Peter and the Starcatcher

 

The UC Davis production of “Peter and the Starcatcher,” now at the Main Theatre, directed by Mindy Cooper and Granada Artist-in-Residence Toby Sedgwick is, in a word, spectacular. The directors say they had a delightful time “creating a potpourri of exciting elements — cavorting, sashaying, chuckling, galumphing and swimming our way into and through this wonderful adventure of a play.”
Everything about it is wonderful and, since technical people rarely get credit, I will start with the magnificent scenic design by Samantha Reno, lighting design by Michael Palumbo and projection design by Ian Wallace. The effect of being on a ship in a storm, with animated sea and perfectly synchronized choreography, was so good you almost needed Dramamine. The second-act rainstorm left me surprised that I didn’t get wet.

An especially delightful effect was tossing a cat from one ship to the other, which required several different techniques, real-life and animation — and worked flawlessly. The only disappointment was the crocodile, which was merely an animation and not a real croc, as it was in a recent Acme production.

Costumes by Kikyou Yan were bright and colorful. They made the stage fun to look at.

This book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson is a modern-day retelling of the 100-plus-year-old play about an orphan boy known only as “boy” (Nate Challis) who refuses to grow up, and how he became Peter Pan. He has never seen the sun and is uncomfortable around adults, but he becomes a hero and earns his name.

The 15-member cast is excellent, particularly Jennifer Grace as Black Stache, the pirate king, with unique facial hair and prone to malaprops, corrected by his right-hand man Smee (Tyler Pruyn).

Katie Halls is very good as Molly, an apprentice starcatcher, determined to prove herself to her father (Ben Carter), who is on a secret mission for Queen Victoria. Molly will become Wendy in the Peter Pan story, but is already a substitute mother for orphans Prentiss (Ashley Ricafrente), who thinks he is the “boss,” and Ted (Tiffany Nwogu), who is food-obsessed and very funny as he spends much of his time trying to figure out how to eat a pineapple.

Sophie Brubaker is funny as Mrs. Bumbrake, Molly’s very prim and proper Nannie, who is not quite so prim or proper around Alf (Sam Votrian), a flatulent sailor who falls instantly in love with her.
While not a musical, there is a musical duo (Graham Sobelman, keyboard and Adam Forman, percussion) who add to the effect of the action on stage.

This dazzling production is fun for both adults and children.

Threepenny Opera

“The Threepenny Opera” was written in 1923 by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, and based on John Gay’s “Beggar’s Opera” (1728). First performed in Germany in 1928, it had poor reception, though it eventually became a success.

In this country, it was introduced as a film in 1931, and then a Broadway production, which opened in 1933 but closed after only 12 performances, though it had been translated into 18 different languages and performed more than 10,000 times on European stages. At least five Broadway and off-Broadway productions have been mounted, including a 2006 production starring Alan Cumming as Macheath, Cyndi Lauper as Jenny and a cast of drag performers.

Now, it is being produced on the main stage at UC Davis, directed by Peter Lichtenfels and Regina Maria Gutierrez Bermudez. Even though “opera” is in the title, it is perhaps mostly musical theater, with bits of opera included.

While most musical numbers are unknown, the song “Mack the Knife” became a popular standard and a No. 1 hit for Bobby Darin.

The directors and scenic designer Ian Wallace have chosen to present the full stage, the middle of which is the actual play while the two sides are for set pieces, costumes and relaxing for actors waiting to go on — all visible to the audience.

Behind the stage are two huge screens onto which are projected the action on each of the side portions of the stage. Director Lichtenfels explains, “We are interested in looking at how the actors don’t enter the stage as characters but transform onstage into characters.”

The storyline is a study of criminality at all levels and while characters unapologetically sing songs about the fact that the misery human beings inflict on each other is the foundation of our society, they continue to participate wholeheartedly in that corruption.

Diego Martinez-Campos is Macheath, London’s most notorious criminal. He has a booming voice that could use a little modulation as his opening notes fill the theater, to be followed by notes so soft you can barely hear them.

Toward the beginning, he marries Polly Peachum (Chloe Wasil) the daughter of Celia Peachum (Sophie Brubaker) and J.J. Peachum (Tiffany Nwogu), controller of all the beggars in London. Furious that his daughter would run off with a criminal, Peachum initiates a manhunt for him and vows to see that he is hanged.

Wasil has a beautiful voice and is so innocent throughout, while Brubaker easily steals any scene she is in, if only by her facial expressions. Nwogu’s Peachum is the most powerful character in the play.
Peachum’s plans for Macheath are frustrated by Tiger Brown (William Jiang), the London chief of police and long-time friend of the criminal. Jiang has a wonderful voice for a biomedical engineer.
Others in the cast include Brown’s daughter Lucy (Katie Halls) who claims to be Macheath’s real wife, with irrefutable proof of that fact, Olivia Coca as Jenny Diver, the prostitute who helps in Macheath’s capture and Angelita Sanchez, as Filch, a beggar-in-training.

The story describes the injustice of the capitalist system, where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and where everything and everyone has a price. How does our society treat people not in our social level? Do we have empathy for beggars, whores and prostitutes? Though nearly 100 years old, the questions are still appropriate today.

Flora the Red Menace

If you know the musicals “Cabaret” and “Chicago,” you know the music of the songwriting duo John Kander and Fred Ebb. But you may not be familiar with “Flora the Red Menace,” their first collaboration.


Now is your chance to see this seldom performed show in a sparkling production at Wyatt Pavilion, under the direction of Mindy Cooper, professor of theater, and Granada Artist-in-Residence Judy Blazer, an acclaimed veteran of Broadway and regional theater. Graduate student Diego Martinez-Campos collaborates with Cooper on the choreography (he also performs in the show). Graham Sobelman provides music direction.


At a talkback after one of the performances, Cooper explained the choice of this musical was precisely because there is so little available about the show on the internet and she felt it was the perfect opportunity for the actors to create their own characters without trying to copy something that had been done before.


The show originally appeared on Broadway and won a Tony for Liza Minnelli, making her Broadway debut. It only ran for 87 performances but was revived off-Broadway, with a new book, in 1987, and it had better success.


Though set in 1935 in the midst of the Depression, the story resonates with today’s young people, struggling with many problems, yet with a renewed desire to work to make the world better.


Flora Meszaros (Talia Friedenberg) plans to be a fashion designer and applies at Gimbel’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s and Altman’s before finally applying at Garret and Mellick’s where she meets Harry Toukarian (Nathaniel Challis), a fellow artist, who stutters when he gets nervous.


Friedenberg’s Flora is a positive thinker, knowing she is somehow going to “make it” (“The Kid Herself”), though not quite satisfied when its seems that she does.


“When it all comes true
Just the way you’d planned
It’s funny but the bells don’t ring”


(It should be noted that none of the songs in this show ever made it into the popular repertoire, though they are fun to hear and in places show where Kander and Ebb will go in the future.)


Harry confesses that he is a communist and may be one of the most likable communists you’ll meet outside of “The Americans.” He is earnest, sincere and knows that he will help change the world, as he urges Flora to “Sign Here” and join the party.

Flora invites Harry to come to her artists’ cooperative loft, which is shared by several other struggling artists, including Kenny (Martinez-Campos) and Maggie (Aubrey Schoeman), dancers who are looking for a big break. They have several fun dance numbers, like “Keeping it Hot.”


Sophie Brubaker adds great passion and comic genius to the role of the uber Communist, Charlotte, especially impressing the others with her acts of the week (“Just Tuesday in the subway I threw a rotten egg/I called a man a fascist and I bit his daughter’s leg.”)


Things become more contemporary in lines like ”Don’t worry, there’ll never be another crash” and the chorus:

“There are people out there with no shoes on their feet 
Who shelter in doorways in snow and in sleet. 
And they search through the garbage 
to find something to eat.”


Flora’s dedication to the party is tested when she must make the choice of whether or not to cross a picket line to correct an error she made that will cost 33 people their jobs. Her decision will affect both her dedication to the party and her relationship with Harry.


Special notice must be made of understudy Katie Halls, who learned everyone’s part and then one day before the opening, filled in on some scenes for one of the actors who had some physical problems. You’d never know that Halls had not been cast in the role from the beginning.


This may not have the pizzazz of Chicago or Cabaret, but it is nonetheless fun to see how Kander and Ebb got their start, and the production is excellent, so this is the way to see it!

Gibraltar

Jennifer Vega stars as Amy in “Gibraltar,” presented by the UC Davis department of theater and dance.
The show continues Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Nicholas Yoon/UC Davis/Courtesy photo

UCD’s historic Wyatt Pavilion is the location for a powerful play by Octavio Solis, directed by Kent Nicholson. “Gibraltar” explores the subject of grief and how we deal with it.

The first thing to notice on entering the theater is the attractive set, designed by John Iacovelli. The play is set in a San Francisco apartment — and as a San Francisco native, I appreciated the bay window with a window seat, something so ubiquitous in the city. (The design of the bay window is helped by the configuration of the pavilion stage.)

Artist Amy (Jennifer Vega) has just lost her husband, who drowned in San Francisco Bay, and her world is falling apart. She stands in her apartment with the enigmatic Palo (Benjamin Calleros), who is searching for his runaway wife.

The pair share stories about other couples’ troubled relationships that are played out in the dreamlike landscape of memory — an improbable reunion of an artist and a dock worker, the breakup of a policeman and his angry wife, a marriage irrevocably altered but not ended by Alzheimer’s disease. Each one has some connection to Amy’s past memory.

As they tell their stories, Amy and Palo struggle to confront their own losses.

But is Palo really who he claims to be? Director Nicholson, at the talk-back following the show, referred to the concept of the duende, a mythical creature from folklore, who frequently inhabits a house to either help or torment its inhabitants. Does Palo represent the duende sent to guide Amy through this rough time?

The supporting cast — Brandon Thomas, Victoria Casas, Anthony Castillon, Aubrey Schoeman, Charles Lavaroni and Heidi Masem — each gives a strong portrayal, with Thomas and Casas sadly tragic as the husband dealing with his wife’s Alzheimer’s.

“Octavio’s work represents the great cultural diversity of the Bay Area and the country,” Nicholson said. “By exploring the universality of love and death through multiple stories, and weaving them through a single narrative, ‘Gibraltar’ creates a new landscape for storytelling.”

There will be a talk-back following the Thursday performance.

The 39 Steps

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Shape of Things

 

When I left the Lab Theatre in Wright Hall on the UCD campus after seeing a fine production of Neil LaBute’s “The Shape of Things,” directed by Gregory Holmes, my first thought was: “How in the world can I review this show?”

To discuss most of the plot is to destroy the discovery that audience members will make during the 90-minute one-act play.

And so I will try to be obtuse, but still give it the attention it deserves.

Taylor Church is Adam, a somewhat nerdy grad student working two jobs to put himself through school. One of his jobs is as a guard in the campus art museum.

Melissa Cunha is Evelyn, a free spirit, an art student working on a performance-art project, who has come to the museum to deface a statue she believes has been ruined by moralistic faculty members.
In trying to convince her not to use her can of spray paint, Adam finds himself attracted to her, and, despite his reticent nature, he ends up taking her out for coffee.

Out of this, a relationship begins to grow. Because of his feelings for her, so contrary to her open, almost amoral nature, he finds himself wanting to please her and begins to make improvements in himself.

The couple meet Adam’s old roommate Philip (Emile Rappaport), a brash, outspoken man who bristles at Evelyn’s ideas. They are oil and water, and an immediate animosity exists between them.
Philip’s fiancée Jenny (Kelly Tappan) is a mild-mannered, soft-spoken woman, interested in planning their upcoming wedding.

The four actors give excellent performances, particularly Cunha and Church, as they examine the meaning of friendship, loyalty, manipulation, love, betrayal and what constitutes “art.”

The scenic design of Elizabeth Kang consists of a series of white blocks, creatively assembled to represent tables, chairs and beds, each of which quite believable (who needs real furniture when you can work so creatively with blocks?)

The costume designs of Colleen Smith are particularly good, especially for what she does with Adam.
The mood is beautifully created by the lighting design of William Ebler.

As the play comes to an end, audience members will leave the theater talking about what just happened and how they feel about it.

People considering attending this show should be aware that it contains adult language and adult situations and is not suitable for children.

Trojan Women

Greek playwright Euripides wrote ‘Trojan Women’ in 415 B.C.; it has been updated several times, including a 1993 version by Irish playwright Brendan Kennelly.

The current UC Davis department of theater and dance production is directed by Kirsten Brandt, current Granada artist-in-residence. It is a good bet that none of these people anticipated the chaos that has gripped this country for the past year, especially where it concerns women’s issues.

Euripides’ women, following the end of the Peloponnesian War, have traditionally been seen as passive victims at the mercy of their Greek male conquerors. However, this version by Kennelly sees them as feminists who, despite the terrible conditions of their imprisonment, manage to support each other and keep their dignity. It examines the nature of women and their strength individually, and especially when supporting each other.

(You can almost hear William Wallace shouting, “They may take our lives, but they’ll never take … OUR FREEDOM!”)

Heading the marvelous cast of actors is Danika Sudik in an awesome portrayal of Hecuba, Queen of Troy. Sudik must lose a couple of pounds with each performance just from the intensity of her monologue deliveries. She is a force to be reckoned with, as is her character.

Rose Kim is her daughter, Cassandra, raped by Ajax, driven mad by her visions of the future and carted away to become the concubine of Agamemnon.

Andromache also was given an intense performance by Kelly Tappan. To Talthybius (Brandon Thomas) falls the task of warning Andromache that her son Astyanax will be killed so that he cannot grow up to avenge his father’s death.

Astyanax has a non-speaking role but 5-year-old Bodan Burmester, from the local Burmester theater dynasty, was amazing, especially lying “dead” on stage for a longer time than most of us could remain motionless. He was very professional.

The women share their collective grief and suffering through exchanging memories and song.
There is a duplicity in the agony of the women when it comes to Helen (Jennifer Vega), whom they blame for all of their sufferings; she is assaulted with hateful speech by all of the women. The feminist bond, it seems, does not extend to include every woman affected by the conditions.
Overseeing the proceedings are the gods Poseidon (Lucas Hatton) and Athena (Caitlin Sales).

“We may like to believe we have come a long way since Euripides’ time,” says director Brandt, “but the presidential election has unmasked deeply embedded misogyny, racism and xenophobia in this country.” She hopes that this production, set in “the not too distant future,” will be a cautionary tale.

Gospel According to First Squad

“Gospel According to First Squad” is the latest play in Tom Burmeser’s “War Cycle,” a cycle that began with “Wounded” (about soldiers who were wounded in the Iraq war) and “Survived” (dealing with a family’s grief at the death of their soldier son).

“Gospel” gets closer to the action, as Burmester and his ensemble realized they had not investigated actual battle and what happens to those soldiers, in this case, at an outpost in the “Valley of Death,” the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan.

A platoon of six soldiers and their Afghani interpreter await transfer back to the United States. The men are testosterone-infused, sex-starved and hungry to return home. They each have hair-trigger tempers and fights break out over many things. One particularly violent fight involves everyone, and the choreography by Chad Fisk makes it all look marvelously realistic.
But they also are a real band of brothers, and their concern for each other matches their anger at each other.

A new soldier, Gabriel, joins the platoon, filled with religious zeal, a determination to spread the word of God to the natives (which is strictly against rules), and eager to share his knowledge of God and the Bible with his fellow soldiers, none of whom have the slightest interest in listening to him.
If there is one problem with this production is that it is difficult to figure out who is who and which actor is playing which role (probably only important for a critic, not for the enjoyment of the audience). The men usually do not call each other by name, and they’re all dressed alike and have similar haircuts. Though their names are sewn to their shirts, they usually wear flak jackets that cover those names.

Rather than be wrong in identifying an actor, I will state that Jarrel Ramos is Lt. Dela Cruz, a photographer for a hearing that takes place at the start of the play. Caitlin Sales is Capt. McCasus, who is heading the investigation, Edward Gorman is Sgt. Taylor, David d’Olimpio is Capt. Raasch, Taylor Church is Pfc. Gehrman, Ryan Geberding is Pfc. Wright, Josh Hazeghazam is Pfc. Jackson and Monte Misa is Doc Brooks, the combat medic.

Borair Elyacy is the platoon interpreter, hoping to escape to America when the platoon leaves.
Act 1 of this two-act play takes place in camp where emotions run high and tempers clash. Wright receives bad news, which sends him into a tailspin that makes him fodder for the proselytizing of Gabriel.

There are a couple of spots in the action that border on preaching on topics about which we have heard preaching many times, but mostly the realism of the teasing, the flare-ups, the anger and the disappointments ring very true, and are an acknowledgment of the conversations Burmester and director Danika Sudik had with soldiers who had been in combat and shared their stories.

The dialog is not pretty, nor is it meant to be. Anyone offended by negative expressions or raw language will not be comfortable, but to pretty it up would be to do an injustice to the men this play honors.

In an interview, Burmester pointed out that “The guys are deployed in a very remote location. One of the things that stuck with me was that the farther away you are from the generals and the colonels, the more out in the field you are, there’s more of a sense of omnipotence. A gun gives you power. There’s more of a sense of not needing to adhere to rules, but being the ones that make the rules.”
Act 2 is a much shorter act, which takes place following an interaction with the enemy. It is brutal, bloody and shocking, but necessary to present the whole scope of the experience.

When Burmester set out to write his “War Cycle” his goal was to concentrate on the “overlooked,” the injured, the survivors and now the actual soldiers in combat. With “Gospel” he has given us very realistic glimpse of what it is like being out there in the trenches.z

Mr. Burns

Director Mindy Cooper, University of Granada artist-in-residence, explains that “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play,” now on stage at the UC Davis Wright Hall Main Theatre, is playwright Anne Washburn’s exploration of a post-apocalyptic society, questioning what survives and what doesn’t, and how things change.

Using the backdrop of the popular “Simpsons” episode “Cape Feare,” the play, sometimes clearly, sometimes muddily, takes us through a dystopian society that has undergone great destruction and shows how the survivors cope.

The play is structured into three scenes: shortly after the event (whatever it was) takes place, the second seven years later and the third 75 years later.

It’s difficult not to think of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451″ when watching the first scene. In that classic work of science fiction, all the books in the world are burned, but a small group of dedicated readers survives and each has memorized his or her favorite book and is now teaching it to a younger person, so the story can continue.

In “Mr. Burns,” five survivors are gathered around a campfire (there is no electricity) and they begin to recreate their favorite Simpsons episode, “Cape Feare,” in which Sideshow Bob stalks Bart Simpson with threats to kill him (people who make lists place this 1989 episode as No. 2 in the top 10 “Simpsons” episodes). For the newly displaced and shell-shocked survivors, it’s a bit of normalcy that helps them push away their fears … for the moment.

Matt (Matt Skinner) and Jenny (Leah Daugherty) lead off, yelling lines at each other, as they try to get the show in sequence, with the nervous Maria (Rose Kim) reacting in delight.

Interrupting the fun of the group is a new arrival, Gibson (Ryan Gerberding), who has been traveling across the country assessing the damage. The action takes a very somber tone as they learn which cities he has visited and bring out their book of lists to ask if, maybe, somehow, he has come across one of their loved ones.

Eventually Gibson, too, joins the others in remembering a beloved television episode.

Others in this group include Delaney Leigh McCowan as Colleen and Zach Padio as Sam. These six actors will continue to take similar roles in the subsequent two scenes.

Over time, this “Simpsons” episode takes on almost cult status, first seven years later (in the most muddled of the three scenes) as performed by one of many groups of “Simpsons” episode re-enactors. Their performance includes reminiscing about food and drink they once had (“at this point all I care about my imaginary alcohol is that it is aged”), obsessing on where Diet Cokes have gone (“I know a guy in Wichita who has a stash of Diet Cokes and do you know what he’s selling them for? Lithium batteries. Two a can.”) and comparing their productions of the “Simpsons” episode with other companies’ productions.

Gerberding takes on the role of a menacing Sideshow Bob in this scene while Padio becomes Bart, Skinner is Homer, Kim is Marge (carrying the blue Marge Simpson wig instead of wearing it), and Daugherty is Lisa. In this scene, the cast is also joined by Danika Burmester, in-law of the legendary Davis theater family, as Quincy/Wife (and Edna Crabapple in Scene 3).

After 75 years, “Cape Feare” has become a full-blown cult classic, with the menacing character now Mr. Burns, rather than Sideshow Bob (Gerberding again). This scene adds a host of new characters, the Nuclear Family Players, and music by Graham Sobelman (musical director) and Aaron Molho (for some reason, the music also includes excerpts from Gilbert and Sullivan).

This is not a show for everyone. It has the feel of a cult classic and “Simpsons” fans will love it, while non-“Simpsons” fans may find parts of it funny, but perhaps not get all the “in” jokes and references to the original.

The script assumes that the audience is already familiar with not only the major characters but also the minor characters, like Itchy and Scratchy and Apu. This may be why there was so little laughter in the audience, though encouraged at the start of the play to laugh loudly.

If you can find a copy of the original “Cape Feare” episode, I suspect it would greatly enhance enjoyment of this play.

Point of Departure

UCD’s master of fine arts in dramatic arts program brings together actors, choreographers, designers and directors to work collaboratively over two years in a range of traditional and experimental pieces.

The finale of the program is for each student to choose to create an individual exploration or to work with one or more of their cohorts investigating research questions surrounding theater, dance and performance.

This year’s performances examine war, sex, technology, cross-dressing and more, under the collaborative title of “Point of Departure.”

A two-night event is taking place on the campus right now. The two pieces of Program 1 are being presented on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m at the Arena Stage in Wright Hall. Program 2 can be seen on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m., starting with two pieces on the Wyatt Theater stage and then moving to the Della Davidson Studio for the final piece.

The “Echo Theater Suitcase Project: Yolo County” is the work of Daniel Bear Davis and his talented cast. The ensemble has been working together for the past six months in a process of continuous inquiry into our personal relations to war and the military.

A multi-generational group relate stories dealing with war experiences. The show is powerful and in some instances gut-wrenching as people relay either their own memories or experiences of others.
Audience members are given cookies and asked to think about their own sense memories, the sounds, smells and sights that evoke powerful past memories, while a veteran talks about his post-traumatic stress disorder triggers. It is a well-integrated piece that combines acting, dancing and video.

Performers are Cynthia Arellanes, Hien Huynh, Tiffany Martin and Ian Rowland, plus veterans Jim Corbett, a Vietnam vet, and Francis Resta, a veteran of World War II, who performs wearing his oxygen tank. Resta’s performance in particular was quite moving, especially when he dances the waltz with another performer.

At the conclusion of this piece, the theater is emptied and the audience asked to stand in the halls outside while the configuration is changed (and chairs blocked off).

“iGeneration,” the brainchild of Christopher Wolfe, answers the question “How have you been affected by smartphones?” Cast members Karina Chahal, Jesse Chung, Claire Wonjeong Jeong, Nicole Pinto, Michael Poole, Andre Starr, Edward Sukla, Lily Tanner and Christopher Wolf perform with cell phones in hand, the lights shining up into the cast members’ faces.

The story unfolds in Internet-speak and involves making and breaking of relationships, the debate over “winkie faces” and “Bitmojis,” and an active video game. It ends with a very cleverly choreographed cell phone hand-off from person to person and back again that must be seen to be understood.

In the talk-back with Wolfe following the show, the audience members were very enthusiastic and excited that the piece so accurately depicted their lives. For those of us who grew up in the day of dial telephones, it was a little less relatable.

“iGeneration” is an ongoing project. This is the first in a series of theatrical investigations into smartphones and how they affect us. It will be interesting to see where Wolfe takes the investigation from here.

Evening two begins with my personal favorite of the whole program. “Indecency (& Other Bawdy Bits)” is a one-woman show by JanLee Marshall as Mary Frith (aka Moll Cutpurse), a notorious pickpocket, pimp, and fence in 16th-century London.

Dressed in her favorite costume, this cross-dressing woman addresses questions about: What is indecent? What is it to be a woman on the stage in the 16th century? — as well as our fascination with celebrity and indecency.

Marshall has an easy rapport with the audience and her piece involves both monologues and conversation with the audience. She is so at ease in her skin that when her work is interrupted by a knock at the back door by latecomers, she makes it part of the act without missing a beat.

By the end of her work, I wanted to rush home and do some investigation about Mary Frith, who seems to have been a fascinating woman.

From the bawdy 16th century to the lascivious present, Joyful Simpson’s “Tales of a Sexual Tomboy (a one-woman comedy)” is definitely not for the tiny tots, or anyone offended by blatant sexual conversation. While there is nothing visually offensive, there is certainly a lot implied and mimed.

Simpson is a very funny woman, not afraid to reveal (and exaggerate on) her sexual exploits from a very early age. She’s not afraid of telling her truth, whether joyful or painful.

“I have taken a fair amount of poetic license with my stories to maximize their theatricality,” she explains. Still, she mentioned that her parents will be coming this weekend and I wonder if she is going to edit herself a bit for that performance!

For the final work, Brandon Gonzalez’s “Vibrant Matter,” the audience left the Wyatt Theater and walked over to the new Della Davidson Studio. Gonzalez’s work examines how objects might use us or have an effect on us.

In a multi-media work that includes video, sculpture, design and choreography, a floral quilt interacts with a piece of foam, a video dances on air currents and human bodies transform into still-life images. The results were fascinating. This quilt actually came to life, the video on airwaves was mesmerizing and the final piece did amazing things with balance.

The talk-back following the Program 2 pieces was interesting, and helpful in answering those unanswered questions.

The Fantasticks

A small number of lucky people had the good fortune to attend the opening of “The Fantasticks” at Wyatt Pavilion on Friday night. 

This engaging production, with book and lyrics by Tom Jones and music by Harvey Schmidt is directed by Kathryn Morison and features Elio Gutierrez as El Gallo, Giana Gambardella as Luisa, Matt Skinner as Matt, Roberto Aguilar as Luisa’s father Bellomy, and Jason Moscato as Matt’s father Hucklebee.  The traveling players are Matthew Benitez as Mortimer and David D’Olimpia as Henry. Edward Sukla is the Mute.

Music is listed as being provided by keyboardist Vuthithor “in” Chinthammit, who, not surprisingly, has no bio in the program.

“The Fantastics” is the world’s longest-running musical, having run an amazing 42 years, from 1960 to 2002 or 17,162 performances.  It re-opened off Broadway in 2006 and continues to run today.  It was awarded the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theater in 1991.   

This is a popular show for high schools, and community theater since the set is minimal and the cast is small, but that should in no way minimize the impact of the simple story of a boy and a girl being tricked into falling love by their fathers, falling out of love, going out into the world and returning home again after negative experiences.  They learn that if they want to find their hearts’ desire, they should look no further than their own back yard.

The small, intimate setting of the Wyatt Pavilion is perfect for this intimate show.

From the moment Elio Gutierrez makes his entrance as the narrator El Gallo (a role made famous by Jerry Orbach), singing the iconic “Try to Remember” and inviting the audience to use their imagination and follow him into a world of moonlight and magic. you know that you are in for something special. The charismatic Gutierrez is smooth and confident, with a sly hint of larceny about him from time to time. He dominates whenever he is on stage.

Gambardella is the innocent 16 year old Luisa, in her full-petticoated virginal dress designed by award winning Costume Designer Roxanne Femling.  Gambardella’s voice is beautiful as she sings about her dreams (dance till 2 o’clock, wear her hair unfastened, and to be the kind of girl who is kissed on the eyes).  She wants “Much More” out of life

Skinner’s Matt is a young man head over heels in love with the girl next door, whom he can only see over the unseen wall (mimed by Suela) the fathers built in a faux feud designed to make their children fall in love with each other, because the way to make children do what you want them to do is to tell them “no.”

Moscato and Aguilar give engaging performances as the two scheming fathers, eager for their children to be married to each other.

When the fathers decide it’s time for the young people to fall in love, Hucklebee tells Bellomy of his plan to end the feud by having Luisa "kidnapped" by a professional so that Matt can "rescue" her and appear heroic.

Things don’t quite go as planned, however. They meet with El Gallo, who is to arrange for an abduction.  Discussion is made about what kind of abduction the fathers want. The fathers decide not to stint themselves, but do it well and settle on a “first class rape.” 

D’Olimpia and Benitez  as, respectively, ancient ham actor Henry and hangdog death-scene specialist Mortimer, hired as the would-be abductors, capture the audience with their antics.

Matt foils the abduction attempts, but exposure of the plot changes the relationship between Luisa and Matt and each decides to leave home and go out into the world, separately, to seek their heart’s desire.  Returning later, dejected and emotionally injured, the children realize that everything they wanted was each other, only now they understand it more deeply.

This is a delightful production that deserves a wider audience than it got on opening night.

Grapes of Wrath

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spring Awakening

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The Sound of Music” it ain’t!

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

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

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

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

Bat Boy

 

One would hardly think of the Weekly World News as a source for material to inspire a musical, but that’s exactly where Laurence O’Keefe, Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming came up with the idea for “Bat Boy: The Musical,"  now being performed on the university’s Wyatt Stage by the student-run Studio 301, directed and choreographed by Chris McCoy.

The “real” Bat Boy was, according to the Weekly World News, a creature who was half-human and half-bat captured in 1992 in a West Virginia cave by Dr. Bob Dillon of the S.O.S. (Seeker of Obscure Supernaturals). The newspaper reported on his capture, escape and recapture a few times throughout its brief history. Editor Dick Kulpa eventually admitted the story was fiction.
Studio 301 has presented a very polished production of the horror story, with a strong cast, some fun tunes (some forgettable) played by the competent six-piece off-stage orchestra under the direction of Alex Stalarow and sung by some very strong voices.

The story opens with a very realistic depiction of sibling spelunkers Ron (Johnny Wylie), Rick (Jimmy Beall) and Ruthie (Marissa Saravis) descending into a cave near the town of Hope Falls, W.Va. They are excited to possibly be the only people to have ever descended this far into the earth, and then shocked to find a creature living there. The headlamps on each of the characters, piercing the pitch black of the theater and only occasionally flashing on the creature add to the suspense.

The creature is captured, but not before biting Ruthie, who is rushed to the hospital and lays in critical condition throughout the play. The creature, whom they name Bat Boy (Marcos Sastre III) is taken to the town doctor, Dr. Parker (John Unrath), where he is placed in a cage and becomes an object of interest for Parker’s wife Meredith (Elizabeth Tremaine) and daughter Shelley (Rachel Wagner).

Meredith takes an unusual liking to the creature and insists he be called “Edgar,” while Shelley, first repulsed by him, grows to love him. The doctor comes home to find the creature in his home and intends to euthanize him but does not when his wife promises him sex if he will not do it. Parker feels this is a way to mend his broken marriage.

Unrath and Tremaine have beautiful voices. Unrath’s startles as he begins singing “Dance with me, My Darling,” and Tremaine’s emotional “A Home for You” is stunning.

Under tutelage from the family, Edgar quickly learns how to be human. He seems to be exceptionally intelligent and, thanks to BCC language tapes, speaks with an upper crust British accent.

The townsfolks, however, who sing about “Christian Charity,” are anything but Christian. It’s another case of outsider fear and they still want to “Kill the Bat Boy,” but if that can’t happen at least they can request that he not attend an upcoming revival meeting led by the Rev. Hightower (Malia Abayon).

Act 2 is the revival meeting, which Edgar insists on attending to ask the townsfolk to “Let Me Walk Among You.” (Sastre also has an excellent voice.) The meeting quickly disintegrates when Dr. Parker announces that Ruthie has died. This sets off a series of deaths and revelations about Bat Boy’s parentage and birth, better experienced than written about.

And we also find out why all the cows are dying, a parallel curse which, with the discovery of Bat Boy, everyone assumes is his doing … but really is for quite a different reason.

This is a pretty silly show, but performed beautifully by all of the actors involved.

The opening night audience was disappointingly small and I would hope that others decide to check this show out because,  for one thing where else are you going to see it? And for another silly or not, it really is a good show.

Flash

“Flash: A New Choreography” is the latest work created and choreographed by Qudus Onikeku, UC Davis Granada Artist-in-Residence and preeminent performance artist known for his Yoruba culture-based choreography that fuses together movement philosophies of hip-hop, capoeira and Nigerian masquerade tradition.

Onikeku’s poetic and multidisciplinary attempt to present painful memories runs through Sunday at the Main Theatre in  Wright Hall at UCD.

“All my work as a creative artist has been a series of possibilities of responding to issues that affect me primarily, and those that affect the permanent human values which I defend,” Onikeku said. “I know that my audience is not particularly concerned with these matters before coming to the theater, so it then becomes my responsibility to find other interesting and spectacular ways of reaching out and communicating.”

Onikeku grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, where survival of the fittest was the rule, “the continual crushing of one another, killings and lust for power.”

“How can we live with love in our hearts, with laughter and joy, when there have been and continue to be inhuman cruelties and murders committed every second of every day?” he asked.

“Flash” is not an uplifting work, but it is one that will profoundly affect the audience. The stage is bare, covered with black soil and fabric panels running around the outside. There is a cast of one narrator (Lindsey Beamish) and 10 dancers: Cynthia Arellanes, Mary Ann Brooks, Nicole Casado, Zach Heinzer, Mariah Heller, Hien Huynh, Manami Ii, Maribel Lopez, Jake Parkhurst and David Shih.

The 10 work as an ensemble, within which each dancer is encouraged to create his or her own character that integrates into the whole. Onikeu’s approach is innovative since he integrates improvisational and choreographic techniques. He also works with character and draws out the unique genius of each performer.
Beginning with the “nothingness” that is the world and the “spark” that creates the flash that directs the play, the narrator sets emotional scenes, to which the dancers react. In the first scene, for example, the narrator is describing the murder of a mother and her child as witnessed and, in some sense directed, by her son. It is a tale that doubles you over in pain and the pain is elaborately expressed by the dancers.

There is one brief “happy dance,” where the dancers rejoice in their lives, only to have the horror of their situation brought home to then again.

Brooks is spotlighted as she expresses her own pain eloquently. “I have been challenged as a performer — dancing from the inside out and not controlling the dance but letting the dance have its own life,” she said. “As dancers, we’re taught to control our movements, yet Qudus is teaching us how to allow the dance to develop and become something larger than us and our habitual dancing patterns.”

A girl carrying cheeses home for her mother comes upon a group of refugees, obviously starving, and she tries to share her cheese with them, until threatened by soldiers to move on or join the group.

The final scene graphically represents carnage, as a machete-wielding soldier attacks the people of a village. Anyone who has seen “Hotel Rwanda,” or has followed the carnage taking place in many African countries, will find the story familiar. As the machete came down again and again and again, I was reminded of our friend Victor, a refugee from the carnage taking place in then-Zaire. One night a police car stopped in our driveway and Victor was terrified. Later, he told us “when the police come to your house in Zaire, it is to kill you.”

I pictured Victor and his family as I watched the finale of this powerful work. Onikeku had brought that very real scenario of my friend to life for me and I felt changed by it.

Following opening night, there was a question-and-answer session and one dancer summed up the experience very well, saying that it was “an interesting journey of self-discovery.”

Whether on stage or in the audience, I suspect everyone will leave Wright Hall having been on their own journey of self-discovery, with greater awareness of what is going on in the world around us.

The Undoing of Prudencia Hart

Can an evening possibly go wrong when it starts out with Celtic music played on the uilleann pipe — the smaller cousin to the bagpipe? I think not.

“The Undoing of Prudencia Hart” is a gift to the audience by the National Theater of Scotland, now playing at Mondavi’s Vanderhoef Theater through Sunday. It was a big hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, so you knew right off that it was not going to be your run of the mill play.

And it wasn’t.

For starters, the audience members were taken in, about 10 at a time, to give guides inside an opportunity to explain how the evening would go.

The theater seats were gone, in their place, tables and chairs had been set up to simulate a Scottish pub. A bar was placed along one wall, where free “wee drams” of Scotch whiskey were being served. (Another free “wee dram” would be offered at intermission, along with finger sandwiches passed around by the ushers.)

Our guide explained that it was open seating and that it wasn’t important to sit near the stage, since the actors would be using the entire room as the play progressed.

The actors (Annie Grace, Melody Grove, Alasdair Macrae, Paul McCole and David McKay) passed among the tables, explaining that we were supposed to tear the paper napkins given to us into small bits to be used as snow later in the show.

As the action began, there were two problems with the show. The lack of microphones made much of the dialog (which, when we could understand it, was very clever verse) difficult to hear, made more difficult by the heavy Scottish accents. But understanding every word was not necessary to the enjoyment of the evening.

The story of the writing of the script for this show is almost as entertaining as the show itself. It came out of an experience by writer David Grieg, director Wils Wilson and composer Alasdair Macrae, when they visited a pub while researching the Border Ballads for the show. It was the coldest winter in Scotland in many years and they were so comfortable in the pub that nobody wanted the evening to end, so they locked the pub doors and sat around all evening telling story after story. Out of one of those stories (said to be 110 percent true) came the story of Prudencia Hart.

Prudencia (Grove) is an academic, an expert on ballads, literature and “the topography of hell.” She is en route to a conference in the border town of Kelso, driving through a snowstorm to get to a professional meeting. The entire cast gathers around Pru to form a car, with flashlights for headlights and, most clever, the use of a violin bow as a windshield wiper, while tossing bits of napkin bits for the snow.

After much verbal sparring between Pru and her fellow academics, she is trapped in a pub with her nemesis Collin Syme (Clark), where the whiskey flows and inhibitions dissolve as the lights go out, leaving the pub in complete darkness, a problem very cleverly solved by the cast.

Ultimately Pru tears herself away and goes out into the night in search of a B&B and finds herself, instead, in hell.

After the intermission, Act 2 seems like a different play, much more sedate, much easier to follow, and initially lacking the free-wheeling antics of Act 1. Hell, Pru discovers is far more entertaining than she ever imagined — at least for the first few millennia.

Ultimately, however, the lure of “every book that was ever written and even those that have not been written yet” loses its appeal and she finds herself popping up to watch the grass grow in the cracks of the Costco parking lot instead. She decides she wants to return to her non-dead life. She attempts to trick Satan (McKay) into rhyming with her (using the language of love and humanity) to get him to take pity on her and allow her to return to her old life. McKay’s response to his inability to stop rhyming is very funny.

There is a bit of the Orpheus mythology about Pru’s attempts to escape, and the attacks on her would-be rescuer, Collin, are hilarious.

The fun of this show is not necessarily in the plot, but in the ensemble, the music, the hijinks. It is a unique piece of theater, and easy to see why this was a sell-out at the fringe festival and has been a sell-out wherever it plays.

The Bacchae

It’s a familiar tale. A child is born, supposedly the son of a god. His arrival flanked with revelers and worshipers brings forth a wave of religious fervor, song and adulation that threatens the city’s ruler and leads to chaos, blood and barbarism throughout the land. The god-man is persecuted; his followers ruthlessly suppressed. The story ends with the sacrifice of a son and the ultimate suffering of his mother.

Only this particular story, written by Euripides near the end of his life, happens centuries before the birth of Christ.

UC Davis Granada artist-in-residence Barry McGovern — known for his screen and stage roles in “Far and Away,” “Joe Versus the Volcano” and “Waiting for Godot” — directs Euripides’ classic “The Bacchae” at the UCD main stage, with original rock music, humor, dominatrixes and cheerleaders. A wickedly sexy Dionysus locks horns with King Pentheus in a violent power struggle between freedom and control.

McGovern’s vision of Euripides’ ancient Greek work, aided by Irish poet Derek Mahon’s translation, brings “The Bacchae” home to American audiences. His inspiration for Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry seeking vengeance on King Pentheus and the town of Thebes for denying his deity, was the larger-than-life rock stars of the 1970s and ‘80s. Dionysus commands every inch of the stage with his electric guitar and fierce sexuality à la Mick Jagger.

The play describes the battle between the Dynosian cult — enjoying the pleasures of the world, including wine, sexual love, music, dancing and the excitement of group emotion — and the Appollonian side of man’s nature — that which is rational and civilized, ordered and controlled, represented by Pentheus.

Bobby August Jr., as Dionysus, is a character you will long remember thanks to the outrageous and electric costumes of Dee Loree Silveira. August’s flamboyant personality matches the costumes and he puts his all into his role.

Mitchell Vanlandingham, as Pentheus, is an uptight little man, determined to tame the wild and unruly Dionysus. He gives a wonderful performance, until he is ripped to pieces by the Dionysian folks.

But if you’re looking for all this sexual love, wild dancing and bloody battles to play out on the stage, you may be disappointed, since most of the fun stuff takes place off stage and is then described in lengthy speeches by relevant characters on stage. This is not R-rated for sexual situations and violence, but rather PG-rated for suggestive language. (At one point I felt it was like watching an audiobook, but with cheerleaders.)

Even the “sex-crazed American cheerleaders” who make up the Bacchae are as erotic as a group you’d find on the football fields of Davis High. This is not to take away from the fine job done by the 17 women who make up the chorus. They provide a unified, beautifully vocally shaded chorus and add an interesting visual aspect to the stage, but the costumes are quite tame; you won’t see an undulating torso. While they are great fun to watch, “sex crazed” is not the right word to describe them.

Maria Candalaria gives a very moving, tender and memorable performance as Agave, mother of Pentheus, who moves from exaltation to shock to grief and finally resignation, all in one continuous scene as she confronts the reality of her son’s murder.

Cooper Wise is wise, as Teiresias, the old, blind visionary who argues with Pentheus, and he is comfortable with giving lengthy speeches.

Soldiers Amanda Vitiello and Lindsay Beamish are characters who deliver pivotal messages detailing offstage events.

Original music for this production is by McGovern and Dan Cato Wilson, which is more tuneful than “throbbing,” and even reminiscent in part of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

Master of fine arts candidate Travis Kerr has created an impressive set, which is all the more impressive in its response to a Dionysus-caused earthquake.

Many in the opening-night audience were there as homework assignments for their classes, as witnessed by all those writing in notebooks furiously throughout the production. Perhaps the best review of all was given by two students sitting in front of me, who turned to each other at the end of the show, somewhat in surprise, and said, “Hey, that’s wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be!”

In fact, it was downright enjoyable.

House of Bernarda Alba

Federico García Lorca, called by some “the most important Spanish poet and dramatist of the 20th century” died in 1936 (murdered by fascists during the Spanish Civil War), so he was unaware of the current war on women’s health being waged by some in governments across this country.

Yet his “The House of Bernarda Alba,” based on a new translation by Chay Yew and directed by UC Davis Granada Artist-in-Residence Juliette Carrillo, feels as fresh and modern as if it had been written this year (especially the hurling of the epithet “slut” several times).

The play was the last of a trilogy expressing what Lorca felt was “the tragic life of Spanish women” in their male-dominated society. It also is a play about expressing the costs of repressing the freedom of others.
The play opens on a stark stage (designed by Rose-Anne Raphael), a raised platform on which the principal characters stand, facing front when they are part of a scene, standing at the back edge, with their backs to the audience when they are not part of a scene.

On either side of the platform is a row of four chairs facing the platform, on which sit the chorus who drink from wine bottles, play African drums, clap rhythmically and occasionally sing.

(Composer Dan Wilson has created the background music and sound and says he “pulled out all the stops.”)

As the action begins, the housekeeper, La Poncia (Maria Candelaria), is speaking with the maid, Blanca (Hannah Victory), about the funeral of the second husband of matriarch Bernarda Alba (Susan-Jane Harrison).

The relationship between Poncia and Bernarda is reminiscent of “Upstairs Downstairs,” or “Downton Abbey,” where the servants have been ministering to the masters for so long that the class distinction disappears when they are in private. Candelaria’s Poncia is as much in charge of this house as is her mistress and she brings some much-needed humor to the proceedings.

Harrison gives a riveting performance as the matriarch, who has very strict (and old-fashioned) ideas about the role of women.

Aided by the angular costume of Maggie Chan, and the severe hair style, with just a hint of red picked up by the lights as she moves, she is a force to be reckoned with. Her mere appearance on stage, commanding the undivided attention not only of her daughters and house staff, but of the audience as well, is enough to make one feel just a little uneasy.

Out of respect for their deceased father, Bernarda has decreed an eight-year period of mourning for her five daughters (ages 20-39), during which “not a breath of air will get in this house from the street.”
The eldest daughter Angustias (Anna Kritikos) is engaged to be married to the area’s most eligible bachelor, Pepe el Romano (whom we never see), but he is attracted to the youngest daughter Adela (Malia Abayon), who defies her mother by wearing red instead of black and carrying on a clandestine affair with Pepe.

The story deals with the sexual and personal repression of the women, most of whom seem to be harboring a secret love for Pepe. There are many references to the temperature, with fans and cold drinks used as symbols of the heat, which is more than just the temperature, but also the rising sexual tensions among the young women.

Magdalena (Wendy Wyatt-Mair), devastated by her father’s death, tends to sleep a lot, while Amelia (Jaki Joanino) is the family gossip.

Martirio (Marit Wilkerson) is the trouble maker, who reports Adela’s affair and leads to the play’s shocking conclusion.

The drama of the play is heightened significantly by lighting designer Kourtney Lampedecchio, who creates stunning silhouettes and whose final special effect will have audience members gasping.
This classic story is dark and full of poetic language and symbolism, but it holds up surprisingly well after more than 70 years. The audience will find “The House of Bernarda Alba” a memorable evening of intense drama.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

The UC Davis department of theater and dance, and Michael Barakiva, director, have rectified a mistake that was made back in 1966, when someone rejected a new play by an aspiring playwright named Tom Stoppard.

He submitted a play called “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” to the university’s “New Plays Project,” but the committee decided it was only “mildly interested” in the work and rejected it.

Instead, the play went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and then on to take London by storm, and UC Davis lost the opportunity to present the world premiere of a play that today is acclaimed as a modern dramatic absurdist masterpiece.

But “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” is finally making its UCD premiere on the university’s main stage.

Stoppard’s play is “Hamlet” inside out, with the minor Shakespearean characters taking center stage and Hamlet and his weird family becoming bit players, who wander briefly through the scenes.

While it seems as if Rosencrantz (Mitchell Vanlandingham) and Guildenstern (Will Klundt) may be backstage watching the play from the wings, in truth we aren’t really sure where they are … but then they aren’t sure where they are or what they’re doing there either.

In fact, the pair spend most of the show trying to figure out where they are and what is going on, in a world that doesn’t make much sense to them.

The play raises questions about who controls our lives: Do we really exercise free will, or is everything preordained and are we only filling out a script that was written for us, but that we haven’t been able to read yet?

Vanlandingham and Klundt are beautifully matched, so similar to each other visually that it’s difficult to remember which is which. Sometimes it seems that even the two of them aren’t quite sure. But they have a warm, friendly relationship, which at one point caused an inadvertent audience reaction, followed by a self-conscious ripple of laughter that rolled through the house.

The scene shifts to Elsinore Castle, where the pair encounter a group called The Tragedians, led by The Player (an outstanding performance by Bobby August Jr.), who explains that they specialize in sexual performances, which they proceed to demonstrate in graphic, but very funny, detail.

The ever-present specter of death is personified in the number of ways to die, which the Tragedians demonstrate, and which our two principal characters don’t seem to realize is a warning about their ultimate end.

Director Barakiva, scenic designer Kourtney Lampedechio and costume designer Maggie Chan worked well on creating the black, white and gray limbo in which Rosencrantz and Guidenstern exist. This becomes a vibrant display of color at the end of the play, which is also the end of the real play itself.

Sound designer Dan Cato Wilson deserves special mention especially for his sea sounds in Act 3, when the characters find themselves at sea, under attack by pirates.

While this show can be enjoyed on its own merits, if you feel your Hamlet is a little rusty, it wouldn’t hurt to brush up your Shakespeare before coming to the theater so you can more fully enjoy all the bon mots and wordplay.

This is one play that is not so much about the conclusion but what happens along the way.

The Moby Dick Variations

We met someone headed into the Mondavi Theater on Thursday night to see a concert. I told him we were on our way to see “The Moby Dick Variations” in the Vanderhoef Studio theater. “Good luck with that,” he said, rolling his eyes.

As I entered the theater, someone spotted me and said “I can hardly wait to read your review of this.”

Half an hour into the piece, when I was comparing it to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” meets “The Snake Pit,” I was wondering how I was going to handle it myself.

In an interview with the Cal Aggie earlier this week, director John Zibell described his work, saying “...it’s not a play, it’s 135 little theatrical events inspired by ‘Moby Dick.’” His comment gave me the perfect inspiration for trying to describe this piece...remarking on the “little theatrical events” that I personally took away from the evening.

As promised, this piece (I am reluctant to call it a “play”) “breaks every expectation that the audience has when they walk into the show.”

For one thing, there is no “audience” section. There are no seats (though a few small, uncomfortable wooden benches line two walls and can accommodate maybe a dozen people). There is a lengthy description of the director’s concept for this work in the program, but it is written in tiny print, in one long paragraph and there is not sufficient lighting in the theater to read it. The audience is expected to mill about and mingle with the performers throughout the two hour performance.

The program lists the twenty-two actors in the production, but there is no indication as to who is playing which role. And it probably doesn’t really matter because there is no real plot that follows any logical linear progression. (I only know that Will Klundt plays Ishmael because he is mentioned in the Aggie article. As to who played Ahab, or Queegqueg, or any other character, it doesn’t really seem to matter since most of the work didn’t really seem to be about Moby Dick anyway.)

At one point I wondered if things would be more clear if I had actually read Moby Dick at some point in my life, but I suspect that would not have helped at all.

For example, I don’t really think a lecture on basketball was written by Herman Melville. And while the scene of a young girl saying goodbye to her dying grandfather was touching, it didn’t have much to do with a white whale.

There was the feel of a frat party about it. Most of the people in the audience seemed to know all the performers and the noise level rose throughout the evening, accompanied by mostly cacophonous instruments playing music written especially for this work by Dylan Bolles and the Thingamajigs Performance Group.

I’m not sure what the girl in the pink lace dress and Superman undershorts was doing on roller skates being pulled through the crowd by someone hanging onto a rope.

Nor am I sure why the woman in the diaphanous gown was hanging from the door frame and then climbing down the outside of a staircase.

It seemed that whenever someone got hold of a microphone and began to say something you could actually understand, three other people in three other parts of the room also began to speak and you couldn’t understand anybody.

At an hour into it, I had a splitting headache, and I was counting down the last minutes of the two hours so I could escape. I hoped that maybe something worth mentioning would happen. But, no.

I finally decided that maybe I’m just too old to appreciate a show like this. Maybe avant garde theater is for the young. But I wasn’t alone. The best overheard quote of the night came from a group leaving the theater whispering to each other “We won’t say ANYTHING until we get to the car, OK?”

They were lucky they didn’t have to go home and write a review.