Phantom of the Opera

If there was any doubt that the award-winning Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, “The Phantom of the Opera” is a true "spectacle," the multi page "tour facts" handed out to reviewers is proof enough. (The replica of the Paris Opera chandelier weighs 1000 lbs, and contains 6,000 beads and 50 radio-controlled lights; there are 2,700 yards of fabric in the drapery, 141 candles rise out of the deck to form the underground lake, there are 230 costumes, and one life-sized elephant).

It may be stated that "Phantom of the Opera," directed by Harold Prince, is one of the world's most popular musicals. This is a show guaranteed to bring an audience to its feet at the curtain call, with cheers and wild applause, whether or not there is any substance to the script, whether or not the music is repetitive, whether or not the sound system allows you to understand the dialog, or whether the performances are top notch. There is so much gold and glitter and pizzazz that the spectacle alone is enough.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's songs (with lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe), such as "Music of the Night" and "All I ask of You" have become some of the most recognized today.

With a stage show which has been around since 1986, following the original book by Gaston Leroux, and several movie versions, there are few who are not familiar with the story of the masked disfigured musician who lurks beneath the catacombs of the Paris Opera House. He is in love with Christine Daaé, an aspiring young soprano, and sets about making her a star by terrorizing the owners and members of the resident theater company.

Stephen Tewksbury as the Phantom is an imposing figure, but a bit too melodramatic (though how else can you be when your role requires you to holler from all corners of the stage, climb up into the procenium, and sing from within a gilded set of angels?).

Sara Jean Ford as Christine is marvelous. She gives the role the proper degree of innocence and naivete and she has a show stopper with her, "Wishing you were somehow here again," which she sings at her father's grave. (Ford will be replaced by Marni Raab on June 1 and Kelly Jeanne Grant will also play the role at selected performances)

Greg Mills as Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, Christine's other suitor, is more convincing as the lovestruck youth and he has an excellent voice.

In smaller roles, Bruce Winant (Monsieur Firmin) and D.C. Anderson (reprising his role as Monsieur André), provide comic relief as the new owners of the Paris Opera, who discover they have purchased not only a theater company, but its phantom as well.

Nancy Hess, as the ballet mistress Madame Giry, the only one who actually seems to know the Phantom, gives a solid performance.

Kim Stengel handles the role of opera diva Carlotta Giudicelli well, with a firey temperament and a strong voice.

John Whitney plays the rotund tenor, Ubaldo Piangi, as a stereotypical buffoon.

There are wonderful visuals in this production, thanks to the production design of Maria Björnson. The rehearsal of the opera Hannibal is sheer opulence, and shows the marvelous choreography by Gillian Lynne. (The elephant is the star of this scene!) Lighting designer Andrew Bridge also gets applause for his realistic depiction of true "footlights" for the stage.

One of the most famous scenes, the Phantom piloting a gondola through the "lake" in the basement of the Opera House, is every bit as impressive as when I first saw this show in London, with fog rising off the water, and those 141 candles to light the way, as the boat glides across the stage as if on a real lake.

"The Phantom of the Opera" is a lush, beautifully directed musical with familiar melodies and strong performances. No one attending this production will come away disappointed.

Carnival of Follies

Playwright/Director Dave Burmester describes his play, “A Carnival of Follies” as a “Where’s Waldo” of quotes, characters, situations, staging, and in-jokes from the past 28 years of Acme Theater, the perfect way to end Acme founder Burmester’s 28 years as the company’s director.

Indeed, while this zany pastiche has enough giggles on its own merits, those who have been following Acme, American films, television and a host of other media, will enjoy it that much more. It has a little bit of everything, from Jack Benny to Fricandeau and lots and lots in between.

“It’s probably the least literary show I’ve ever done. I’m not William Shakespeare. I’m not Arthur Miller or Thornton Wilder. As much as I love them, I can’t be them. I am who I am,” said Burmester. Fortunately, what he is is a very funny guy. Oh the show was slow in spots and it wasn’t always easy to tell who was who because the dialog went by so quickly, and for that reason it was difficult to figure out the plot, at first, but nobody sitting on the grass at the Art Center amphitheater was complaining...and everybody was laughing.

They laughed at the slapstick humor, the corny jokes, and the lively dances to Raymond Scott music. They laughed at familiar situations in unfamiliar settings. They laughed at the Zanni (Geoffrey Albrecht, Vivian Breckenridge, Kane Chai, Torin Lusebrink, Hannah May, Matt Northup, Genevieve Whitman, and Danielle Wogulis), who kept the audience entertained between scenes, moved set pieces, and played background sound effects.

In writing his play, Burmester collected all of his favorite bits of theater, types of characters, types of situations, etc., and wove a story line around them. Though the play is set on “two incredibly long days in 1733,” it still has a modern feel to it.

It begins with Smeraldina (the ebullient Hope Raymond, always to be counted on) supposedly reading a fairy tale, but in reality setting up the action that follows, a story which includes twins separated at birth family feuds, and the beautiful Isabella (Delany Pelz) the object of every young man’s affections (and a couple of old ones too!).

(One of my favorite bits was the “birth” of the children in the play.)

Most of the action whirls around Truffaldino (Sean Olivares), the servant of Signore Pantalone (Alex Kravitz). Truffaldino’s inability to read sets off the action which is central to the story, the delivery of a love letter which, of course, gets into the wrong set of hands more than once, each time changing the flow of things. Olivares is very funny and great at slapstick humor.

Pantalone is neighbor to Signora Scarpazone (Kate McFarland), mother to the beautiful Isabella and her sister Flaminia (Emily Tracy). The miserly Pantalone and Signora Scarpazone have been feuding ever since their romance dissolved because of Pantalone’s love of money.

Pantalone’s two sons, Silvio (Zach Salk) and Rosario (Billy Baria) vie for the love of Isabella (though Rosario is secretly in love with Flaminia instead).

And then there is parallel plot of the young Duchess Aurelia (Celsiana Warwick), about to come of age and be free of her guardian, Spavento (Ethan Jaffe, who does great evil characters), who has his own plans to get rid of the Duchess and take control of the government himself, a government from which he has been siphoning gold into his own coffers.

Aurelia is secretly in love with “Il Bandito Negro,” the Robin Hood-like character who takes from the rich and assists the poor. Nobody knows his identity, but the dashing Ortensio (John Ramos) seems to know an awful lot about him.

Into this mix throw twins separated at birth, identified only by “a peculiar birthmark situated in a ‘delicate’ anatomical location”(and an interesting G-rated way of examining them), female characters disguised as men, a lot of great swordplay, outright gratuitous slapstick bits, chase scenes, fight scenes, and a happy ending for all the good guys, with all the plot threads neatly tied together.

Costumer Hope Raymond brings lots of primary colors to the stage, John Ramos has designed a wonderfully versatile set on a thrust built out onto the grass, decorated by Genevieve Whitman. Emily Tracy choreographed the dances, which are so much fun. Fight choreography is by Acme alum, Dara Yazdani, with Delany Pelz as fight captain.

As Dave Burmester rides off into the sunset, he can hold his head high, having created a delicious evening of fun and frivolity.

Tennessee Williams wrote 'A Streetcar Named Desire' in 1947, and Blanche DuBois has depended on the kindness of strangers ever since.

Director Lydia Venables treats her kindly in the production that continues through June 8 at the Woodland Opera House.

The 1951 Marlon Brando film put the focus on the character of Stanley Kowalski, a construction worker who has lured his wife, Stella, away from her rich family to a cramped apartment in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

But the play actually centers around the complicated relationship between sisters Stella (Amy Vyvlecka) and Blanche (Lee Marie Kelly) - both of whom have endured disappointment, loss, pain and hardship - and their struggle to survive.

Stanley (Brien Rife) is a possessive man with a volatile temper, but it's plainly obvious that he and Stella have an active and satisfying sex life that makes the rest bearable. Stella is torn between her love for Stanley and her love for her delicate sister, who needs protecting.


Rife's Stanley is crude, loud and menacing: quick to anger and prone to throw things when he becomes infuriated. But he's obviously madly in love with his wife, as the famous wail proves ('Stella! Stella!'), when he realizes that an upstairs neighbor, Eunice Hubble (Georgann Wallace), has taken Stella in to protect her from Stanley, after a particularly violent outburst.

But Stanley always puts his own wants and needs ahead of everything else, and doesn't realize what he has until he has lost it, and finally commits the unforgivable sin.

Vyvlecka gives Stella a real heart, and makes it obvious how much this woman loves her husband, even when he becomes abusive. We also can see what Stella gets from this dysfunctional relationship, as Vyvlecka adeptly displays her character's sensual attraction to her husband.

Blanche is a fragile soul, who struggles to retain her sanity while her world crumbles around her: the suicide of her young homosexual husband, the loss of her beloved family home at Belle Rive, the loss of her teaching job following an affair with one of her high school students. We get hints of a checkered past as a woman of loose morals. She hides a drinking problem.

But Blanche arrives in New Orleans with a trunk full of frilly clothes to meet all of Stella's friends, and she maintains an air of distracted gentility.

Kelly's performance is superb: She is coquettish, disgusted, fearful, tender, sensual and vulnerable, and she gradually slides into madness.

Dean Shellenberger gives a wonderful performance as Harold Mitchell, a large, shy man who lives with his mother; he's smitten with Blanche, whose like he never has seen before.

He plays the gentle suitor, only to turn his back on her when the truth comes to light. He turns cruel, as he strips away the colored lantern she has placed on a naked lightbulb, and forces her to confront her literal and figurative reality.

Great Collet (Steve Hubbell), Pablo Gonzales (Erik Catalan), Andy Hyun (a young collector), Leslie Kenyon (Matron) and Michail Buse (Doctor) complete the ensemble, each delivering solid performances.

Scenic designer Jeff Kean beautifully portrays not only the cramped, claustrophobic apartment that the Kowalskis share with Blanche, but also - by extending the set to the adjoining off-stage boxes - the French Quarter itself.

In 'Streetcar,' Williams gave the world a gumbo filled with failure, vulnerability, depravity and the helpless fragility of the human mind. Venables has mixed this ingredients with the expertise of a master chef, and served the results with panache.

Measure for Measure

What are the appropriate boundaries of governmental power, and how can citizens fight back when such limits are overstepped?

If you have the ability to help a fellow citizen, but doing so compromises your moral or religious beliefs, are you obligated to act?

How far should outdated laws be prosecuted before inhibiting the free expression of the people?

If I were to ask such questions, you might think I was preparing a letter to a newspaper's op-ed page.

And therein lies the proof that Shakespeare's works can be as current and topical as they are timeless, for these issues are faced by the characters in the UC Davis theater and dance department production of 'Measure for Measure.'

While many of this play's elements - notably bedroom mix-ups and stock comedic characters - have caused it to be listed as a comedy, 'Measure for Measure' has very little 'comedic' about it (and this production has very few laughs), and thus it has been called one of the bard's 'problem plays.'

The plot centers on Angelo (Jesse Merz), empowered by the Duke of Vienna (Timothy Orr) to rule the citizenry in his absence, with the assistance of Escalus (Sarah Cohen). While all believe the Duke is taking a brief sabbatical, he actually uses this opportunity to disguise himself as a friar, and then wander about the city and personally observe the extent of its moral decay.

Angelo, who today would be classified as an extreme fundamentalist, decides to use his temporary powers to enforce an archaic law against fornication; he begins shutting down bawdy houses and putting fornicators to death. One of these fornicators is Claudio (Daniel Reano-Koven), a young man who has impregnated his fiancee.

Claudio's sister, Isabella (Gia Battista), a novice in a convent, is made aware of her brother's plight; she comes to plead for his life.

On seeing Isabella, Angelo - like so many modern-day zealots with feet of clay - falls in immediate lust with her, and attempts to blackmail her into his bed. The choice is her virtue or Claudio's life, Angelo tells her, knowing that even if she were to report him, nobody would believe her.

But the Duke is made aware of the plot, and he hatches a scheme of his own to save Isabella's virtue and reveal Angelo's duplicity.

A parallel comic storyline follows the banter among a 'flamboyant bachelor,' Lucio (Kevin Ganger); the brothel owner, Mistress Overdone (Cody Messick); and her employee, Pompey (Stephanie Hankinson).

Eventually, the good get their reward, and the bad their just desserts: All's well that ends well.

Director Randy Symank has mounted a strong production. The play is set in modern dress: so modern that the sex workers - Maryanne Reveles, Tracy Kutt, Karen Askeland and Kelly Fleischmann - wear tight, skimpy black dresses and wigs of electric fuschia, blue, green and copper.

The performances are excellent across the board, with Orr and Battista rising above the rest. Orr gives the Duke a likable, accessible demeanor; Battista brings a glowing 'goodness' to her character. Her passionate argument with Angelo is particularly moving.

On a lesser note, someone decided to add music to the production, for reasons I cannot fathom. Isaac Blackstock is credited with 'electric music composition,' and Rich Gaarde as music director and arranger, with vocals performed by Allison Minick and Isaac Blackstock. While nothing is wrong with the music, it feels gratuitous and out of place; it also adds nothing but extra minutes to the overall production.

I didn't mind the dancing so much - choreography by Hope Mirlis - but the 'Let's take a break here, and sing lyrics that aren't Shakespeare's words, which the audience can't understand anyway' parts easily could have been dropped.

'Measure for Measure' points a finger at hypocrisy, corruption and human frailty: sadly, all themes that seem much too applicable to today's political climate, and which make this Shakespeare classic all the more appropriate for a university production.

Magdalene

There's no way to put this gently: I hated 'Magdalene,' which continues through May 11 at the Sacramento Theatre Company.

Singer/songwriter Katie Ketchum wrote and performs her one-woman musical translation of the 'Gospel of Mary of Magdala,' as seen through the eyes of a 1950s rockabilly singer. The show toured throughout California for the past two years, before coming to Sacramento, which made me wonder how it survived long enough to get here in the first place.

I searched the Internet and discovered that it has received rave reviews wherever it has played.

So why did I loathe it so much?

Well, at some point, someone got the bright idea to add additional people: Jessica Goldman, to portray Ketchum's dream visions of Mary Magdalene; and musicians Myke Kunkel (percussion) and Michael LaPlante (electric bass).

The expansion of the cast was so recent that an insert had to be placed in the program, to explain that this no longer is a two-act/one-woman show, but a one-act/ multi-performer production.

I assume the changes also were so fresh as to 'justify' Ketchum's need to have a script in front of her, from which she read for a good portion of the performance.

This also would explain all the lines she stumbled over, in a show she already has performed for many months.

Ketchum's narration is just plain stupid, whereas Goldman - who positively sparkles when on stage, and makes the hour bearable - seems to have the best parts of the show. I question whether this was intended, but that's the result of dividing the script.

It does not help that the few plot elements, onto which Ketchum attempts to hang the role of Mary Magdalene in modern Christianity, are so convoluted.

Basically, Ketchum plays a trailer park chick named Marlene, who tries to hold her band together after the leader, Joe (also her partner), is murdered. She's having a hard time; the boys in the band don't want a female leader, even though this is what Joe wanted. Pete, the bass player, is especially confrontational, she tells us, because he's what Marlene calls 'mishomogenized': He doesn't like women.

Get it? Joe and Mary, and then Pete, who really wants to be head of the band?

Goldman pops in from time to time, to play Magdalene in the various roles she has been assigned throughout history. One finds her as Jesus' wife, who leaves Jerusalem to go to France ... a country that didn't exist at the time.

Some of these stories, Marlene tells us, come from 'The Complete Idiot's Guide to Mary Magdalene,' which may explain a lot.

With two exceptions - a lovely brief duet between Marlene and Magdalene, and the closing number - the music is forgettable. The lyrics sound like something you'd get if a bunch of kids started singing songs on a long car trip, without any sense of rhyme or reason, but just to tell some sort of story.

I detested the fact that the small theater house lights never came down, which put me under a spotlight for the entire show. To add insult to injury, the patrons were expected to sing - in English and Yiddish - and clap along.

And were scolded if they didn't do so enthusiastically enough.

I can only assume, from the Web reviews, that Ketchum's original work was outstanding ... but has been ruined by the suggested changes at STC. Sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone.

I'll give Ketchum the benefit of the doubt: She seems to be a genuinely talented singer and musician.

But I wouldn't recommend the show - in its current state - to anyone.

Back Roads

“Back Roads” is the initial production of a new program through the UCD theater and dance department, called “Solo Explorations,” which fuses the interplay of actors’ bodies with their concept of contemporary issues.

This premiere production features two works by graduating MFA acting candidates, Victor Toman and Sara Zimmerman.

Toman’s “El Camino del Diablo” was inspired by his fascination for folkloric devil figurines from Mexico and two books about the current immigration situation between this country and Mexico. Blending acting, singing, guitar playing, and dance, Toman portrays four parts of the story of pollos (a derrogatory term for an undocumented immigrant) transported through the Sonoran Desert, with the idea to deliver them to farmers who had arranged for cheap labor.

This was a tour de force for Toman, who seamlessly transforms himself from innocent pollo to Don Pedro, the one who gathers and sends the workers to the United States, to the Minute Man guarding the border, to the devil figure, in red mask and jacket, playing the guitar and dancing.

Each character, helped by wonderful masks for all but the pollo, are wonderfully fleshed out and Toman is able to present a full picture of what drives each of these men, from the evil Don Pedro and his greed, to the innocent pollo who hopes to earn a bit of money so he can build his wife a home with a concrete floor, to the Minute Man who believes he is protecting his country from evil invaders.

I would have liked the volume on the guitar (excellent work on sound by Bryan Pham) to be just a tad lower...no need for ear-splitting volumes in a small house. It was also unfortunate that the entire final speech by the Minute Man was completely drowned out by the too-loud music, but despite that, Toman has created an excellent short theater piece.

Following “El Camino del Diablo,” the audience was led out of the Wright Building’s Arena Theater, across a courtyard, following a circuitous route marked by chalk arrows, and to another building, where an assortment of chairs which looked like they came from a storage closet somewhere was set up and the air was filled with the smell of freshly popped popcorn (which filled an enormous bowl from which Zimmerman ate during the performance).

We, as audience, may have a certain idea of what “theater” is and yet it is up to the artist to decide for him or herself how to interpret creative ideas. We are often asked to set aside our preconceived notions and just go with the flow. This is certainly the proper mental attitude for Sara Zimmerman’s “Circuitous Route,” a 30 minute piece which she describes as “a sonorous and physical exploration of speech and the unspoken: a winding and poetic piece of physical theater that pulls patrons inside worlds of hesitation and restraint.”

In the middle of her performance, a small child in the audience asked “what’s she doing?” and it was a good question.

With background of sounds from choral oooos, kazoos, tapping noise and other noisemakers, Zimmerman moved from one impossible body position to another, while speaking in stop-start repetitive sentences. At one point I had the mental image of being inside someone’s brain and watching neurons firing.

It was one of those once in a lifetime experiences you had to see to try to understand.

I’m not sure that Zimmerman’s idea of theater exactly meshes with my own, but whatever it was that she did showed a range of pretty amazing talent.

Back Roads will have two more performances. There is no admission charge and performance time is 7 p.m., rather than the usual 8 p.m.

Pajama Game

Every community theater company should have a comedienne like Lauren Miller, who can be seen currently as Gladys, the secretary, in the Davis Musical Theatre Company production of 'The Pajama Game.'

It has been a delight to watch her grow and develop in the various roles she has played during the past few years. For those who've had the fortune to see Gwyneth Bruch on stage, Miller reminds me of a blonde Bruch.

'Pajama Game' - music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross; book by George Abbott and Richard Bissell - is a dated bit of fluff about the workers in the Sleep Tite pajama factory, and their struggle to get a 7-1/2-cents-per-hour raise in pay. (The audience tittered when calculations showed that in a year's time, that would come to $852.74, which would buy a year's supply of gasoline!)

Joshua Smith plays Sid Sorokin, the new factory superintendent, who falls in love with Babe Williams (Amber Moore), the leader of the grievance committee.

But of course: Where else would we find the conflict plot line?

Smith and Moore are quite good. Smith has a nice voice and a pleasant manner. Moore's Babe lacks a bit of fire in her factory confrontations with Sid, but her voice is wonderful. Her melancholy 'Hey There' is like taking a bath in a tub of hot fudge: rich and warm, and something you wish would go on and on.

Their duet, 'There Once Was a Man,' is great fun.

Hines ('Hinzie') is the time-keeper charged with adhering to procedural order and increasing productivity. It's a strong role that requires someone who can be larger than life. Herb K. Schultz does not fit the bill. He seems pleasant - although the character actually is more of a curmudgeon - and he can carry a tune, but director Steve Isaacson can't get any energy out of him.

Hinzie's duet with Mabel (Dannette Vassar), the 'mother hen' of the factory and Sid's secretary, should be a show-stopper, but 'I'll Never Be Jealous Again' just kind of lies on the stage floor, while the audience gives polite applause.

Vassar, on the other hand, plays her role to the hilt. She has been getting meatier roles in recent productions, and definitely is coming into her own as an actress.

Dustin White plays Mr. Hasler, a CEO full of bluff and bluster ... and with a good sense of double-entry bookkeeping.

John Ewing is 'Prez,' the head of the union, who chases after anything in skirts. Michael McElroy is Max, one of the factory's salesmen.

Kirs Farhood and Jabriel Shelton join Lauren Miller in the 'Steam Heat' number. They're dressed all in black, with red accents: gloves, socks and hat band, with a red tie for Shelton.

The number itself is outstanding, and choreographer Darryl Strohl is careful to give it the Bob Fosse looks that made the song famous.

Strohl also created an interesting look for the 'Hernando's Hideaway' number, with dark figures against a bright orange-red backdrop. And his choreography is fun during the factory picnic number, 'Once a Year Day.'

A couple other actors in small roles are worth mentioning, starting with McKinley Carlisle, as Poopsie. Carlisle is cute as a button, and sparkles whenever she's on stage. Also pay attention to Chris Peterson, as Charlie. He has little to do, but he's one of those people who just gets 'noticed' when on stage.

Unfortunately, this 'Pajama Game' is less than the sum of its parts. Although individual performances are quite good, the show lacks pizzazz. It's a pleasant way to pass a few hours, but you won't leave the theater on a high, recalling how terrific the show is.

The DMTC cast and crew always work hard, and the energy should have appeared on stage, but - except for a moment, here and there - it didn't.

The music and vocal direction are by Erik Daniells, and it's fun to hear all those old songs again.

And if costume designer Jean Henderson wants to go into the pajama-making business, she'd have a ready clientele. The pajamas for the finale are just great.

I wanted a pair myself.

Mamma Mia

Mamma mia, here I go again
My my, how can I resist you?
When I learned that California Musical Theater was bringing back "Mamma Mia" for the third time in five years, I wondered why. When I saw the line up to get into the Community Center and learned that the show is all but sold out, I guessed why.
When I sat through the show again, I knew why. Yeah, it’s the same old show we saw a couple of years ago, but it’s a darn entertaining one–and any musical that can get an entire audience on its feet clapping and waving their arms in the air is worth seeing again and again. (In fact, the man sitting next to me, who looked like he was in his 70s, said he had already seen it 14 times!)
Though the Swedish singing group ABBA, which burst onto the scene when its song ‘Waterloo" won the Eurovision Song Contest 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") which made it to the top of the charts in the United States. Though big stars everywhere else, 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 that 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.
In March of 2002, "Mama Mia" became the highest grossing show in North America, taking $3.7 million in a single week. The original cast recording is consistently in the Top 20 of the Billboard Catalog Charts, selling more than 4,000 copies a week in the U.S. alone. It is celebrating six sold-out years at the Winter Garden Theater on Broadway and is currently playing record-breaking engagements in Las Vegas and on National Tour in the United States. The original West End production has played more than 3,500 performances and an international tour has played in more than 30 foreign cities. A feature film based on the stage show will be released in July 2008.
The show centers on Donna Sheridan (played by understudy Annie Edgerton on opening night), a single mother raising her daughter Sophie (Rose Sezniak) in a small hotel on "an idyllic Greek island."
Twenty-year old Sophie has decided to marry Sky (Geoffrey Hemingway) and wants her father to give her away. The only problem is–nobody (including Donna) knows who Sophie’s father is. Unbeknownst to her mother, Sophie sends invitations to the three men with whom Donna had a romantic liaison twenty-one years before and the girl hopes to figure out which of them is her real father before the wedding takes place.
Mayhem and merriment ensue.
You don't need a lot of plot in this musical. The songs, which will have the most reluctant toe tapping, and the dazzling choreography by Anthony Van Laast (never let it be said that one cannot tap dance while wearing swim fins) provide all that's necessary for a not to be missed night of theater.
There's not a weak performance in the group. Particularly outstanding are Donna's former singing partners, Tanya (Michelle Elizabeth Dawson) and Rosie (Kittra Wynn Coomer), 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.
Sophie's possible fathers are also a wonderful set of performers. Michael Aaron Lindner was Harry Bright (whose ability--or desire--to father any child we question immediately),Martin Kildare was the Aussie adventurer Bill Austin, and John Hemphill was Sam Carmichael, Donna’s true love, who left her 20 years ago to return to the states to marry his fiancée.
Laast’s choreography is a delight, incorporating things like having heads pop over a wall to join in when one character is supposedly singing a song alone, or, with assistance from lighting designer Howard Harrison, have the customers in the taverna join in on a chorus when they are bathed in light, but then return to the shadows for the rest of the song.
Much of the fun in this show comes from trying to decide which of the ABBA songs (printed in alphabetical, not chronological order in the program) is going to pop up next. The cast is also taking donations for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and will be collecting donations in the lobby after the show, offering several one-of-a-kind souvenirs and the opportunity to be photographed with two of the costumed stars of the show.
Do I recommend this show? Of course I do, I do, I do, I do, I do.

Fool for Love

Sam Shepard wrote his “Fool for Love” following the break-up with his wife in order to be with Jessica Lange. He described the play as “the outcome of all this tumultuous feeling I've been going through this past year. It's a very emotional play and in some ways embarrassing for me to witness but somehow necessary at the same time.”

Capital Stage is currently presenting “Fool for Love,” under the direction of Janis Stevens. The 75 minute play is presented without intermission and is heavy on dialog and not much on plot, but “plot” is not the intent of playwright Shepard.

While the play does not deal with marital infidelity, it is an intensely powerful, sensual, emotional roller coaster detailing the obsessive relationship between two people, Eddie (Jonathan Rhys Williams) and May (Williams' real-life wife, Stephanie Gularte) in a seedy motel somewhere in the Mojave desert, where May has been hiding out ever since Eddie's relationship with someone she refers to as “The Countess.” This is kind of motel where you keep glasses in the bathroom because there is no kitchen, and where the blinds on the window hang at a rakish angle, and nobody seems to care.

The action starts in silence, three people on the stage—Eddie and May, and the old man (Loren Taylor), sitting in semi-darkness watching the dialog unfold.

We don't need to feel the heat to know that it is hot. May looks completely drained, physically and emotionally. Eddie, desperate, asks May if he should leave, even though he has just driven more than 2,000 just to see her.

“I missed you. I did. I missed you more than anything I ever missed in my whole life. I just kept thinkin' about you the whole time I was driving. Kept seeing you. Sometimes just a part of you.”

The ambivalent nature of their relationship is established very early, as Eddie leaves, then comes back only to have May grab him and give him a passionate kiss.

It is very clear that these are two people who can't live together and can't live without each other.

Eddie has grand plans—He's going to settle down. He's going to move a trailer, build a corral in which to keeep horses, have a big vegetable garden and some chickens.

“I hate chickens! I hate horses!...You keep coming up with this lame country dream life with chickens and vegetables and I can't stand any of it...”

Gularte and Williams are perfect in their roles. It is perhaps their real-life marriage which makes the physical relationship between the two sizzle with such passion.

As the action plays out, the Old Man sits, watching, a drink in hand. We learn soon that he is the voice in Eddie's head and in his conversations with Eddie, we learn what impact his relationship with both Eddie and with May has had on each of them, and on their on-again-off-again relationship with each other.

Taylor makes a perfect grizzled old codger, for whom life was never easy, and who took his anger out on those around him.

A fourth member of the cast, David Campfield, plays Martin, May's date, who unwittingly arrives at the height of tension between May and Eddie. Campfield has the dazed look of a deer caught in the headlights as he tries to assess what exactly is going on between May and Eddie. He was so perfect in the role that he seemed to have difficulty shaking it at the final bow.

Special notice should be given of the lighting design of Ron Madonia and sound design of Brad Thompson who made things happening outside the motel amazingly realistic.

Director Stevens deserves credit for her ability to direct the verbal battle between Eddie and May with the same care as one would direct the arias of an opera.

“Fool for Love” is a gritty story that has no resolution because we know that no matter what they do, Eddie and May will always be connected to each other, whether they want to be or not.

Pamela Trokanski Dance Theatre Spring Concert

In the fall of 2005, the Pamela Trokanski Dance Theater presented its “Ephemera” as a work in progress, part of a larger evening of selections. For its spring concert. The PTDT is presenting “Ephemera” as a complete work, approximately 75 minutes without an intermission.


“Ephemera” focuses on the swift passage of time, that our lives seem too short, and that the most important things are often the intangibles. (After 23 years of dance in Davis, one wonders if Trokanski is feeling the swift passage of time herself, and the intangibles which make up the high points of her life.)


The work is based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince,” one section flowing seamlessly into another with no dividing line, save for some voice-over with quotes from Saint-Exupéry which focus on the discussion between the Little Prince and the Fox about friendships, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."


The eclectic selection of music is by artists including Lyle Lovett, John Prine, Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson, and others, and is danced by company members Caitlin Barale, Nicole Bell, Bekah Shepard, Nicole Smith, and Pamela Trokanski, with additional guest dancers Maj Hapworth, Allegra Silberstein, Alex Sprague, and Catherine Schwedler.


The opening number, to a tune by Laurie Anderson showed that “dance” is more than body movement, as the hand movements, done with the dancers' backs to the audience, were mechanically precise and a beautiful visual.


A particularly strong section was set to “The Grave” by Don McClean [sic] (“The grave that they dug him had flowers / Gathered from hillsides in bright summer colors”), danced by Bell, Shepard and Smith, depicting the agony of the death of a young soldier (“I know I'm not brave...the earth is my grave...”)


Trokanski has a solo to a Lyle Lovett song which is a testament to the strength of the dancer, undiminished by time.


My favorite part of the 2005 work in progress remains my favorite part of the finished product, though the choreography has changed in the intervening years. It is “Old Friends,” by Simon and Garfunkel, in this production danced by Hapworth and Silberstein as the old friends, with Sprague and Schwedler as the young friends they once were. It is a beautiful salute to lasting friendship and how years melt away when old friends recalls their younger days.


“Death Cab for Cutie,” in which we are told that “love is watching someone die” segues into a song about Trains by Hank Lawson, with the dancers, in Pilobolus-like fashion, becoming a vehicle and move off stage, while Hapworth, Silberstein, Sprague and Schwedler move back and forth across the back of the stage, as trains, dropping off another car each time.


The entire troup reassembles for the finale section, to music by Lyle Lovett, closing off a delightful and often moving performance.


Ephemera: anything short-lived or transitory, lasting but a day. This production lasts but three days, so dance enthusiasts should get to the Pamela Trokanski Performing Arts Center before it disappears completely.

Brigadoon

Bagpiper Elizabeth Shull greeted patrons arriving at the Woodland Opera House, playing “Scotland the Brave,” and setting the stage for the trip back to 18^th century Scotland before anyone even entered the theater.

The Lerner & Loewe classic, “Brigadoon,” directed by Chesley award winner Bob Cooner, opened for a five-week run and, despite a disruptive toddler running back and forth, talking, and crying in the balcony at Sunday's matinee performance, the production was, in most areas, a success.

Brigadoon is the story of two disgruntled Americans lost in the Scottish highlands, who discover a strange village, learn of its miracle and discover the power of love.

Scott Reese (as Tommy Albright) and Michael Lie Murphy (as Jeff Douglas) are a bit stiff on stage, especially early in the show, but Reese has a wonderful voice and does justice to the role of the young man searching for meaning in his life.

Gina Marchitiello, as Fiona MacLaren, however, is absolutely marvelous as the sister of bride-to-be Jean (Laura Franklin), and a woman who is still “waiting for her dearie” and wondering if she will ever find love. Marchitiello has a beautiful, strong voice and brings a yearning wistfulness to her character. She alone is worth the price of admission.

The opening choral number, beautifully sung, was sung mostly in the dark. If this was by design, it was not a good one. Too many of the townsfolk who only have a brief moment for solo lines were unable to be seen at all. One hopes it was a lighting error at this performance.

As Tommy and Jeff try to figure out what sort of town they have stumbled upon, they meet many of the townsfolk, including Meg Brockie (Marcy Goodnow), a lusty, boisterous lass who quickly gloms onto Jeff and drags him off to her shack where, presumably, some hanky panky eventually takes place. Goodnow gives the role all the gusto that it requires and is great fun to watch in action.

Archie Beaton (Mark Fejta) is the town tailor whose son Harry (Justin Kelley) is in love with Jean and angry about her upcoming marriage to Charlie Dalrymple (Tim Dunlap). Kelley is dark and brooding and dances a mean sword dance, along with Kevin Little, Jon Shaffer and Shane Wright.

Dunlap is a likable Charlie, with a good voice and good chemistry with his bride-to-be, Jean. Laura Franklin is a wonderful dancer, and a less wonderful actress, but the role of Jean requires more dancing than acting, so it works well for her. Her wedding ballet was beautiful.

Jeff Nauer is Andrew MacLaren, father of Jean and Fiona who displays a strong voice in the chase scene, where all the men of the town chase after Harry, who has decided to leave Brigadoon, bringing an end to “the miracle.” (Sadly, the role of Angus is not listed in the program and so I don't know who sang that role, but he had a wonderful voice.)

(Traditionally, there is a funeral scene following Harry's death, and I assumed the bagpiper would be joining the group on stage, but the funeral procession was dropped in this production.)

Jim Lane is just wonderful as the wise Mr. Lundie, the man who holds the secret of “the miracle” (and check those genuine muttonchops!)

This is such a good looking production (scenic design by Jeff Kean) and such care is taken with the Scottish accents, and the sword dance that it is appalling that no consideration whatsoever was taken to make the costumes authentic. As a person of Scottish descent, I know that the plaid of a tartan indicates the clan to which a person belongs. To see the three MacLarens, for example, standing side by side, each wearing vastly different tartans was jarring and it was even more jarring during the parade of the clans at the start of Act 2, when there was no cohesiveness whatsoever. There are even mis-matched tartans, one design at the top of a dress, another for the skirt. Laurie Everly Klassen is too good a designer to make such an egregious error.

Music for this production is provided by pianists Sam Schieber and Chris Schlagel, who are so good one does not notice the lack of a full orchestra.

This is a production with some problems, but the good far outweighs the bad and should provide an entertaining couple of hours for anybody who comes to see it. (Please leave your small children at home!)

Laughter on the 23rd Floor

It is a sad fact that over the years I have been reviewing for The Davis Enterprise, I have seen that a mediocre musical will consistently get a bigger audience than a first rate play. I have often left a half-full theater thinking what a shame it is that people in this area just don't seem to come out for straight plays any more, and how sad that they don't realize what they are missing.

A case in point is Davis Musical Theater Company's new comedy series, which opened with one of Neil Simon's funnier plays, “Laughter on the 23^rd Floor.”

“Laughter” is Simon's homage to the time he spent working on “Your Show of Shows,” the old Sid Caesar weekly variety show, in the waning days of the golden era of television variety shows, and in the middle of the McCarthy era, when the networks were afraid of topical humor and were “dumbing down” shows to be more “family friendly.” The writing staff included some of the greats in comedy – Caesar himself, of course, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Larry Gelbart, among others. (Reiner would go on to create his own homage to this period, in the form of “The Dick Van Dyke Show”)

Director Michael McElroy has hit a triple (not quite a home run, but close) on his first directing effort with a fast-paced, funny, well acted production that features a top notch cast.

Joshua Smith is Lucas, the Neil Simon character, who acts as both the narrator, introducing each writer in turn as he or she enters the room, and is also a participant in the action. Smith's Lucas is a fresh-faced, wide-eyed, innocent looking young man who is somewhat in awe of the company in which he finds himself on this high powered writing team. Sadly, actor Smith's lines aren't always distinct enough, so that you miss pieces of dialog or narration here and there, but overall he turns in a believable performance.

The group is writing for “The Max Prince
Show,” and Kevin Caravalho turns in an inspired, frenetic performance as Max, a comic genius whose insecurities cause him to throw up before each show, who pops pills and drinks too much. He rants and raves, throws the telephone, and punches holes in the wall, but he is intensely loyal to his writing staff and is in constant battle with the network to keep the show on the air. Caravalho always gives 110% and this role is no exception.

While this is a generally above-average cast, there are some, like Caravalho, who stand out. Paul Fearn as the head writer, Val, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, who is taking elocution lessons so that he can pronounce curse words properly, is another who lights up the stage when he makes his entrance, transforming “OK” performances into something electric. Val's exit line, at the end of the show, is one of my favorites.

Jeff Labowitch plays the hypochondriac Ira (based on Woody Allen), who arrives late each day and who seems to suffer from the malady du jour, everything from a heart attack to a brain tumor, and dreams of having a virus named after him.

Darryl Strohl is Milt, the womanizer who revels in his flashy dress. It's hard to know which is the more notable—his all white suit, or his red plaid pants (kudos to costume designer Jean Henderson).

Clocky McDowell is the chain-smoking Brian, who is always just about to make it big in Hollywood, once he writes that perfect script. His “shoe fight” with Ira was a very funny moment.

Lauren Miller is Karen, the lone woman on the writing team, who has been around so long she really is “one of the guys” (think RoseMarie in the Dick Van Dyke Show). Kris Farhood is Helen, Max's long-suffering secretary.

Kenny (Brennen Cull) is the peacemaker, the one who seems to be the solid rock of the group, constantly trying to talk sense into the other writers. By Act 2, when it becomes obvious that the show is on the way out, Kenny remarks, poignantly, “Maybe we'll never have this much fun again in our entire lives.”

Kenny was probably right, but Simon made sure that the fun didn't die entirely by recreating it in “Laughter on the 23^rd Floor,” which will give the audience a taste of what it was like to turn out one of the best variety shows in the history of television.

Fortunately, Davis Musical Theater Company has done well by the script. Treat yourself to something other than a musical and revel in the humor of a bygone day—and remember what television was like when the likes of Sid Caesar and his writing team ruled the airwaves.

Moving Midway

Miss Mary was not happy.

It was Dena Williams’ first Christmas at Midway Plantation and she decided to set up the Christmas tree in the parlor (“what we would call the living room,” she explained).

Williams’ husband, Charlie Silver tried to warn her that it was Miss Mary’s special room and that she wouldn’t want the tree there, but Williams was adamant that it was the best place to put it. “We put the tree in the parlor and had it all decorated and then, in the middle of the night we heard a crash and found tree down, but only one ornament broken. Miss Mary had been gentle but made her point,” she laughed.

“Miss Mary” was Silver’s great-great aunt, Mary Hilliard Hinton, the tiny matriarch, who dressed as her heroine, Queen Victoria, who was the teller of all the family stories, and who died in 1961. Miss Mary’s ghost (along with several others, including a cat) inhabits Midway Plantation.

(“How do you know the ghosts are there?” I asked Williams. “We see them,” she replied, with her husband adding that since these were relatives he knew in life, their ghosts don’t appear scary. Williams had some discussions with the spirits when she and Silver first married and moved to Midway Plantation. “I walked around from room to room and asked them to be nice to me and wait until I felt comfortable before showing themselves. They waited and they’ve always been very nice.”)

The spiritual side of Midway Plantation is only one aspect of a fascinating documentary which will kick off the Fifth Annual Davis Film Festival, This year's festival features films on topics ranging from movement and music to community and the consequences of war, and includes innovative short works by new filmmakers as well as feature-length films from around the world.

"Moving Midway" is an acclaimed documentary and multiple film festival award winner and an excellent choice to start the 2008 festival. In its simplest form, “Moving Midway” is the story of moving a family home from one location near Raleigh, North Carolina to another, but in the process of documenting the move, film critic turned filmmaker Godfrey Cheshire not only shows the mechanics of relocating an historical building, but also traces the importance of the Southern plantation in American history, gives us a glimpse into his own ancestry, and discovers a whole new side of the family, and more than 100 cousins he never knew he had.

The land on which Midway Plantation and two others (The Oaks and Beaver Dam) was built (420,700 acres) was given by the British crown to Miss Mary's family in 1739, before the American Revolution. Midway was built in 1848 as a wedding gift to Miss Mary's father, David Hinton. Over the years, the house became the gathering place for all the family and Godfrey Cheshire remembers happy times playing with his cousins, Charlie (Nicknamed "Pooh"), Winston ("Winkie") and John (Possum").

Things had changed in 2004, when Cheshire went to visit Silver, who now owned Midway Plantation. Where once lay a dirt wagon track, now was a major highway with more than 55,000 cars a day passing the home. Instead of looking out at rolling hills and trees, the former plantation faced a McDonald's, a bank, and several other shops in a strip mall. Silver's 80-something mother was looking to the house's upkeep and had rented it out, but she was getting calls from developers every day offering to buy the property and it had become a burden on her.

Silver and Williams decided to move into the house to make things easier on his mother. They lived there only two years before the couple made the fateful decision to buy another plot of land and move the house to a new location. What was most important to Silver was preserving the house for future generations, and he realized that in its present urban setting, his children didn't experience the house he remembered from his childhood. "I realized that none of my children would what to live in it, and that spelled doom for the house," he said. "Our big concern was to make sure the house was attractive enough to have someone else in the family live there.” They had offers from developers to make it the center point of the new mall development, or to tear it apart and reuse timbers. But Silver was adamant that the best thing for the house was to pick it up and move it. It would allow them to rebuild the aging foundation and the chimneys and to make improvements that would make it last another 150 years."

They even hired Rick Lambeth, a consultant who does historic architectural finishes who examined the house and told the couple what all of the original colors were in the whole house—trim, walls, outside, shutters, etc., so that they could restore it to the original appearance.

Godfrey Cheshire immediately felt there was a story to be recorded, but even he didn't realize where that story would lead.

The extended family had mixed emotions about the move, expressed at the last Christmas party held at Midway before the scheduled moving of the house. Midway was always a party home and always looked its best when filled with people. Brother Winston (Winkie) said that growing up in Midway was like nothing any child ever experienced and didn't believe that Charlie was actually going to move the house. "I'll believe it when I see it," he laughed. Brother John ("Possum") made his views on the moving of the house known in no uncertain terms. "I thought he was full of sh*t!" he said emphatically.

Silver and Williams were also concerned about how the ancestors would feel about the move. "We literally sat on the steps and talked to them. 'We hope you guys are all right with this,'" he said.

A part of the history of the house concerned the slaves who once worked on the plantation. There were records showing that the original slave was a man named Mingo, who had been a gift when the house was first built. (Previous work had been done by indentured white laborers.) The family Bible also held a photo of an African American man, Ruffin Hinton, who looked very much like Charles Lewis Hinton, the plantation owner (who also served two terms as State Treasurer of North Carolina). It was generally acknowledged that Ruffin was the result of a relationship with the house cook.

As Godfrey Cheshire was preparing for his film about Midway, a letter on some unrelated topic from Robert Hinton, a professor of African American Studies at NYU, appeared in the "New York Times." In the letter he mentioned that his grandfather, Dempsey Hinton, had been born on Midway Plantation in 1860. Cheshire made arrangements to meet with Hinton and through comparing their various family stories, they realized that Hinton's grandfather had been a slave at Midway Plantation. Hinton was invited to Midway Plantation to meet his cousins and travel around the grounds where the slave quarters had once been, and to explore the slave cemetery.

“I always thought I would meet another Hinton, but I hoped it would be someone I wouldn't like," Robert Hinton smiled.

Charlie Silver found a 47 acre plot of land three miles from Midway Plantation and purchased it. Mike Black, a professional house mover, was hired to handle the actual move of the main building and several of the out-buildings. When the day came to move the house, Robert Hinton was invited to join the rest of the family in breaking a bottle of champagne over the metal bars which held the house on dollies before the truck started to slowly pull the house over back roads to its new location.

"I felt it was important to help launch the move and represent my family,” said Hinton.

It took four days to move the house the three miles and set it down on its new foundation.

One of the most hair-raising segments of the journey involved crossing a narrow bridge. "We didn’t know for sure if the bridge would hold the weight," Charlie said. It had been designed by twins brothers and it had been their first job out of college 8-10 yrs before. They did lots of calculations to see if it would hold the weight of the house. The bridge was also so narrow that the house cleared the guard rails by less than an inch. The supports actually scraped the rails as it crossed over the bridge.

It was two years before the house was ready for parties again. When it held its first social gathering, several of the descendants of Ruffin Hinton were invited to attend, including Abraham Lincoln Hinton, Ruffin's grandson, born in 1909.

“I think in order to be a healthy individual, you have to know where you come from and how you got to be who you are. I cannot make sense of myself without understanding this house and being involved with the house,” said Robert Hinton.

And the ghosts? Did they move with the house? “We know that my dad has moved,” said Charlie Silver. “My great great aunt also moved and the ghost cats have moved. The 'nice lady' has moved. (We think it’s my grandmother. We haven’t seen her really clearly, but my granddaughter does.) Miss Mary came with us and has been very pleased. We usually see her as a wren. She came and flew thru the house.”

But employees at PetSmart and Target, which were built on the land once occupied by Midway Plantation, have reported strange things happening at night, with items being moved and found in odd places, so apparently some of the Hinton clan stayed behind to watch over the land as well.

Cyrano de Bergerac

At the risk of pandering to an obvious pun, Sacramento Theatre Company's current production of Edmund Rostand's “Cyrano de Bergerac” hits it right on the nose.

Sandford Robbins, the founder and director of the Professional Training Program (PTTP), one of the top ten dramatic education programs in the country, and "Cyrano" director Peggy Shannon adapted Rostand's classic especially for Sacramento Theatre Company. The result is a romantic tale of a 17th Century French cavalier poet, a master swordsman as skillful with the pen as with the sword, in love with a beautiful lady, but afraid that his protuberant proboscis will get in the way of his search for true love.

John Pribyl brings dignity, humor, and panache to the role of Cyrano, a man who covers up a lot of his insecurities by laughing at his own physical oddity, while inside pining away for the love of the beautiful Roxanne (Jackie Vanderbeck). Pribyl's diction is impeccable, as he delivers long discourses, equally eloquent on subject of love, or on put-downs of his own prosthetically enhanced nose.

Instead of embarrassing himself by declaring his love for Roxanne, Cyrano becomes the mouthpiece for the handsome, dashing, but somewhat inarticulate cavalier Christian (Brett Williams), helping him woo and win the hand of Roxanne by putting words in his mouth and in his pen, the words that Roxanne longs for and that ultimately help her fall in love.

Williams does a fine job as Christian. Most roles in this play are subordinate to Cyrano and Williams does not stand out.

Vanderbeck is a lovely Roxanne, swept away by the eloquence of Cyrano's words, which she feels are coming from Christian, only to realize, much too late, that the man with whom she has been in love for so many years is really Cyrano.

Matt K. Miller, who has become a master at playing the snide villain undergoing some sort of ultimate noble transformation does not disappoint as the Comte DeGuiche, with his own designs on Roxanne, outwitted at the last moment by Cyrano, who arranges a hasty marriage before Christian is sent off to war.

(Times were apparently different in the 1600s and it appears that even cads respected the bond of marriage.)

Others in lesser roles all performed well. Adrian Roberts is a commanding presence on the stage as Cyrano's lifelong friend LeBret.

Lynn Baker is Roxanne's Duena, and later in the play dons the habit for a role as a nun in the abby where Roxanne retires following Christian's death.

Michael RJ Campbell is resplendent in pink as Cyrano's enemy, the actor Monfleury.

Doug Kester is Ragueneau, a pastry chef with a particular love of poetry.

John Dalmon is the poet Ligniere, whose life Cyrano saves by single-handedly battling 100 men.

Incidental music is provided by Moises Rodriguez, softly playing the guitar at one side of the stage, occasionally as accompaniment for on-stage choral singing, or solos by Erik Smith, who has a pleasant, if not memorable voice.

Chris Uchman-Douglas, playing the role of the Vicomte Valvert is also credited with fight choreography and has done a masterful job of creating the feel of a band of cavaliers for whom swordplay comes as second nature.

Kudos to Todd Roehermann for his magnificent costume design. The costumes, particularly of the cavaliers gave a wonderful richness to the look of the show.

Arthur Roch's scenic design was utilitarian, though nothing spectacular, primarily dictated by the number of people needed to be on stage in several scenes. The abby scene, however, was especitally lovely. I took particular offense, however, to his "man in the moon" rising across the nighttime sky. As this production seems to have been designed more for realism than for fantasy, a big yellow moon with the face of a man on it seemed jarringly out of place.

"Cyrano de Bergerac" is a classic with a contemporary feel. Director Peggy Shannon's production is wonderfully accessible and with a tragic triangular love story and all the swash-buckling battles that take place on the stage, it should have broad appeal across the spectrum of audience members.

Putnam County Spelling Bee

If you want to get a real feel for "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," the touring Broadway company production which opened last night at the Sacramento Community Center, go see it with a teacher.

Through all the stress, the angst, the mayhem and the fun, my friend was nodding her head. “I believe it all,” she said after the show, remembering the years that she helped to put on spelling bees in her school in Wisconsin.

The Tony-award winning musical comedy is based on “C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E,” an original play by the Farm. The book for the musical is by Rachel Sheinkin, conceived by Rebecca Feldman with music and lyrics by William Finn, perhaps best known for his “Falsettos” trilogy, about a man dying of AIDS.

There are no such heavy themes in “Putnam County Spelling Bee,” which is peopled not only by a delightfully zany cast of characters, but also assisted by four volunteers from the audience (there is an opportunity to sign up to become one of the on-stage members of the spelling bee team in the lobby, before entering the theatre). The audience members participated for a surprisingly long time and each received rounds of applause when they eventually misspelled a word.

How can you make a children’s spelling bee an interesting nearly two hour musical (it is performed without intermission)?

You start with the delightfully over the top Rona Lisa Peretti (Roberta Duchak), a former spelling bee winner and real estate agent, who now runs the annual spelling bee. Her delivery would do an aging Beauty Pageant participant proud.

Her cohort, and reader of the words and the delicious definitions and sentences is Douglas Panch (James Kall), now back from that unfortunate incident five years ago. He’s much better now, he reassures the audience.

Mitch Mahoney (Kevin Smith Kirkwood) is the guy who leads the pledge of allegiance, and is the guy who escorts each loser off the stage and presents them with their commemorative box of apple juice. (Kirkwood also has several other smaller roles throughout the evening.)

And then there are the children themselves, each a perfect depiction of a certain type of child. Olive Ostrosky is a latchkey kid whose mother has gone off to India to find herself, and whose father forgot to come to the spelling bee and who doesn’t have the money to enter, but is allowed to compete anyway. She learned to spell because she grew up in a house with an oversized dictionary that she liked to read while sitting on the toilet.

Leaf Coneybear (described as a home schooled kid from Davis) got into the contest on a fluke when both the real winner of the previous spelling bee and the runner up had to attend a bat mitzvah. He insists he’s “not that smart,” a notion which he seems to have picked up from his many siblings, and keeps surprising himself with his correct answers.

Marcy Park (Katie Boren) is an overachiever who speaks six languages, is good in music and in sports and everything else she attempts, but is a girl who just wants to be normal and eventually seeks advice from a surprisingly unlikely source.

Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre (Dana Steingold) is president of the Gay Straight Alliance in her school, has two dads who dote on her, is a budding feminst, and yet wonders “what about me?”

Chip Tolentino (Justin Keyes) won the contest last year and, dressed in his Boy Scout uniform, is confident that he will easily win this year too, until an unfortunate hormonally induced incident spoils his chances. Chip has perhaps the most unusual song of the night—certainly a first for song lyrics!

William Barfee (whose name rhymes with ‘parfait’ but whose size makes him the perfect victim of jokes mispronouncing the name) has a “magic foot” and an unusual technique for figuring out the correct way to spell a word. Eric Roediger is delightful in the role, and his character’s growing friendship with Olive is very special.

You are not going to leave the Civic Center humming any of the tunes from this show (except perhaps the title song), but you will smile as you think back on the enjoyable evening you have just spent.

Is this a show worth seeing? D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y.

Moving Midway

Miss Mary was not happy.

It was Dena Williams’ first Christmas at Midway Plantation and she decided to set up the Christmas tree in the parlor (“what we would call the living room,” she explained).

Williams’ husband, Charlie Silver tried to warn her that it was Miss Mary’s special room and that she wouldn’t want the tree there, but Williams was adamant that it was the best place to put it. “We put the tree in the parlor and had it all decorated and then, in the middle of the night we heard a crash and found tree down, but only one ornament broken. Miss Mary had been gentle but made her point,” she laughed.

“Miss Mary” was Silver’s great-great aunt, Mary Hilliard Hinton, the tiny matriarch, who dressed as her heroine, Queen Victoria, who was the teller of all the family stories, and who died in 1961. Miss Mary’s ghost (along with several others, including a cat) inhabits Midway Plantation.

(“How do you know the ghosts are there?” I asked Williams. “We see them,” she replied, with her husband adding that since these were relatives he knew in life, their ghosts don’t appear scary. Williams had some discussions with the spirits when she and Silver first married and moved to Midway Plantation. “I walked around from room to room and asked them to be nice to me and wait until I felt comfortable before showing themselves. They waited and they’ve always been very nice.”)

The spiritual side of Midway Plantation is only one aspect of a fascinating documentary which will kick off the Fifth Annual Davis Film Festival, This year's festival features films on topics ranging from movement and music to community and the consequences of war, and includes innovative short works by new filmmakers as well as feature-length films from around the world.

"Moving Midway" is an acclaimed documentary and multiple film festival award winner and an excellent choice to start the 2008 festival. In its simplest form, “Moving Midway” is the story of moving a family home from one location near Raleigh, North Carolina to another, but in the process of documenting the move, film critic turned filmmaker Godfrey Cheshire not only shows the mechanics of relocating an historical building, but also traces the importance of the Southern plantation in American history, gives us a glimpse into his own ancestry, and discovers a whole new side of the family, and more than 100 cousins he never knew he had.

The land on which Midway Plantation and two others (The Oaks and Beaver Dam) was built (420,700 acres) was given by the British crown to Miss Mary's family in 1739, before the American Revolution. Midway was built in 1848 as a wedding gift to Miss Mary's father, David Hinton. Over the years, the house became the gathering place for all the family and Godfrey Cheshire remembers happy times playing with his cousins, Charlie (Nicknamed "Pooh"), Winston ("Winkie") and John (Possum").

Things had changed in 2004, when Cheshire went to visit Silver, who now owned Midway Plantation. Where once lay a dirt wagon track, now was a major highway with more than 55,000 cars a day passing the home. Instead of looking out at rolling hills and trees, the former plantation faced a McDonald's, a bank, and several other shops in a strip mall. Silver's 80-something mother was looking to the house's upkeep and had rented it out, but she was getting calls from developers every day offering to buy the property and it had become a burden on her.

Silver and Williams decided to move into the house to make things easier on his mother. They lived there only two years before the couple made the fateful decision to buy another plot of land and move the house to a new location. What was most important to Silver was preserving the house for future generations, and he realized that in its present urban setting, his children didn't experience the house he remembered from his childhood. "I realized that none of my children would what to live in it, and that spelled doom for the house," he said. "Our big concern was to make sure the house was attractive enough to have someone else in the family live there.” They had offers from developers to make it the center point of the new mall development, or to tear it apart and reuse timbers. But Silver was adamant that the best thing for the house was to pick it up and move it. It would allow them to rebuild the aging foundation and the chimneys and to make improvements that would make it last another 150 years."

They even hired Rick Lambeth, a consultant who does historic architectural finishes who examined the house and told the couple what all of the original colors were in the whole house—trim, walls, outside, shutters, etc., so that they could restore it to the original appearance.

Godfrey Cheshire immediately felt there was a story to be recorded, but even he didn't realize where that story would lead.

The extended family had mixed emotions about the move, expressed at the last Christmas party held at Midway before the scheduled moving of the house. Midway was always a party home and always looked its best when filled with people. Brother Winston (Winkie) said that growing up in Midway was like nothing any child ever experienced and didn't believe that Charlie was actually going to move the house. "I'll believe it when I see it," he laughed. Brother John ("Possum") made his views on the moving of the house known in no uncertain terms. "I thought he was full of sh*t!" he said emphatically.

Silver and Williams were also concerned about how the ancestors would feel about the move. "We literally sat on the steps and talked to them. 'We hope you guys are all right with this,'" he said.

A part of the history of the house concerned the slaves who once worked on the plantation. There were records showing that the original slave was a man named Mingo, who had been a gift when the house was first built. (Previous work had been done by indentured white laborers.) The family Bible also held a photo of an African American man, Ruffin Hinton, who looked very much like Charles Lewis Hinton, the plantation owner (who also served two terms as State Treasurer of North Carolina). It was generally acknowledged that Ruffin was the result of a relationship with the house cook.

As Godfrey Cheshire was preparing for his film about Midway, a letter on some unrelated topic from Robert Hinton, a professor of African American Studies at NYU, appeared in the "New York Times." In the letter he mentioned that his grandfather, Dempsey Hinton, had been born on Midway Plantation in 1860. Cheshire made arrangements to meet with Hinton and through comparing their various family stories, they realized that Hinton's grandfather had been a slave at Midway Plantation. Hinton was invited to Midway Plantation to meet his cousins and travel around the grounds where the slave quarters had once been, and to explore the slave cemetery.

“I always thought I would meet another Hinton, but I hoped it would be someone I wouldn't like," Robert Hinton smiled.

Charlie Silver found a 47 acre plot of land three miles from Midway Plantation and purchased it. Mike Black, a professional house mover, was hired to handle the actual move of the main building and several of the out-buildings. When the day came to move the house, Robert Hinton was invited to join the rest of the family in breaking a bottle of champagne over the metal bars which held the house on dollies before the truck started to slowly pull the house over back roads to its new location.

"I felt it was important to help launch the move and represent my family,” said Hinton.

It took four days to move the house the three miles and set it down on its new foundation.

One of the most hair-raising segments of the journey involved crossing a narrow bridge. "We didn’t know for sure if the bridge would hold the weight," Charlie said. It had been designed by twins brothers and it had been their first job out of college 8-10 yrs before. They did lots of calculations to see if it would hold the weight of the house. The bridge was also so narrow that the house cleared the guard rails by less than an inch. The supports actually scraped the rails as it crossed over the bridge.

It was two years before the house was ready for parties again. When it held its first social gathering, several of the descendants of Ruffin Hinton were invited to attend, including Abraham Lincoln Hinton, Ruffin's grandson, born in 1909.

“I think in order to be a healthy individual, you have to know where you come from and how you got to be who you are. I cannot make sense of myself without understanding this house and being involved with the house,” said Robert Hinton.

And the ghosts? Did they move with the house? “We know that my dad has moved,” said Charlie Silver. “My great great aunt also moved and the ghost cats have moved. The 'nice lady' has moved. (We think it’s my grandmother. We haven’t seen her really clearly, but my granddaughter does.) Miss Mary came with us and has been very pleased. We usually see her as a wren. She came and flew thru the house.”

But employees at PetSmart and Target, which were built on the land once occupied by Midway Plantation, have reported strange things happening at night, with items being moved and found in odd places, so apparently some of the Hinton clan stayed behind to watch over the land as well.

Resting Place

Seven year old Ashley is dead. We know this because a huge grave stone dominates the set for the world premiere of “Resting Place, a new play by local playwright Richard Broadhurst (whose play "Benched" was given its world premiere at STC in 2001 and whose holiday comedy "Crib" was performed at River Stage in 2005).

Ashley’s grave is the meeting place for Ashley’s mother Margaret (Kelley Weir), who seems to be a very uptight and angry woman and the cemetery’s groundskeeper Paulie (Robert Sicular), a man of limited intelligence and education, lonely and desperate for company.

The first meeting does not go well. Margaret is angry because she feels Paulie is desecrating her daughter’s grave, though softens somewhat when she discovers he is the groundskeeper. When she tries to end their encounter, he seems desperate to keep her there, talking.

As the two talk, it becomes apparent that both have secrets they have buried and that both need a “resting place” where they can just get away from everything.

Paulie reveals a childhood of neglect and abandonment, a life lived in detention centers and then, saddest of all, his decision to rob a bank to get money for medical care for his grandmother. Prison, he confesses, taught him a trade and when he was released, he deliberately violated his parole so he could go back to prison and continue his education in gardening.

Margaret eventually reveals the marital abuse and alcoholism that drove her to leave her husband and the circumstances of Ashley’s death, for which she blames herself. She also confesses to estrangement from her younger daughter.

A casual friendship develops between the two, though each has more to reveal which will result in plot twists the audience does not see coming.

In attempting to hold on to Margaret’s friendship, Paulie suggests the two assume fantasy identities, Paulie a pirate, and Margaret “Monique,” a woman of mystery. This was perhaps the weakest part of the plot.

Though this is a serious story, there are lots of funny lines. In places the script seems not to ring true and it’s difficult to know if this is the part of the script itself or of Weir’s delivery, since it is her character who is the less believable of the two.

Sicular is excellent as a man who has never had to learn proper manners, but who is trying to be polite to this very proper woman. His persona is enhanced by his costume, the rough-hewn clothing of a man who is accustomed to working with the soil. Costumer Jessica Minnihan has added perfect little touches, like the heavy horn-rimmed glasses held together with duct tape.

Weir’s Margaret is an uptight woman whose grief over her daughter’s death is buried deeply and gives her a hard edge. The edge cracks at one point and anyone who has lost a loved one, particularly a child, will be able to identify with her pain.

The third member of the cast is a non-speaking child, dressed, head to toe, in a skeleton costume. The role is shared by Jack Hughes and Andrew Standriff.

Scenic Designer, Steve Decker, has created a realistic cemetery, somewhat hampered by the short space between the back of the stage and the front row of seats. In order not to step on “graves,” the actors always seemed to be close to stepping on the toes of those sitting in the front row.

Lighting Designer Dale Marshall has done some wonderful work, including a beautiful “morning,” as Paulie wakes up from a night of drinking. The “sun through the leaves” effect was perfect.

“Resting Place” is a show about coming to terms with the secrets in our past and learning to deal with them, to forgive ourselves for our past transgressions, give ourselves a “do over,” and to move forward. `