetuating a falsehood.

If the plot sounds a bit convoluted, that’s because it is. The pace is somewhat slow and not all of the actors were secure in their lines (particularly Bergen, who made a better attorney in 2007's “Patriot Act” than he does a skeptic in this play, where he seemed to suffer from opening night jitters.)

Set designer Lynn Perry has attempted to recreate the sorts of optical illusions one would find at the Mystery Spot. It is more effective in some areas than in others.

“The Mystery Spot” is an entertaining, unusual play which runs through April 10 at the California Stage’s main stage.

Hughie & Krapp's Last Tape

Theater fans have a rare opportunity to see a couple of stage warhorses star in two venerable productions at Sacramento's California Stage, 1725 25th St.

Veteran Davis actor Mitch Agrus and Actors Workshop co-founder Ed Claudio, both longtime area favorites, are starring in a pair of one-act, (almost) one-man plays written by two of the world's most respected playwrights.

Eugene O'Neill's 'Hughie' and Samuel Beckett's 'Krapp's Last Tape' were presented together at the Goodman Theater in Chicago earlier this year, with Brian Dennehy starring in both. Both plays focus on a sixty-something man looking back over his life, and realizing he doesn't have a lot of years left (an uplifting evening for a 67-year-old critic!).

'Hughie' is set in a run-down New York hotel, where a new night clerk is meeting one of the regulars for the first time. Director Mark Heckman (also from Davis) plays the clerk, Charlie Hughes: nearly silent in his cut-away coat, not quite knowing what to make of the disheveled Erie Smith (Claudio).

Erie is a shabbily dressed hustler returning from a rough, multi-day bender, his shirt stained with wine. In a nearly nonstop monologue, he bemoans the loss of Hughie, the former night clerk, whose death precipitated Erie's recent adventures. We gradually realize that for all his bluff and bluster, Erie seems to have benefited from the admiration he received from Hughie ... although he feels that it was he, Erie, who brought excitement to the clerk's life.

The reality, though, is that Erie is lost without him. His luck seems to have disappeared with Hughie's death, and he desperately needs the new clerk to be the Hughie he has lost.

Hughes doesn't quite know how to act, as Erie strides about the stage soliloquizing, until a chance remark breaks through the stoicism and hints at a somewhat happy end for the play.

Claudio, a New York actor who moved to Sacramento more than 20 years ago, is the quintessential New York Everyman in this masterful performance.

Agrus, on the other hand, is a more quiet man. Indeed, the first eight to 10 minutes of 'Krapp's Last Tape' is silent: The spotlight gradually comes up on Krapp, who sits at a desk for a very long time. The audience may wonder if the old actor has forgotten his lines. He eventually sighs and laboriously gets up, eats a banana - bit of humor there - has a drink off stage (the first of several) and returns to slip on the banana peel left on the floor.

Krapp's dialogue, as opposed to Erie's steady stream, comes in fits, starts and half-thoughts, much like somebody speaking to himself. The role requires an expert physical actor, which Agrus is; he holds the audience's attention as much in his silent, unmoving moments as in his more active behavior. He demands our attention with his eyes ... and gets it.

Krapp rummages through his pockets, removing and replacing things, all with the difficulty of an old man with arthritic fingers that don't work as well as they used to. He brings an old ledger to the desk, on which sits an old reel-to-reel tape recorder. He checks the ledger and then hunts for a specific tape.

Each year, we discover, Krapp records a tape and talks about what he's doing at that point in his life (somewhat like an audio blogger, long before the notion of blogging was created). Krapp is about to turn 69, and he wants to hear the tape he recorded on his 39th birthday, where he speaks of bowel problems and of eating bananas.

The action here is a marked contrast to 'Hughie,' which concerns a man who, while not having achieved quite what he wants in life, still fights for that elusive 'thing' that will bring the spark back. Krapp, on the other hand, is an old man at the end of his life: He hasn't done much, seems depressed and is resigned to his ultimate demise, whenever that shall come.

The two plays are nice, contrasting character studies. With such experienced actors in the roles, it would be a shame to miss an opportunity to watch a bit of Sacramento theater history in the making.

During his curtain speech, Agrus credited '75 percent of my performance' to director Janis Stevens, who certainly has wrung memorable work from her star.

Sound designer Nick Heacock also deserves special mention for his outstanding job.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre

'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' is an American classic.

The 1948 film, directed and scripted by John Huston, was based on a 1927 novel by B. Traven (a pen name for Berwick Traven Torsvan). The movie starred Humphrey Bogart and Huston's father, Walter; in an uncredited role, it marked the feature film debut of Robert Blake, as a young boy selling lottery tickets.

Nearly 60 years passed after Traven's death, before his estate granted permission for the book to be used again. Actor/writer Herb Robins, who ran a theater company in Sierra Madre for many years, adapted the story for the stage; it debuted at the San Jose Stage Company in 2004.

Now California Stage has brought the work to Sacramento, under the direction of Mike Yazzolino. The story, which follows the lives of three greedy men searching for gold in the mountains of Mexico, has its roots in the Great Depression; it's thus not only an entertaining piece of theater, but an all too timely one at that.

Davis' own Mitch Agruss plays Howard (the Walter Huston role), the grizzled old prospector who lures two indigent former oil workers to join forces with him on a quest into the Sierra Madre mountains, to search for gold. Agruss is an absolute delight as a gold-hunting addict with a firm grasp on the reality of his obsession:

'I never knew a prospector who died rich. Make a fortune, sure to blow it tryin' to find another.'

Tomas F. Maguire is quite strong as Fred C. Dobbs (the Bogart role), the older, avaricious drifter who has partnered with the younger Curtin (Derek Byrne). Maguire persuasively transforms from a money-hungry drifter to a paranoid miner, whose greed drives him to do unconscionable things and ultimately is his undoing.

Byrne gives a solid, though not strong performance as Curtin, a young man transformed by his experiences on the mountain. At moments, Byrne is quite good; at other times, he seems awkward.

Fred Goraieb is deliciously dastardly as 'Gold Hat,' the bandito who utters the movie's most famous line: 'Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges.'

Fortunately, the line comes early in Act 2, bringing the expected titters from an audience who knows it's coming, and can't wait for it to arrive.

Eric Baldwin plays LeCaud, a geologist who follows the trio up the mountain, claiming to know where to find the mother lode. His character doesn't seem to 'fit' into the story. The way this script is written, in short vignettes, LeCaud adds little to the point of the action.

The set design - the program doesn't credit anybody - nicely utilizes the California Stage space, with a large mountain and smaller rocks on which the men sit and recline, and larger spaces filled by tumbleweeds. The backdrop suggests the Mexican desert's bleak landscape.

I wish I knew more about the value of gold dust, because this play's bags (containing small amounts of sand) seem awfully tiny to represent a small fortune. Likewise, much disbelief must be suspended in certain sections of the play, as with an explosion in the offstage mine; it partially buries and nearly kills Dobbs, yet takes only 10 seconds from start to rescue.

Overall, though, this is an excellent production. The performances are good; the sets, costume and lighting are compelling; and the theater even provides lap blankets, for those feeling cold because of the night air that wafts in through the cracks in the old building.

A word of caution, though: If you park along the light rail tracks on R Street, be sure your car clears the tracks! A car on opening night blocked the incoming light rail train, and had to be towed by the police.

Starry Messenger

What if you could come back to life in, oh, say three or four hundred years and find out how things that were important in your life all turned out?

That’s the premise of “The Starry Messenger,” a 75 minute one-act play by Rick Foster now at Capital Stage for one more week prior to being made available for travel to schools for the 2007-2008 academic year.

“The Starry Messenger” is part of a series of touring plays by Duende Drama, a group out of Sonora, which has been touring these educational mini-plays to area schools since 1998 and which has recently teamed with California Stage to reach out to local county schools. Judging by the rapt attention from the audience, comprised of a sprinkling of adults among a crowd of young people, the program is wildly successful.

The setting is “a school assembly in California.” Sister Maria Celeste (played by Keri Fuller on the night we attended, but alternating with Bonnie Antonini) wheels in a draped figure in a wheelchair. She introduces herself as the daughter of Galileo Galilei and explains that he has been dead since 1642, and that since his death he has been so depressed he has refused to wake up again because he feels that his work was for naught. It is her plan to bring him back and show that the world ultimately accepted his concepts. She elicits the help of the audience to literally raise the dead by chanting “the earth moves around the sun” over and over again.

The draped figure stands, looking dazed at hearing what he feels are the voices of angels, and begins to speak. It is Galileo himself, played by 84 year old Mitch Agruss (whom some may remember from the years when he was the beloved “Captain Mitch” on the popular local TV program). Agruss is a robust man with a twinkle in his eye who grabs the audience instantly as he begins to interact with his daughter.

Over the next hour plus, an amazing amount of physics and world history is imparted in delightful, entertaining fashion so that learning the effect Copernicus had on Galileo’s life, or how the Catholic Church felt about his work was as easy to absorb as the plot of “High School Musical.”

Physics and astronomy concepts were reinforced with easy to understand visual aids, and there is even a bit of suspense leading to the scientist’s discovery that his theory of the movement of the tides was not accurate.

This production is part play, part classroom, but it is as enjoyable as any other play, and it’s worth the prices of admission if only to see an old veteran thespian like Agruss strut his stuff.

While Agruss is the heart and soul of this play, Fuller was the motor which kept it moving smoothly. Her irresistible wide-eyed enthusiasm kept the audience’s attention and if Agruss faltered slightly, her non-stop narration was able to get him back on track with slip hardly noticeable.

“The Starry Messenger,” in conjunction with two other plays, will be available for school productions after the first of the year, but this is equally enjoyable (and informative!) for adults and would be a fun one-act play to share with a young person during the holiday season, if one is looking for something fun to do with the kids during the vacation period.

A Patriot Act: The Trial of George W. Bush

A military tribunal was convened at California Stage on Saturday for the purpose of bringing George W.Bush to trial. He was charged with war crimes, dereliction of duty, and treason. After testimony by witnesses and deliberation by juries on each charge, he was found guilty on all three counts and sentenced to the maximum time in prison.

As a reviewer, I make it a point never to reveal the endings of plays that I review. I don’t want to spoil it for people who will be coming to see the show. But I make exception for playwright Todd Blakesley’s “A Patriot Act: The Trial of GeorgeW.Bush” because the ending of the show is dependent on audience input. It may change each night. (In fact, I spoke with the director after the second performance, and learned the defendant had been acquitted on two counts and convicted only on dereliction of duty.)

“A Patriot Act” is an experience from the moment you approach the theater. (One hopes that there will be a way to speed up the entrance process, as at Sunday’s performances, a line stretched out the door and into the hot sun while people slowly filed in.) Each person must fill out a security clearance card, which they were informed must be worn at all times. The cards indicate whether the person was there to be a member of one of the three juries, a witness for either the prosecution or the defense, or merely an observer.

Once the cards were filled out, people were screened for weapons before being allowed to pass into the theater itself.

There was activity going on in the courtroom, with potential witnesses being interviewed by attorneys, jurors being assigned to individual juries, and attorneys discussing among themselves. On opening night, there was a longer line for the prosecution witnesses than for the defense.

The audience was informed that the defendant was being held in an undisclosed location, but was monitoring the actions on closed-circuit television and communicating with his attorneys via telephone.

The court is presided over by Magistrate Mark Heckman. Heckman, with Ray Tatar (who also acts as a special agent), is the co-director of the piece and he was very judicial in his supervision of the trial itself.

Bailiff Crag Chavez was stern, at times almost menacing, as he kept things orderly and called each witness to the stand.

Opening statements and instructions were a little rocky on opening night, but the cast quickly settled into the rhythm of the trial.

The prosecution team is headed by William A. Bergen, who is not only an actor...but also an Auburn-based attorney. Of all six of the attorneys (three of whom are attorneys in real life), Bergen was the most at ease and seemed the best able to think on his feet. He inspired confidence whenever he got up to speak.

Other prosecution attorneys were Mark Stone and Eva Kim. The defense team was headed by Sacramento attorney Jeff Kravitz, assisted by actor/attorney Michael Garabedian and Bergen’s real life daughter, Athena Bergen, a U.C. Davis graduate

Four of the witnesses (Devin Ritchie, Ellen Vincent, Franny Phillips and Greg Koski) are scripted, and are called randomly, along with the audience volunteers. (I won’t review their performances, to keep the audience guessing as to who is who, but all gave believable performances.) On opening night there was an interesting assortment of witnesses, each of whom was passionate in his or her statements. Each spoke to how the current administration had negatively or positively affected his or her life. Testimony from audience volunteers provided the heart of this play, giving intensity and depth of feeling about the current administration. It lent an air of authenticity to the proceedings.

When all witnesses had been heard, the jury retired to their respective chambers to deliberate and return with a verdict. It is clear, from the notes some of the jurors took during the trial, that they took their task very seriously. The result was clear to no one until the jurors return from deliberation.

While many may feel that this play is set up to point fingers at the President, in fact the audience is a mix of supporters and detractors, and both sides had an opportunity to be heard. It is an example of the kind of democracy and free speech that we are attempting to spread around the world.

Todd Blakesley and California Stage are to be commended for allowing Sacramento area audiences the opportunity to participate in this thought-provoking work which will surely send many audience members home with lots of points to ponder as we head into “election season.” As for how the trial turns out the night you attend, just remember: YOU are the decider.

A Patriot Act: The Trial of George W. Bush

This is a preview article. The show opens on September 8th.

If you’re one of those people who sit at home watching 24 hour television news, whether CNN, MSNBC or Fox, if you shout at the screen when something upsets you, feeling powerless to make your voice heard, have I got a deal for you!

California Stage is putting George With. Bush on trial for malfeasance in office, dereliction of duty, war crimes, and treason.

“A Patriot Act: The Trial of George With. Bush,” by Todd Blakesley, opens on September 8 at The Space, 2509 R Street at 25th and will run through October 7.

Ray Tatar, Artistic Director of California Stage says that the play is like a "Town Hall", where the community airs its feelings.

“There is no denying that many Americans feel cut off from the president, while others feel betrayed,” he says. “A Patriot Act” will give some audience members an opportunity to choose to join one of three juries and others may actually testify to help determine if the president has improperly used his office, violated the constitution, or whether he is innocent of all charges.” This is a play which will appeal to everyone, whether you support the president or call for his impeachment.

California Stage is no stranger to controversial subjects. “If you look at the plays that we’ve done over the last 10 years you’ll notice that there are things that happen to do with social justice, equality of women, war,” Tatar pointed out. Recent productions have included a play about the difficulty of a returning Iraqi vet, and a play about the life of Jeannette Renkin, the first female Congressperson, who voted against war in 1917.

“A Patriot Act” has only been presented once before, in San Diego. When Tatar was offered the opportunity to bring the play to Sacramento, he jumped at the chance. He contacted Davisite Mark Heckman to ask if he wanted to co-direct. Heckman was intrigued to do something he had never done before – total immersion theater. He explains that there is a framework and that some of the play is scripted, but the juries and most of the witnesses are audience members who volunteer to be in those positions. Additionally, during the course of the show observers will be encouraged to contribute to the proceedings, if they desire. “Those parts are definitely unscripted,” Heckman says. “It’s like working without a net.”

Adding to the realism will be the prosecution and defense teams. The cast includes four real-life lawyers who are also actors. The lead attorney for the Defense is Jeff Kravitz a noted local authority on issues of Constitutional Law and Civil Rights, Michael Garabedian backs him up. The Prosecution team includes Auburn Attorney, William A. Bergen backed up by Tiffany Schultz. Supporting actor attorneys include Athena Bergen (daughter of William A. Bergen), and Mark Stone, who works in Claims Adjustment, where he does civil litigation. “I deal with attorneys probably every day of the week and I have cases that go to trial.”

Athena Bergen feels she’s been preparing for this role most of her life. “In high school I went to Washington D.C. on a trip for young leaders. We observed Congress. We had to pass Senate bills. Then I went to Davis and participated in rallies and protests for the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Now I am doing this show that obvious has a political bent and it’s just really exciting to watch the progression.”

Progression has also taken place with Blakesley’s original script as well. “It’s significantly rewritten now,” explained Heckman. “This will be much different than what was produced in San Diego last fall. Different because the playwright, through doing the production before, learned a few things about what will work better and of course much, much different because events have surpassed what he’d written before.”

How do the actors, who, in real life, are not exactly supporters of the president, approach their roles? “People think they have the facts and they’ve made up their mind, which is a problem we have with politics right now,” says Athena. “The way I’ve crafted my character, I am a thinking human being, but I’m just a little over the top on some issues.” She found that after studying the facts of the case, and doing a lot of research, she was able to present an honest, credible defense of the president for the crimes of which he has been accused.

The role of prosecution attorney was a perfect one for Mark Stone. Long before this acting opportunity came along, the actor wanted to write his own play and started reading a lot of the books about the Bush administration, but he became so depressed he put them aside. He had collected over 30 books either on the war in Iraq or the presidency and the issues that led up to the war. “I think you could spend the rest of your life, or at least my life, researching this issue,” he says. It gives him an excellent background to question witnesses.

“We should have a very educated audience,” says Athena. “There will be some individuals who are going to be little fireballs when they want to be witnesses. They’re going to give us a run for our money.”

The actors and directors hope that “A Patriot Act” is going to vitalize its audiences. “Once I became involved, I started getting really excited again and realizing that I have a part in the system and I can be involved and I’m going to do what I can, so I’m hoping that will happen to the audience. People might come thinking ‘Oh–who cares? We did that in Iraq; we did this in Afghanistan; I’m not interested any more’ and they come to this and it lights a fire under them again. Hopefully we won’t have people just not caring. Apathy is the worst.”

“It’s not a lecture or just a debate, it’s more interesting than that because it’s in this high stakes courtroom situation, but by the same token it’s not lightweight theater. It’s not a fluffy comedy,” said Heckman.

“People will feel like they’re involved. They have a personal stake. It’s not just something that is happening ‘over there.’ This is happening to me. I’m involved.”

While the actors continue preparing for their opening night, co-director Tatar is out shopping for “good looking realistic plastic uzis” to add yet another layer of realism.

“A Patriot Act” is not a play that observers will leave behind at the theater as they drive home.

Information:
$10 previews, Aug. 29-30, Sept 6,7
Opens Sept 8 runs thru Oct 7
Fridays and Saturdays 8 p.m., Sunday 2 p.m.
General Admission $19, Groups of 7 or more $12
Students, Seniors, SARTA members, $15
Opening night fund raiser, $75 single, $125 couple (includes dinner)

California Stage at The Space
2509 R St., R at 25th in Midtown Sacramento