Henry V

Before I went to review the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble’s production of "Henry V," I rented the Kenneth Branagh movie to get myself in the mood for seeing this epic play. The movie, of course, has a cast of thousands. And as Henry, bloodied but unbowed, wades through the field of bodies at the end of the Battle of Agincourt I wondered how in the world the young Davis group was going to pull it off with a cast of five, all of whom were making their Davis Shakespeare Ensemble debut.

Well, the answer to that question was: surprisingly well. This production, directed by Rob Salas, works because of an amazingly talented cast who each play many parts. Casey Worthington is Henry V and others; Mitchell VanLandingham is the Dauphin, Canterbury and others; Kevin Ganger is Exeter, Pistol, Charles, and others; Misty Day is Nell Quickly, Fluellen, and others; and Cody Ganger is Catherine, Bardolph, and others.

It also works because of the ingenious costume design by Maggie S. Chan, who has woven an intricate set of chains for each actor over which are laid sashes, capes, and other bits of costume to allow for instant transformation into the next character, whether a soldier, a townsman, or a king.

The close confines of the UC Davis Arboretum Gazebo make it possible for the slow motion battles, with real swords flashing uncomfortably close to the audience, yet always under close supervision by the actor, to actually give one the sense of being in a real battle. (And kudos to whoever painted the beautiful French and British shields).

No dialect coach is listed, but the ability to switch from English to French to a broad Scottish accent may seem effortless, but had to have taken great effort to bring it all off so seamlessly. (As a native American speaker, I can’t address the actual authenticity of the languages, but it sounded good to me!)

The story takes place at the death of Henry IV and the rise to the throne of his heretofore high living son, Henry V. The new king, not unlike the current Prince Harry, likes to party and has a reputation, though he surprises everyone by taking very seriously his new role as King. Having been assured by Canterbury (with extensive corroborative material) that England has the right to claim lands in France, because of Henry’s roots in the French royal family, the young king makes his intentions known.

The Dauphin responds with an insult in the form of tennis balls and, in reply, Henry announces that he will invade France. All culminates with Henry’s rousing St. Crispin’s day speech, the battle and the ultimate defeat of the French by the English (history records that some 8,000 French were killed, as compared to a few hundred English).

And, of course, there is a girl, the French Princess Catherine, who is wooed, and eventually won by the victorious Henry. The scene with Catherine and her maid, who is trying to teach the young Princess some words in English is very cute and a nice break from the heavier war plans.

If there was any downside to my evening at this Davis Shakespeare Ensemble production, it was an older British couple sitting nearby who talked and giggled throughout most of Act 2. Such behavior would be rude anywhere, but it was a terrible distraction in a venue as small as the Gazebo.

The Davis Shakespeare Ensemble has a real winner with this production, and what a nice way to spend a pleasantly warm evening in Davis. Spray on some mosquito repellant, though. I didn’t, and made a tasty meal for several mosquitos throughout the night.

Triple Espresso

There are some for whom “Triple Espresso,” the new “highly caffeinated comedy”at Sacramento’s Cosmopolitan Cabaret, may not be their “cup of tea” (pun intended), but it’s important to remember that a cabaret show is not the same as a show you would expect to see in a theater.

If you are into laughter, an intimate setting, impromptu audience participation, and some broad, low-brow humor, you’re going to enjoy this production.

Early in 1995, Bill Arnold, Michael Pearce Donley and Bob Stromberg, three successful solo performers who admired each other’s work, gathered over coffee, never knowing the full impact that caffeinated brew would have on their future.

They decided to write something they could perform as a trio — something fun, something unusual, something that would make people laugh so hard they’d snort and embarrass themselves.

I didn’t see any snorting at the Continental Cabaret, but there was no doubt the audience was having a great time, and doing more than their share of tittering.

You can’t argue with success. In the past 15 years, “Triple Espresso” has entertained more than 1.7 million people in 50 cities in six countries in three languages (English, German and Flemish). The show continuously ran for 12 years in Minneapolis and 10 years in San Diego.

Arnold, Donley and Stromberg have opened the Sacramento run and will play the roles until July 10, when they are replaced by another trio, to run through July 22. Some 30 actors have been trained to take on the roles, making it possible to have the show running in several locations at the same time.

Hugh Butternut (Donley) is a lounge lizard, who has been the pianist at the Triple Espresso Coffeehouse for some 20 years. He wears colorful sequined jackets, has a big smarmy grin and a patronizing manner as he invites the audience to sing along with some of his favorite musical numbers from the ’70s.

To celebrate his 20th anniversary, Butternut has invited his two former partners, Bobby Bean (Bob Stromberg) and Buzz Maxwell (Bill Arnold), to join him for the occasion. He is hoping to heal the rift that occurred during an embarrassing incident on “The Mike Douglas Show.”

Bean, who has the personality of a used car salesman, is all smiles and joy at seeing his old partner. Maxwell, however, is sullen, angry and determined not to participate in the grand reunion. It all goes back to the TV appearance and little bits and pieces of information continue to drop throughout the show, until finally all is revealed in a hilarious number toward the end.

The trio (well, two of them anyway) try to relive the glory days of their success, though their success was more of a “I coulda been a contender” type of memory. They never really hit the big time … and they blame it on that Mike Douglas incident.

In flashbacks, each man reprises the high point of his talent — Bean’s attempt to hit it big in Africa, doing a funny medley of old songs sung with a tribal beat.

Maxwell is a laid-back, inept magician doing some of the funniest magic you’ve ever seen. (It takes great talent to be that bad!)

This is a corny show that will keep the cabaret crowd laughing. After the show, the audience has an opportunity to meet the performers in the lobby, and pose for photos.

How I Learned to Drive

One of the first things that hits you in the first monologue of playwright Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive,” now at Capital Stage under the tight direction of Janis Stevens, is the quality of the writing. There is a Steinbeck-esque quality to the descriptive passages.

“Here on the land the Department of Agriculture owns, the smell of sleeping farm animal is thick in the air. The smells of clover and hay mix with the smells of the leather dashboard …”

It bodes well for what is to come, and the production does not disappoint.

“Sometimes to tell a secret, you first have to teach a lesson,” says L’il Bit (Stephanie Gularte), who uses driving instructions as a metaphor for general behavior, and, as the play progresses, to describe sexual abuse at the hands of her “Uncle Peck” (James Hiser).

There are no superlatives strong enough to describe Gularte’s performance. She plays a woman in her middle 30s looking back over her life, and remembering her conflicted emotions around abuse by Uncle Peck, the only person in her family she felt actually understood her. In chameleon-like fashion, Gularte can be 35 or 11 with only the help of a pony tail and a change in the expression on her face. It is a remarkable performance.

Hiser is disturbingly smarmy as the uncle with whom L’il Bit has a convoluted relationship, yet while smarmy, he is also almost likable, as he exudes Southern charm.

L’il Bit is a lonely girl in a dysfunctional family, longing for love from someone, happy with a grown-up who is willing to listen to her, who tells her he loves her, who seems to understand her but, even as a young child, knowing that things were not quite right.

The action goes back and forth, in L’il Bit’s memory, from childhood to adulthood and back again. The girl is aware that she is not entirely innocent in the relationship. She plays her own cards by being consciously seductive, encouraged by her manipulative uncle.

“Nothing is going to happen between us — until you want it to,” he tells her at several stages of her puberty, implying casually that she’ll give in with enough pressure.

He is the adult in all this, a position of power he uses to ensure that something is, in fact, happening between them.

“You’re crossing the line,” L’il Bit will tell Peck when he gets too close and he will back off … but never entirely.

The cast includes Eric Wheeler, Jamie Jones and Melanie Marshall as a kind of Greek Chorus, keeping the action moving and filling in as several other characters, including L’il Bit’s weird family, who offer a surprising amount comedy in this otherwise dark story.

This play gives a complex look at the subject of incest and molestation, the complicated relationship between a young girl and a man she has known and loved all of her life. But her final monologue reveals for all what it is like to be in her situation and what it does to a girl for the rest of her life. It is chilling.

The brilliant writing of Vogel, who won a Pulitzer Prize for drama for this play; the brilliant direction of one of Sacramento’s true gems, Janis Stevens; and an incredibly talented cast at the top of their game make this a play not to be missed.

Wicked

After two years of teasing, California Musical Theatre finally brought the touring Broadway production of “Wicked” to the Community Center Theater for a four-week run, double the usual time.

Judging by the long line of patrons snaking into the building, the virtually filled theater, and the wild applause that greeted the lowering of the lights prior to the overture, the wait had been worth it.

There’s no question about it, this musical is magnificent. It features a large cast, a spectacular set, beautiful costumes and more special effects than have been seen on the auditorium stage in a very long time. There is an added plus of a real orchestra that does not need so much amplification that your ears hurt.

It’s easy to see why this musical has won every major award possible (35 of them), including the Grammy Award, the Olivier Award, three Tonys and six Drama Desk awards, including best musical. Ticket sales for North America have totaled $1.8 billion.

The success of the musical has boosted the sales of the Gregory Maguire book, already a bestseller, to nearly 5 million.

The story is Maguire’s prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” answering such questions as “why is the wicked witch green?” “Does she have a name?” (Yes — Elphaba — Maguire’s homage to L. Frank Baum’s name), “Was she born mean, or did she become mean?” and “Can anyone really be as sticky sweet as Glinda?”
The fast-paced show travels to all the familiar places we know from “The Wizard of Oz” and the little hints and quotes from the movie are fun to find tucked in among the Stephen Schwartz music, Winnie Holzman script and Eugene Lee set.

Having seen the show once before in San Francisco and being very familiar with the original cast recording, what I liked about this production was that Nicole Parker (Elphaba) and Alli Mauzey (Glinda), who both played the roles on Broadway, made the roles their own, with a more subdued (in spots) performance, a different emphasis on parts of familiar songs, allowing one very quickly to lose the image of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, who originated the roles.

Glinda is the overly perky, blond cheerleader type who arrives at Shiz University surrounded by her adoring entourage and just knowing she is going to end up with the most handsome guy on campus. She is a flibbertigibbet concerned only with herself, her looks and what makes her look good.

Elphaba, having had a sad childhood that included abuse at the hands of her father, and being made to be the caretaker for her disabled sister Nessarose (Emily Ferranti) — someone should drop a house on her — is a serious student, concerned about real-world problems. If she weren’t stuck in Oz she’d be at an Occupy protest somewhere.

The two are assigned to be roommates, and it’s loathing at first sight, though the emotional “For Good,” at the end of the show, tells what kind of effect each has had on the other as their friendship has grown.

Rounding out the cast are a host of Ozians, such as Boq (Justin Brill), the Munchkin who is in love with Glinda and is willing to do anything she wants to win her heart, though in the process he loses his own.

Andy Kelso is Fiyero, who arrives at Shiz the male equivalent of Glinda … not interested in study, wanting only to party and hang out with the most beautiful girls on campus. Over the course of the show, he finds true love and undergoes perhaps the greatest transformation of anyone in the show.

P.J. Benjamin is the Wizard, harboring a secret longing all of his life and realizing, too late, that he didn’t have to look farther than his own front yard because it was there all the time.

Liz McCartney is Madame Morrible, headmistress at Shiz, who takes Elphaba under her wing when she discovers the girl has magical powers that can help her in her own goals.

Though this is a long show (and plan for a long wait in the parking lot afterwards), it passes in an eyeblink. I saw children of all ages in the audience and big groups of them all over the theater who cheered everything. It’s a good-feeling show that will leave you on a high. And the Act 1 finale will give you goose bumps.

The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr

Something’s afoot at the Davis Art Center. It is Acme Theatre Company’s annual gift to the city of Davis, a free production on the center’s outdoor stage, preceded by a barbecue, giving everyone a chance to buy a burger, have a cup of strawberries with a sinfully large dollop of whipped cream, and lounge around on the grass waiting for the show to start.

This year’s production is “The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged)” by Jess Gorgeson, Adam Long and Daniel Singer of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, and directed by Emily Henderson, Geoffrey Albrecht and Hope Raymond.

This is a parody of all of Shakespeare’s plays, traditionally performed by only three actors, but ingeniously arranged so that nine actors can actually do the roles.

Improvisation plays an important role and it is normal for the actors to deviate from the script and have spontaneous conversations about the material with each other or the audience, giving the appearance of something that may be being made up on the spot.

After an “overture” of sorts by many instruments from tuba to kazoo, it was announced by Brian Stewart that the evening’s show would feature an all-male cast. This prompted instant outrage from the female actors in the audience, who organized a protest on the spot, pulling women out of the audience to join in a protest march and occupy the stage.

Peace was restored when the men agreed to let the women be understudies and the play got under way. Beginning with “Romeo and Juliet,” the men (Stewart, Aaron Hirst and Antonio de Loera-Brust) found ingenious ways to work their way through several plays. “Titus Andronicus” was done as a cooking show with Loera-Brust as the hand-less chef, and, recognizing that none of the three was African-American, “Othello” was presented as a rap.

All of the comedies were combined into one convoluted reading by Hirst (the justification being that they all recycle the same plot devices anyway).

When the men ran out of steam, the women “understudies” (listed in the program as “The Company” — Leah Julian, Alina Lusebrink and Hannah Nielsen) took over the stage to present all the histories as a football game, with the crown as the football. Lusebrink’s death as Julius Caesar was a sight to behold. It naturally segued into the sequel, “Anthony and Cleopatra,” where Nielsen displayed a most electric-looking wig.

“Macbeth” was reduced to a witch’s pot and a duel, but done in thick Scottish brogue.
As the first act comes to an end, the stage is littered with crumpled pages of the plays that have been done. Only two are left undone, “Coriolanus,” which they refuse to do because they feel the “–anus” part is vulgar, and “Hamlet.”

The actors are nervous about doing Shakespeare’s most difficult play and run out of the theater, leaving technician Camilla Biaggi nervously telling jokes to the audience and finally calling for intermission, to give herself time to find the missing actors.

Naturally, the actors never return and it is left to the tech crew (Biaggi, Wil Forkin and Nick Mead) to do “Hamlet,” which they do with the help of some audience participation — a couple of people pulled from the audience and the entire audience enlisted to become Ophelia’s subconscious, her ego, superego and id, all to help her produce the perfect reaction to being ordered to “get thee to a nunnery.”

When they finally finish “Hamlet,” the cast does it again, in double-time, and then backwards.

To say this show relies on slapstick is a gross understatement, but it is wonderful fun and all the action should keep even small children entertained. What better way to spend some time on your holiday weekend, than stopping by the Art Center for a hilarious show done by incredibly talented and dedicated young actors?

Rent

It is tragic that composer/lyricist Jonathan Larson never lived to see the phenomenon that his musical, “Rent,” has become. He died of aortic dissection caused by Marfan’s syndrome on the morning of Jan. 25, 1996; the show opened for its off-Broadway run that night.

“Rent” played to sold-out houses, and its run was extended until April 1996, when it moved to the larger Nederlander Theater; it subsequently became the eighth-longest running show in Broadway history, and grossed more than $280 million.

It won every major best musical award, including the Tony, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Tours of “Rent” have criss-crossed the country almost continuously since late 1996. It has been translated into every major language and performed on six continents. The show had such a loyal following in New York that the term “Renthead” came to be used to describe fans who would line up for hours in advance, just to get the $20 rush tickets; they subsequently boasted of having seen the show dozens of times.

One obsessed fan claims to have seen it more than 1,100 times during its 12-year run.

Now, UC Davis’ Studio 301 has brought “Rent” to the Wyatt Pavilion, under the direction of Mitchell VanLandingham and musical direction by Elizabeth Tremaine.

This is obviously a scaled-back version of the musical, but nonetheless enthusiastic, as the performers give it their all, and the intimacy of Wyatt Pavilion helps the audience feel more a part of this group of latter-day Bohemians.

“Rent” is an updated version of Puccini’s opera, “La Boheme,” the music from which is played in brief interludes throughout the show. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians who struggle to survive and create in New York’s Lower East Side, under the shadow of AIDS, at a time when drugs are plentiful.

(Already that theme is dated, as with new medications AIDS is no longer a death sentence and those living with the disease no longer take AZT on strict schedules.) The characters have become a “family they chose,” young people living with life, loss and love.

There are some incredibly gorgeous songs in this show (like “I’ll Cover You,” “Santa Fe,” “Without You” and the iconic “Seasons of Love”), all of which are done beautifully by the cast. The more upbeat tunes suffer from Wyatt Pavilion’s muddy sound system and shoddy sound balance.

All dialog emanates from the same place in the center of the stage, no matter where the actor may be in the building (even when the actor is behind the audience!). The poor sound system also makes crisp diction impossible and a lot of plot points may be lost.

Kyle Lockridge plays filmmaker Mark Cohen, the central figure of the story, whose video, which he shoots throughout the action, forms the narration. Costumer designer Christine Deniz has decided to put him in a more subdued costume than the traditional brightly colored scarf and horn-rimmed glasses that have been such an integral part of the character’s identity. Lockridge’s performance, too, was a bit more subdued than one would expect from this character, though he was competent enough.

Michael Roscoe is the songwriter, Roger Davis, who falls in love with exotic dancer Mimi (Malia Abayon), a drug addict.

The heart of the show is Angel Dumott Schunard, a gay drag queen dying of AIDS. Angel was played the night I saw the show by Ulysses Morazan, substituting for Jason Phillips. One could not ask for a more affecting and moving performance than that given by Morazan, who was tender in his love scenes with Tom Collins (Marcos Sastre III) and outrageous in his dance numbers.

Sastre’s ministrations to Angel and his grief following his partner’s death were heartbreaking.

Others in the cast include Erica Kalingking as attorney Joanne Jefferson, partner to performance artist Maureen Johnson (Rachel Wagner). Ryan Geraghty is Benjamin Coffin III, who was appropriately unlikable as the landlord.

The director and cast are to be congratulated on giving a credible performance of a big Broadway musical.

Little Shop of Horrors

If I had any houseplants, I would not feed them after seeing what happens with Audrey II, the strange plant intent on world domination.

“Little Shop of Horrors,” the new musical at Sacramento Theatre Company, is a musical adaptation of the 1960s Roger Corman science fiction movie of the same name, with book and lyrics by Howard Ashman.
Directed by Michael Laun, and choreographed by Jerald Bolden, this is the story of a strange plant from outer space that finds its way into a Skid Row flower shop, owned by the blustery Mr. Mushnik. The plant is nurtured by Seymour Krelborn, a nerdy shop clerk who likes to experiment with plants and who is madly in love with the naive and somewhat ditzy shop girl, Audrey.

Seymour sees the chance to transform his life and win the heart of Audrey when the curious plant flourishes under his care. The plant, which he names “Audrey II,” is actually a talking creature from outer space and the only way to keep it alive is by feeding it human blood.

When Seymour becomes anemic from Audrey II’s nightly feedings, he is forced to find alternative sources of nourishment for the plant, drawing Seymour into a web of greed and deception that spirals out of control. The results are both hilarious and harrowing.

Andrew J. Perez leads a marvelous cast as Seymour. With his wire-rimmed glasses, tennis shoes and timid demeanor, he makes a perfect nerd, who is determined to save this pathetic, dying plant (“Grow for Me”), and then feeling growing dread as he realizes what the plant needs to eat (“Feed Me”). He can also be tender, in his profession of love to Audrey (the girl) in their duet “Suddenly Seymour.”

Jessica Goldman totters about the stage on ultra high heels, a bit top heavy with a prominent decolletage and a longing to get out of Skid Row and move to “Somewhere That’s Green.” She is victim to her abusive boyfriend, the evil dentist Orin Scrivello (William Elsman), who regularly beats her up, but she feels she doesn’t deserve anything better because she has “a past.” Goldman gives Audrey a beautiful air of vulnerability and innocence.

You have to wonder what sort of dental experiences Ashman had in his youth, given the sadistic antics he has written for Dr. Scrivello. William Elsman is evil personified as he gyrates around the stage in black leather, alternately taking quick sniffs of laughing gas and wielding a huge drill with which to work on Seymour’s mouth.

Elsman not only plays Scrivello, but several other characters as well, male and female, and is listed in the program as “Orin and everyone else.”

Michael R.J. Campbell plays Mr. Mushnik, the flower shop owner who plucked Seymour out of an orphanage and gave him a place to sleep (on the floor of the shop, under the desk) and allows him to have one Sunday off every two weeks. I love Campbell in just about everything he does, and he does not disappoint in this role.

There is a sort of Greek chorus of school dropouts who hang around the flower shop and keep the audience up to date with what is happening. Crystal (Miranda Lawson), Ronnette (Ure Egbuho) and Chiffon (Gabriella “Ella” Isaguirre) keep the action moving and each has a moment to shine. Lawson, in particular, displays a great set of pipes whenever she steps into the spotlight.

But with all this talent, the show really belongs to Audrey II, the plant whose size increases with every scene. Jeffrey Lloyd Heatherly is the booming voice of the plant, at times frighteningly commanding, at other times deceptively whining and pleading for help.

Aaron Hitchcock is the man who really brings the plant to life and gives it such character. He is assisted by Tom Block, Javen Crosby, Daffyd Wynn and Garrick Sigl.

Music is by a small, unseen four-piece combo led by conductor Dan Pool. The wonderful set is by Jarrood Bodensteiner, with lighting design by Jessica Bertine. Jessica Minnihan’s costumes are fun — from the drab, nondescript outfit of Seymour, to the provocative dresses of Audrey, to the glitz of the do-wop girls.

Michael Laun has created a tight, fast-paced production that never fails to delight. “Little Shop of Horrors” is a lesson of what can happen when you wish for it all, get it and then have to deal with the consequences.

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.

13

It’s fairly safe to say that the musical “13″ with book and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown is never going to become a beloved classic that is brought back time and time again.

An older couple talked to me before the show about how much they had loved the previous production of “South Pacific” and hoped that this show would be as good. I wondered what they were thinking as the opening number of “13″ began:

Who’d have guessed Dad would meet a stewardess?
Mom’s depressed and her lawyers are mean
Now I’m stressed, life is a disaster
And I’m cracking from the strain, going totally insane

The plot centers on Evan, a 12-year-old New York Jewish kid about to have his bar mitzvah and looking forward to the party. When he learns his parents are divorcing and that he must move with his mother to Appleton, Ind., he feels his life is over. The show centers on Evan trying to make friends so he can have the big party. Themes include modern teen interest (a lot of emphasis on “kissing with tongue”):

Guys, Kendra’s a good girl. I can’t just hit on her like whack-a-mole.
I do that, I will never get the tongue. Incoming! Kendra, 3 o’clock!

You get the idea.

While this may be the thinnest of plots, what makes it work is a strong cast, and Woodland has that. With a cast whose average age is about 14, it’s not surprising that there is a range of quality and that some voices are not quite up to the songs they have to sing, but overall, they handle the material well and director Amy Shuman has done an excellent job with her cast.

Seventeen-year-old Tony Cellucci, as Evan, is in almost every scene and has seven songs, a huge task for even seasoned performers. Happily, Cellucci carries it like a pro. He is likeable, he takes command of the stage, sings well, and he dominates any scene in which he appears. He is particularly wonderful in “Evan’s Haftorah.”

Devin DeGeyter is Archie, Evan’s disabled pal. So convincing is DeGeyter dragging himself around the stage on his crutches that it was almost a surprise to see him walk on stage for the final bows. He has more of a New York attitude than a mid-west attitude but he is a great, memorable character.

Abby Miles is Patrice, Evan’s new next-door neighbor. We never find out why exactly she is disliked by everyone else in the high school but she is a wonderful best friend, and very poignant in songs like “Good Enough.”

Not surprisingly, the most popular guy in school is Brett, the football star (Peter DeBello), who is the guy who is determined to kiss Kendra with tongue. He is obsessed with tongue. DeBello gives a solid performance

McKinley Carlisle is Lucy, Patrice’s best friend. Carlisle, making her opera house debut, has 13 years of theater under her belt and it shows in her comfort on stage. At 18, she is one of the oldest in the cast.
Emma Black plays Kendra and is the perfect high-pitched teenage girl, whose innocence is a great part of her character.

Some of the smaller roles, Emily Miller as Cassie and Devon Hayakawa as Charlotte give outstanding performances in some of the ensemble numbers.

Sets moved on and off stage are almost nonexistent, but set designer John Bowles makes use of projections on the back wall, which is very effective.

Rodgers and Hammerstein this ain’t, but for the right audience, “13″ is an enjoyable show. When the show opened in Jerusalem, it became an overnight sensation. There were certainly a lot of very excited young people whooping and hollering on opening night.

Robert Lautz (feature story)

 It will be a proud day when Robert Lautz’s play, “The Meaning of it All” makes its world premiere at California Stage’s Wilkerson Theater on Friday, April 27. Directed by Ray Tatar, this 20th presentation for California Stage is set in the Italian Renaissance and deals with love, intrigue and alchemy.

It is also a debut play for Lautz, who has spent the past six years polishing his skills as a playwright. What the audience will see is his 11th version of this story, which he has been thinking about for most of his life.
This now 50-something-year-old did not start out to be a playwright; he wanted to be a jazz musician. Lautz had played music all his life and went to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston as a drummer, but found that didn’t really meet his needs.

“When you’re a drummer, they give you a pad and put you in a room and tell you to keep banging on it,” he said.

Looking for more interaction, after making friends with jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton (who went on to become vice president of Berklee, before his retirement), Lautz took up the vibraphone and became a composition major (“a natural for a percussionist,” he says).

After graduation, he “borrowed” the family car (his father never got it back) and drove across the country to return to his native California. He had grown up in the Bay Area and after his return, settled in Santa Cruz.
“I got there in April and the car still had snow tires on it,” he recalls.

He became a street musician, playing on the streets and in malls and gigs up and down the California coast, whenever he could find work, supporting himself for some 20 years.

It was after his wife, whom he met in Santa Cruz, became pregnant that he decided that “this jazz musician thing may not work out financially.”

In 1995, he ended up on the California Arts Council, a move that would bring him to Davis. By this time he had two daughters, ages 4 and 2, and real estate agents took him all over Sacramento looking for a house.
“Then I drove out to Davis, first getting lost on Olive Drive. But we fell in love with the town. It was a great place to raise our daughters,” he said.

Friends in Sacramento warned him that Davis was where the liberals were, “but we came from Santa Cruz!” he added, laughing.

“I’d always liked writing,” Lautz said, when asked about his play. Built while concentrating on his music, he’d never written anything officially. He had an idea floating around in his head about what would happen if someone invented a “universal solvent” that dissolves anything (kind of a variation on the King Midas touch).
He approached California Stage’s Ray Tatar with his idea.

“I was so naive,” he said. “He probably gets hundreds of play ideas pitched to him.”

Tatar, however, was intrigued enough to let Lautz know he would be willing to read his script once it was written, and if it was good enough, he would produce it.

Realizing that Lautz had no experience writing a play, Tatar suggested he connect with Rich Foster, the dramaturg for California Stage.
“He lives in Sonora and is a wonde
rful playwright and writer and volunteers his time to help aspiring writers,” Lautz explained. “Without him, I would not know how to write a play.”

Over the next five to six years, Lautz worked on his play, and Foster gave constructive criticism.

“I remember the first draft I sent him. He just tore it apart. He’s been wonderfully honest. After his criticism, I asked lots of questions. He said ‘bravo to your wonderful response to my savagery.’ ”

Lautz discovered that when one plot point doesn’t work, it sometimes requires making massive changes. His cast, for example, doubled in size, from three to six.

“Writing is a struggle. You lock yourself in a room and ask ‘why am I even attempting this?’ Rick would have ideas different from mine, but it made me realize he was right,” Lautz said.

“Sometimes you have dialog working so well but then you realize that in order to introduce a new idea you have to tear apart something and then mend it. I might be in love with a line that works well and realize I had to throw it out to get better perspective about what the story is all about.”

One of the ideas that had to go was the play’s setting. Lautz explained that originally he had scenes all over the place, including one on top of the leaning tower of Pisa, until he realized that, economically, he needed to find a way to set the whole thing in one room.

There will be incidental music throughout the play, from the time before the play starts to exit music. Lautz did a lot of research on music of the period which, he explained, tends to be mostly sacred vocal music music.

“I wanted small instrumental ensembles and I’ve found some really wonderful, charming and even goofy music,” he said.

Lautz also sought help from Franco Renosto, a retired UC Davis faclty member who is perhaps better known as a youth soccer coach, for translating some of the script into Italian, to give the play an authentic sound.

“When the characters get angry, they are more likely to speak rapidly in Italian,” he said.

After a long labor process, “The Meaning of It All” is about to be born, and there will be no prouder first-time papa than Lautz. The show opens April 27 and runs weekends through May 27. On Sunday, April 29, the playwright and his translator will hold a talk-back with the audience.

Million Dollar Quartet

There’s a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on over at the Sacramento Community Center. A lot of grey haired people are dancin’ and clappin, whoopin’ and hollerin’ like it’s 1956.

And, in fact, it is. On stage, that is.

“Million Dollar Quartet” recreates a famous night shortly before Christmas in 1956 when Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley gathered at Sun Recording studio in Memphis, Tenn., where three had launched their careers and Lewis was about to do so. The group, the only time the four ever performed together, held an impromptu jam session, about which a reporter who was present at the time wrote, “this quartet could sell a million.”

Now there is a juke box type musical about that momentous event (which the screen on stage before the show proclaims “made rock and roll history”), written by Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux and directed by Eric Schaffer.

This could be a ho-hum, just like every other juke box musical, but it has an outstanding cast as the quartet – Martin Kaye as Jerry Lee Lewis,  Lee Ferris as Carl Perkins, Derek Keeling as Johnny Cash and Cody Slaughter as Elvis Presley. Unlike the cast of “Jersey Boys,” the men are all gifted musicians and don’t just play the roles, they play the music as well. (So important is this that even the understudies get their photos and bios in the program)

Christopher Ryan Grant is Sam Phillips, the visionary owner of Sun Records, who saw potential in these poor boys who showed up at his studio with a new idea about music.

Kelly Lamont has the thankless task of being Presley’s girlfriend. Her role is completely superfluous and though she gives a dynamite performance of “Fever” it seems like something stuck in just to get a woman into the cast.

Billy Shaffer and Chuck Zayas round out the cast, as back-up musicians. Zayas in particular twirls a mean bass.

This is a show that is all about the music. “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “See You Later, Alligator,” “Hound Dog” — as well as country songs and spirituals like “Peace in the Valley” and “Down by the Riverside.” There is a thin plot to give Phillips a chance to guide the piece, but really everyone is there to hear the music. And nobody will be disappointed.

In 1956, Presley’s star was on the rise (funniest line of the night, after complaining of his treatment in Las Vegas, Elvis says “I’ll never play Las Vegas again.” It got a big laugh from the audience.). He had just signed with RCA, Cash was about to sign with Capitol. Jerry Lee Lewis was about to burst on the music scene (and we all know how that went!)

While it may be thought that Presley would be the most memorable in this production, actually it is Kaye as Lewis who steals the show. He’s a brash young kid, convinced of his talent and determined to make people know how talented he is. Today he would be diagnosed as having ADD, as he can’t keep still, and can’t stop breaking into incredible piano riffs when he’s supposed to be filling in the background.

Keeling has the deep voice that we identify with the later in life Johnny Cash, though oddly enough the section of the real recording made in 1956 shows that booze and cigarettes had not yet affected the timbre of Cash’s voice at that time. Still, you want to wallow around in those great low notes that Keeling gives us.
Slaughter must grease his hip joints after every performance, so fluid is his body movement. Some of his poses are amazing.

By the end of the show, the whole audience was on its feet clapping and singing along and remembering when we were all part of the birth of rock and roll. I hadn’t seen my husband so happy at a musical in the 12 years of my time as critic!

Titanic

It was six years ago, on closing night of the Davis Musical Theatre Company’s production of “Titanic: the Musical” that director Steve Isaacson made the decision to repeat the show on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the ship. He confided that he actually knocked off two weeks of rehearsal in order to make that happen.

Open a show of this magnitude with two weeks less rehearsal time? (And on Friday the 13th to boot!) It sounded like a recipe for a Titanic-sized disaster, especially recalling the good, if uneven, quality of the previous production. I crossed my fingers and hoped it would be good.

I needn’t have worried. This is a wonderful production, which went off, on opening night, without any of the glitches that befell the show last time.

There were plenty of things that could go wrong, but nothing did. The technical glitches from last time didn’t materialize, the things that hadn’t worked were eliminated. Everything else worked like clockwork (or if it didn’t, the audience wasn’t aware of problems).

With a cast of nearly 50, it’s inevitable that there will be performances that don’t live up to the really good ones, but with only two exceptions, everyone was, at best, outstanding, at “worst,” not quite on a level with the outstanding, but still good.

Among the outstanding performances was Dan Masden as Frederick Barrett, the stoker, who sends his proposal by telegraph home to his sweetheart. His “Barrett’s Song” was a highlight.

Likewise, Amber Jean Moore as Alice, a second-class passenger, wife of Edgar (Scott Griffith), is marvelous as a star-struck woman who longs to rub elbows with the likes of John Jacob Astor (Mark Deamer) or Benjamn Guggenheim (Rich Kulmann).

The always wonderful Marguerite Morris plays two roles, paired with Scott Minor both times, which is a little confusing. As a German couple, Morris and Minor are very moving in their duet “Still.”

A glance at the newspaper reproductions in the lobby will make it obvious that Joel Porter was a perfect choice to play Capt. E.J. Smith. Not only does he resemble him, but he sings the part very well.

Kyle Hadley brings the same life and enthusiasm to the character of Bandmaster Wallace Hartley as he did to Nicely Nicely Johnson in “Guys and Dolls.” His “Doing the Latest Rag” was lots of fun. Kudos to Jacob Montoya for the choreography.

Andy Hyun was wonderful as Charles Clark, headed off to America with his girlfriend (Rebecca Wilson), where they plan to be married.

Jenny Reuter was cute as one of the three Irish Kates headed to America to find jobs as ladies’ maids.
Adam Sartain as Bruce Ismay, the director of the White Star Line, spends the entire voyage angry that the ship isn’t going faster, convinced that there would never be a danger to the passengers. His barely controlled rage was at times a little over the top.

David Holmes is Thomas Andrews, the designer of the ship, so proud as his creation sails off into the North Atlantic, so frustrated when he stands on the tilting deck of the ship, wondering where it all went wrong.

All of the children give professional-quality performances.

It should be pointed out that this is not a plot show, but focuses on vignettes featuring one or two or three individuals at a time. We don’t get involved in anybody’s lives enough to worry about this or that person, but instead we care about all of the passengers.

I found myself quite emotional as the passengers boarded the ship, knowing what was to come. “Godspeed Titanic” is an incredibly moving number, as the ship begins to sail out to meet its fate.

I was also emotional at the closing tableau with half the cast saved and the other half about to die.

The sets, designed by Isaacson and Mark Deamer, are less elaborate than the 2006 production, but the missing elements were not missed and what is left is sufficient. The effect of the ship sinking is marvelous.
Jean Henderson’s costumes are always elegant, though I wish she had given Ismay a bit more believable mustache.

The program lists a 17-piece orchestra but the covered pit in which they play made it difficult for the audience to hear more than the piano, which is a shame.

While the ship Titanic may have sunk 100 years ago, DMTC’s “Titanic: The Musical” will sail effortlessly through the remaining days of its run.

Relapse

The Orpheus myth has been told and retold ever since the lyric poet was first mentioned in the sixth century B.C. Greeks venerated him as the greatest of all poets and musicians.

It was Virgil who introduced Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, who dies in a fatal accident. Orpheus was so distraught that he travels to the underworld to bargain for her return to life.

As the story goes, he played such a sad song for the gods that their hearts were moved and they allowed Eurydice to return with Orpheus to the upper world, on condition that Orpheus walk out without looking back to make sure she is following him.

Being human (and this being a story with a moral), Orpheus succumbs to temptation, looks back, and Eurydice vanishes forever.

Many variations of the story have been presented in the modern day. There have been at least 30 films using the Orpheus theme. “Black Orpheus,” for example, was the Brazilian movie made by Marcel Camus, which sets the story in modern-day Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval.

Sarah Ruhl’s “Eurydice” (recently presented by Acme Theatre Company in Davis) tells the story from the woman’s point of view, where we learn that in the underworld she is reunited with her father, whose love for his daughter is so strong she chooses to remain with him rather than follow her husband back to the upper world.

Now the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble takes a new look at the story, giving it a fresh new twist with “Relapse, a Retelling of the Orpheus Myth with Shakespeare’s Sonnets” now being presented at the Natsoulas Gallery.

In a memorable performance by Gia Batistta and Bob Salas, the focus is once again on the story from the point of view of Eurydice and the action is based on the movement (by movement director Gabby Battista), which is both mechanical and fluid, the dialog coming from the sonnets of Shakespeare.

We see Eurydice as a vibrant woman, mesmerized by an opening in the floor that seems to be giving her some sort of energy or revitalization. Her movement is disrupted by the abrupt entrance of Orpheus, whose movements are much more sharp and serious.

She exits and he brings in a box, which he places right on top of the space that Eurydice was just playing with. He then exits and she discovers he has ruined her source of energy/self-empowerment.

We watch Orpheus vacillate between his love for his wife, his muse, whom he puts on a pedestal, so dependent is he on her inspiration for his creativity. The pedestal has the effect of keeping her tied to the writer and squelching her own freedom.

The result of her inhibition is the ultimate death of Eurydice. In a beautiful and moving moment, we watch the woman singing a beautiful song as she slowly begins to walk into the underworld, while Orpheus bemoans her death.

As in the myth, Orpheus travels to the underworld to bring her back and ultimately, as the pair begin to return, Eurydice speaks to Orpheus, causing him to turn around, and Eurydice regains her freedom.

Battista and Salas have beautiful chemistry and create, once again, a moving portrait of the star-crossed lovers and the tragedy that results from a lopsided love where one strives to dominate the other, to the detriment of both.

As Battista sees her role, “I felt inspired to call attention to the gender problems in this story, and really bring out how much Eurydice is objectified by Orpheus as he ultimately uses her up — leading to her death, solely for his own benefit.

“I also wanted to explore the idea that he is not going to the underworld to save her, but to save himself. I wanted to bring out the idea that Eurydice is strong enough to make her own decision of her fate as she chooses to stay in the underworld and does not need to be rescued, because she has found new peace and freedom with herself.”

Barrymore

John Barrymore was born to perform. He was a member of a theatrical dynasty, which included his father, Maurice Barrymore, a dashing leading man, his mother, Georgiana Drew, an accomplished comedienne, and his uncle, John Drew, the “First Gentleman of the American Stage.” His siblings were Lionel and Ethel and he is, of course, the grandfather of young Drew Barrymore.

In his early career he was noted for light comedy, but after a few more substantial roles, which proved his ability to play tragedy as well as comedy, he made theater history in March 1920 when opened in Shakespeare’s “Richard III.” His was described as “the most inspired performance this generation has ever seen.” Critics hailed the production as “the beginning of a new era for Shakespeare on the American stage.”

Barrymore later went on to portray “one of the greatest Hamlets ever seen in New York.” Of that role, Laurence Olivier recalled that “Everything about him was exciting. He was athletic, he had charisma, and, to my young mind, he played the part to perfection.”

Financial problems, largely due to the demands of his many ex-wives, however, brought him to a more lucrative career in Hollywood and many roles in silent films, and then talking pictures. By the 1930s, his skills and memory were on the decline, due to the effects of hard living, hard drinking and possible early Alzheimer’s. Unable to remember his lines, he was forced to read from blackboards just out of camera range, and he began to be offered second-rate, rather than starring roles.

“Barrymore,” a play by William Luce, now at Sacramento Theatre Company’s Pollock Stage under the direction of Greg Alexander, is set close to the end of the actor’s life.

Barrymore has rented an old theater and he is there to run lines for “Richard III” in the hopes of appealing to backers so he can once again bring Richard III to Broadway.

The role of John Barrymore is the role of a lifetime and Gregory North tackles the challenge and comes up winner. He has the stature, the profile and the panache for the role. He is resplendent in either a double-breasted suit or a Richard III costume (nice job by costumer McKayla Butym).

The two acts of the play are quite different from each other. Act 1 is the jumble of an old theater, filled with set pieces, props and audience seats (people are invited to sit on the stage, if they desire). Scenic designer Mims Mattair’s carefully arranged clutter lends the perfect atmosphere.

The disarray mirrors the jumble of Barrymore himself, whose dialog is filled with a verbal avalanche of memories, off-color jokes, observations and brief scenes from plays in which he has appeared (and even a recitation of the poem “The Hound of Heaven,” which sounds quite Shakespearean, in context).

His prompter, the off-stage voice of Elly Award winner Sean Patrick Nill, tries to keep him at the task of running Richard III lines, mostly unsuccessfully. When Barrymore tries to stick with the script, his frustration at not remembering the lines leads him off in another direction time and time again, his distraction not at all helped by the amount of liquor he ingests throughout the act.

In Act 2, dressed as Richard the III, we get a better sense of the fear within the man as he struggles mightily to remember his lines. It is obvious he will never play this role again.

Playwright Luce plays loose with the dialog, occasionally using expressions that seem more contemporary than reflecting the era in which Barrymore lived. There is also a point in Act 2, following an attack of trembling hands, where the prompter asks the actor if he has thought of going to AA. But Barrymore died in 1942 and Alcoholics Anonymous was not founded until 1957. It was a glaring error.

Those points aside, this is a powerful show and will send you to Google to get further information on a man who was once one of the most respected members of the illustrious Barrymore family.

True West

Sam Shepard’s “True West” is not a comedy, but there is enough funny stuff in this dark and gritty play to relieve the unrelenting tension from time to time.

In Capital Stage’s brilliant new production of Shepard’s 1980 classic, director Stephanie Gularte creates a world where brothers Austin and Lee circle around each other, playing the antagonistic roles they have played all of their lives, engaging in a familiar, yet potentially deadly dance of sibling rivalry.

Cole Alexander Smith is Austin, a struggling Hollywood playwright who has come to house-sit for Mom, who is off in Alaska. Austin is the “good son,” we quickly realize. Mom knew he would keep her home tidy and her many house plants watered and Austin is looking to get away from his wife and family for the quiet of Mom’s house, where he can finish his screenplay in peace.

Lee (Jonathan Rhys Williams), who has not seen his brother in five years, is the ne’er-do-well, just off of three months out in the Mojave Desert, and determined to be the raspberry seed in Austin’s wisdom tooth, as he staggers around the kitchen in a beer-besotted haze, doing whatever he can to break his brother’s concentration, trying to minimize his dedication to his work.

“You probably think that I’m not fully able to comprehend somethin’ like that, huh? … that stuff you’re doin’, that art. You know. Whatever you call it. … I did some a’ that. I fooled around with it. No future in it.”

Lee’s “future” seems to be in the income he can get from breaking and entering and stealing things from the neighbors.

It is a brilliant performance by Williams, arrogant in his slovenly, laconic attitude, yet with perhaps a bit of wistfulness about what might have been in his life.

Smith’s Austin is more of an everyman, a buttoned-down, uptight man who doesn’t quite believe in his own talents and who is nervous about an upcoming script conference with Hollywood producer Saul Kimmer (Eric Baldwin). He waters his mother’s plants and worries about their alcoholic father, and tries to write despite Lee’s constant interruptions.

Yet it is Austin who undergoes the greatest transformation as the play progresses, revealing that while he disapproves of Lee’s lifestyle, he actually is as envious of Lee’s ability to step into any situation — no matter how inappropriate — and come up owning it, as Lee is of Austin’s success.

When the producer arrives, it is Lee who takes over the interview, insisting that he has an idea for a new Western, a modern Western, though he has not put a word to paper. It is Lee with whom Kimmer makes a golf date and who comes home with a contract to write his Western.

Baldwin does well as the superficial producer, interested only in the money he can make, and not in the value of the script he is buying.

As the play progresses, the tension between the two brothers reaches the breaking point and the inevitable confrontation is cataclysmic (and, one has to believe, a nightmare for stage hands!).

“True West” includes wonderful soliloquies for both characters, including Austin’s hilarious and heartbreaking account of how their father lost his teeth, twice.

Lee’s reflections on family life as seen by someone on the outside — ”Like a paradise,” he says. ”Kinda place that sorta kills ya inside. … Blonde people movin’ in and outta the rooms, talkin’ to each other. Kinda place you sort of wish you grew up in, ya know?” — give a bit of poignancy to his character.

Janis Stevens makes a brief appearance as the men’s mother. While this could have been a time for histrionics, her beaten-down, underplayed demeanor eloquently tells us all we need to know about what it was like to raise these two, and how many times she has had to referee their spats.

This is a play that is as compelling as the need to watch a train wreck as you see it coming. The characters will stay with you long after you leave the theater.

Mamma Mia

“Mamma Mia” may be the longest, fanciest paternity test on record.

This musical, celebrating the music of the 1970s Swedish group ABBA, is a collection of ABBA songs loosely hung on the story of young Sophie, on the eve of her wedding, trying to figure out which of her mother’s three old boyfriends might be her father, so that he can give her away.

Now you can find out who it is by going to the Sacramento Community Theater, through Sunday.

Though ABBA, which burst onto the scene when its song ‘Waterloo” won the Eurovision Song Festival in England in 1974, was “bigger than the Beatles” in Australia when it did its first world tour in 1977, it only had one song (“Dancing Queen”) that made it to the top of the charts in the United States.

The group enjoyed only modest success in this country until the release of its album “ABBA Gold” (after the group had broken up) in the 1990s, when everyone realized they actually knew most of the songs — they just hadn’t appreciated them before!

In 1999, Catherine Johnson decided to take 22 of the best-known ABBA songs (written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus) and weave a story around the lyrics. “Mamma Mia” was born.

The show is now celebrating more than 4,000 performances in its 10th year at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater and it remains among Broadway’s top-selling musicals. The current North American tour has played more than 3,700 performances in 150-plus cities, with 145 repeat visits. (This is its third time in Sacramento.)

The Associated Press calls “Mamma Mia” “a phenomenon, and it has succeeded in the impossible — making bell-bottom pants cool again!”

At Tuesday’s opening performance, many of the touring principal roles were played by understudies, but you’d be hard-pressed to know that without checking the substitute board in the lobby.

The story centers around single mother Donna Sheridan (Kaye Tuckerman) raising her daughter Sophie (Chloe Tucker) on the Greek island where Sophie was conceived, the product of a liaison with one of three men. Donna has built herself a successful taverna and has no need of a man in her life.

But Sophie is about to be married to Sky (Travis Taber) and she wants her real father to give her away. Having snooped through Donna’s diary, she invites three men — Harry Bright (Jeff Applegate), Bill Austin (John Michael Zuerlein) and Sam Carmichael (Christian Whelan) to her wedding, unbeknownst to Donna. The men all arrive, thinking Donna has invited them.

Also attending the wedding are Donna’s two friends, her back-up singers when the three were Donna and the Dynamos. Tanya (Michelle Elizabeth Dawson) and Rosie (Kittra Wynn Coomer) are delightful comediennes. It’s hard to know which is funnier — watching the tall, distinguished, somewhat bored Tanya take a pratfall or the more robust Rosie trying to fit into her old costume.

Choreography by Anthony van Lasst is a delight, particularly the male chorus on the occasion of Sky’s bachelor party (you try tap dancing in those things!).

For ABBA fans, the fun is trying to figure out which of the ABBA songs (printed alphabetically in the program, not chronologically) is going to fit in with the current plot twist.

By the end of the show, you will be having the time of your life, and enthusiastically shouting “I do! I do! I do!” with the bride. Standing and waving your arms is OK, too!

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.

Leading Ladies

“Leading Ladies,” by Ken Ludwig, directed by Howard Hupe for the Winters Theatre Company, is comedy about two British Shakespearean actors — Jack Clark (Trent Beeby) and Leo Gable (Scott Taylor) — who find themselves so down on their luck that they are reduced to making a not-so-grand tour of rural Pennsylvania doing “Scenes from Shakespeare.”

After a disastrous performance at a Moose Lodge, Jack reads that an old lady in York, Pa., is about to die and leave her fortune to her two long-lost English nephews, whom she has not seen in a very long time. The actors resolve to pass themselves off as her beloved relatives and get the cash. The trouble is, when they get to York, they find out that the relatives aren’t nephews, but nieces!

With a suitcase full of costumes, the two men become women and the comedy is on.

Beeby and Taylor are likeable actors who try their best to use a British accent. Beeby succeeds more consistently, but Taylor gives up early into the play and only occasionally comes out with a word or a sentence that is said in a kinda/sorta British accent. But who really cares when the two are so much fun to watch on stage?

Beeby is also the more convincing of the two as a woman, while Taylor adopts such a twisted odd body language that it’s difficult to understand why anybody finds him attractive as a girl. I thought at first that his shoes hurt his feet, which would explain his odd gait, but observed later that he is able to walk upright without tripping all over himself, so the body language is just … strange.

The actors arrive at the home of Aunt Florence (Lauri Vaughn), after hearing the news of her demise. The reports of her death, however, have been greatly exaggerated and the old woman is still very much alive and unhesitatingly accepts Jack/Maxine and Leo/Stephanie as her long-lost nieces.

Vaughn is a suitably cranky old woman and spends most of the play irritated by her doctor (Jesse Akers), who seems eager to pronounce her dead.

Jack finds himself drawn to Florence’s stage-struck niece Meg (Joanie Bryant), who is not quite, but almost, engaged to the local minister, Duncan (Jim Hewlett), a strict suitor who quashes her love of theater because he feels theater people are “loud, flamboyant and too … theatrical.”

It is Duncan who feels that something is not quite right with these two fortune-hunting “nieces” and he’s determined to get to the bottom of things.

Bryant is delightful as Meg and Hewlett plays the dullard beautifully.

Jessica Eldrige plays Audrey, whom Jack and Leo meet on the train on their way to York. She herself is loosely connected to Doc’s son Butch (Jeremy Nelson), though has an eye for Jack as well. Eldrige simply sparkles in each of her scenes. She has an expressive face and an endearing manner and is a delight to watch.

The plot builds up to a hilarious production of “Twelfth Night,” which allows Jack to come in as himself to direct the show, while at the same time maintaining his alter ego as Maxine, requiring some quick costume changes.

The set is the same used for most of the plays at the Winters Community Theater, with the front door stage left instead of stage right this time, and an interesting cut-out for the entrance to the patio. The confines of the community center stage don’t allow for much variation from this set, and the company always finds interesting ways to make it look different.

“Leading Ladies” is a lightweight comedy, presented in the usual Winters Theatre Company way, which will leave the audience laughing.

South Pacific

Some enchanted evening, you may find yourself at the Woodland Opera House watching a wonderful production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific,” directed by Angela Baltezore, with musical direction by Dan Pool. But be quick, it closes April 1.

“South Pacific” is one of those marvelous, comfortable old chestnuts where you can probably hum along with every song (but please don’t!) and yet it’s best not to examine the plot too carefully, because it’s filled with a lot of not-very-nice stuff (like racism and child prostitution) all surrounded by beautiful and engaging music.

Baltezore’s production is a real gem, with strong characters, wonderful choreography and an orchestra that, after a sometimes wobbily overture, settled in to provide a lush background for the likes of “Younger than Springtime,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Bali Ha’i” and a dozen or so other numbers.

The show centers around the expatriate French planter and widower Emile de Becque (Michael Maples) and his love for Ensign Nellie Forbush (Catherine Nickerson). DeBecque is looking for another wife to be not only his soulmate, but the mother to his two children Ngana (Jordan Hayakawa) and Jerome (James Hayakawa) by his Polynesian wife.

Nellie is an unsophisticated girl from Arkansas who has a “gee-whiz, gorsh” Southern hick simplicity about her and who doesn’t know if she can fit into Emile’s world. She is also unaware that he has been married before, or that he has children.

The role of Emile de Becque was played on Broadway initially by the Italian baritone Ezio Pinza and in the movie by the Italian actor Rossano Brazzi, so those familiar with the show are accustomed to hearing an Italian portraying a Frenchman (an accent is an accent is an accent). It is difficult to pinpoint Maples’ accent (Esperanto, perhaps?), but whatever it was, he was consistent throughout. And when you have a suave, debonnaire figure to swoon over, who cares about accent authenticity?

On the other hand, it would be difficult to believe that Nickerson were not a native Southerner, judging by her own accent. She sparkles in this role and is particularly winsome in “Gonna Wash that Man Right Outta My Hair.”

Deborah Hammond steals the show as Bloody Mary, the mysterious Polynesian woman who sells trinkets to the military and who isn’t above selling the body of her young daughter Liat to a handsome young U.S. Navy lieutenant, just arrived at the base, in the hope that he will marry her and take her to America.
(Liat was played the night I saw the show by Briahna Yee, but she alternates in the role with Allison Ruanto.)

Spenser Micetich is that young lieutenant (Joseph Cable). Micetich is a marvel. This young actor is only a senior in high school, yet he has a maturity far beyond his years and has already won an Elly for his portrayal of Jean Valjean in the Young People’s production of “Les Miserables.” But here he is playing against an adult cast, and he holds his own beautifully.

Cable is taken to Bali Ha’i by Bloody Mary and begins an affair with young Liat, yet when Mary assumes the two will marry, he realizes that the prejudices against a mixed marriage are too great and he leaves the young girl.

At the same time, Nellie has encountered de Becque’s children and while she can forgive his confession that he killed a man in France, the idea of his having been married to a Polynesian woman is just too much for her Southern upbringing to handle.

Cable sings the song “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” which is as timely today as it was when the musical premiered in 1949: “You have to be taught, before it’s too late / before you are six, or seven, or eight / to hate all the people your relatives hate / you have to be carefully taught.”

Outstanding is the performance of Alex Cesena as the scheming entrepreneurial Seabee Luther Billis, always looking to make a deal, desperate to find a woman. A highlight was his performance of “Honey Bun,” which he performs with Nellie at the camp’s Thanksgiving talent show.

The ensemble is excellent, particularly the Seabees, a group of men who each have small solos to sing and who each seem to have principal-quality voices. Worthy of special note are Eric Catalan as “Professor” and Jason Hammond as “Stewpot.”

Kudos to set designer John Bowles for his simple design, which worked beautifully for each scene. The projection of Bali Ha’i was a particularly lovely bit.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable production. Don’t miss it!

Dial M for Murder

When the lights go up on Sacramento Theatre Company’s wonderful production of Frederick Knott’s “Dial M for Murder,” the first thing the audience notices is not the actors on the stage, but the gorgeous set itself.

This is Mims Mattair’s second set design for STC and it is stunning. It is the living room of the affluent couple, Tony Wendice (Matt K. Miller) and his wife Margot (Jackie Vanderbeck) in 1950s London. The apartment’s lush red walls with various embellishments and tchotchkes on the shelves are just beautiful.

But that’s just the start of the delicious things to come in this three-act classic play. Many may remember the 1954 Hitchcock movie with Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings. It was a perfect vehicle for Hitchcock — a foolproof murder plot that somehow isn’t quite foolproof after all.

Mystery writer Max Halliday (Barry Hubbard) explains that there are five reasons why murders are committed: fear, jealousy, greed, vengeance and romance.

For former professional tennis player Tony Wendice, four out of five was enough to decide to hatch an elaborate plot to kill his wealthy wife, whom he has discovered has been cheating on him with Halliday. The wife would be out of the way and Tony would inherit her fortune.

After sending Margot and Halliday out for a night on the town, Tony makes arrangements to meet with Captain Lesgate, aka C.A. Swann (Scott Divine), an old classmate and petty criminal, whom Tony has been stalking for a long time, in order to get incriminating evidence with which he can blackmail the man into doing the murder.

It’s the perfect crime. Tony has thought of everything. Everything, in fact, except Margot surviving the attempted murder and, in the process, killing her attacker.

The investigation part of the story is right out of the 1970s detective series, “Columbo,” with Inspector Hubbard in a rumpled trench coat, always having “just one more question” to ask of Tony, who is forever offering possible answers for unanswered questions, unaware that he may be digging his own grave by doing so.

Matt Miller is at the top of his game (again) as the seemingly affable husband, with the sneering malevolence behind the friendly grin. There is a frenetic energy as he thinks on his feet when his plans go awry and an evil cackle when unexpected twists seem to be making his plan work more beautifully than even he imagined.

Jackie Vanderbeck plays the intimidated wife beautifully. Weighted down by guilt because of her earlier indiscretion, she unquestioningly follows Tony’s orders, even when they seem silly. She was somewhat sabotaged by an Act 1 dress that was just … silly, with a huge ruffle outlining the front of it (fortunately, her subsequent costumes were lovely). When the plot takes an unexpected turn, she is very flustered and displays her confused fragility well.

As for Max Halliday, Margot’s former lover, Hubbard plays him as an open, friendly American, who, at the start of the play, has accepted that his relationship with Margot is over and hopes they can now be friends. Max creates a scenario for Tony to save Margot that is closer to reality than he realizes.

Gary Alan Wright is just great as Inspector Hubbard, who never accepts the police version of who killed Captain Lesgate and keeps sleuthing even after the trial has concluded. He’s the investigator you’d like to have on your side.

Scott Divine as the luckless bungling would-be assassin has a small role, but he makes the most of it, as he slowly realizes how Tony has been playing him for months and how he has been backed into a corner from which he cannot escape.

Making his on-stage debut, Aaron Hitchcock is the policeman, Thompson, whose very brief appearances delight the audience.

“Dial M for Murder” is a great thriller. It’s not a mystery because we know exactly what happens, but watching how the story plays out is the fun of it all. Kudos to director Greg Alexander for commanding a tight ship and creating such an enjoyable evening — even if it does last three hours!

My Spiritual Death (feature story)

Katie Rubin may just be one of the busiest performers you’re likely to meet.

She is just finishing a run in Capital Stage’s “In the Next Room, The Vibrator Play,” she recently brought her “Amazing & Sage, a Joke-o-so-theom,” to Capital Stage and other stages in Northern and Southern California, and now she is back with her newest one-woman show, “My Spiritual Death, a Comedy Show.”
Her solo show will be presented for two nights only, Friday and Saturday, at Capital Stage in Sacramento.

The UC Davis graduate, now Los Angeles-based actress, already has performed this work several times in Los Angeles and twice in Sacramento.

Can jokes about family trauma, addiction, self-loathing, affirmations, abundance consciousness, new thought-ism and energy healing actually make us laugh?

Rubin had been writing jokes for a long time.

“I had this idea to do a small hour of stand-up material on spirituality and recovery for five years or so,” she explains. “One day I was sick of having these jokes and not doing anything with them, so I contacted my friend Georgia at the Center for Spiritual Awareness and said ‘Let’s do a show in three months.’ In that three-month period of time I turned all of my jokes into a show.”

Unlike her previous shows, “Amazing and Sage” and “Insides Out,” this show is less personal.

“It has two characters who create a kind of narrative structure and the jokes happen at the end,” Rubin says.

“This was easier to do than the first two shows,” she adds. “In part, because I already had all the material, but also because it was not so personal to me, it wasn’t so gut-wrenching and painful and connected to my own inner journey, it was more about people I had observed outside of myself.

“It’s easier to create a character when it’s not your own story. The character who narrates the show is an amalgam of many people I met in 12-step rooms, but the narrator of the show is not me.”

Anyone who has watched the actress in any of her one-woman shows knows how frenetic she works, creating various characters and displaying conflicting emotions rapidly and seamlessly as she bounces about the stage.

“My Spiritual Death” runs “a nice tight hour,” she explains, adding that the show doesn’t have a formal director.

“It’s not a show that requires much direction,” Rubin says. “I have a couple of friends I trust in L.A. who are giving me feedback when I have performed it in L.A. a few times. They have given really useful feedback that has functioned as a directorial eye.”

Rubin is expanding her performing opportunities. She divides her time between Sacramento and Los Angeles, where she is involved with Rogue Machine Theater, which she describes as “The Capital Stage of Los Angeles — a really edgy, interesting, high-energy, smart company.”

She also has begun auditioning at large equity houses in Los Angeles and all of the equity principal auditions for Broadway touring shows and larger houses.

“I feel like I’m on a good track,” Rubin says. “People say good things, and often have me sing a second song, which means they are interested in you.”

I asked the actress how she deals with the inevitable rejection that comes with life in the theater, and she thanks her 12-step work for that.

“I have a very specific emotional and spiritual process that I use that helps me deal with the heartaches that come with all the rejection,” she explains. “When I was in New York, I met an actress who was working successfully on Broadway. She said to me, ‘the best advice I can give you is find a way to grieve all of your losses because you will get rejected more than you will get accepted so you have to accept it or you’re going to be bitter or go crazy or quit.’

“That has stayed with me. I knew that she was right. I was never very good at doing that until the last few years until I went to my healing school. where I learned how to meet the needs of my own heart and tend to myself.

“When I’m rejected. there is a way that it needs to be addressed so I don’t just suck it in and pull up my bootstraps. I don’t believe in that any more. I don’t agree with ‘tough it up’ mentality.

“Now I believe it is about softening and deepening and coming into contact with the part of ourselves that feels so hurt and sad and unloved and nurturing those parts of ourselves.”

Katie Rubin isn’t feeling hurt and sad and unloved these days, however. She is on fire and good things are happening for her.

“My Spiritual Death, a Comedy Show” is one of those good things, and should be a good thing for those in the audience fortunate enough to see it.