A Year with Frog and Toad

I have heard for years that “A Year with Frog and Toad” with music by Robert Reale, and book and lyrics by Willie Reale, based on the popular series of children’s books by Arnold Lobel, was a wonderful show. So I was thrilled to find it on the Woodland Opera House schedule. I knew it was on their Family Theater schedule but I assumed it was adults performing for kids, as in the videos I’ve watched.

So it was a surprise to discover that this production, directed by Emily Jo Seminoff, was by talented child actors, some as young as second-graders, but to my delight, it was a charming production with strong actors, singers and dancers.

This delightful family musical is a series of vignettes taken from the Lobel books, which show two good friends living through four seasons and learning the value of friendship.

In the title roles are Bailey Robinson-Burmester as Frog and Jimin Moon as Toad. Continuing the family legacy, Robinson-Burmester gives a wonderful performance. This young man is already a veteran of many productions and his experience shows. He is totally at home on the stage and takes command of his character. He is assisted by a wonderful costume by Denise Miles, a sort of blend of a tailcoat and a sports coat.

Fourteen-year-old Moon, who performed solo at Carnegie Hall last December, is the more laid-back, sometimes petulant Toad, but every bit Robinson-Burmester’s equal as the two friends plant a garden, swim, bake cookies and ride a sleigh down a snow-covered hill (among other activities). The two even do a darn good tap dance for “He’ll Never Know.”

As back-up, there are groups of young actors as birds, lizards, moles, bees/squirrels, snow dancers and trees, some of whom also have solo roles as well. The bees/squirrels are the youngest group of kids and steal the show with cuteness whenever they are on stage.

Alex Romero, in her ninth production at the Woodland Opera House, is Mouse, a small role that she performs well.

Hattie Craven, who recorded her first CD at age 11, makes the most of her role as Snail, the mailman to whom Frog gives a letter to deliver to Toad because Toad is sad that he never gets mail. Craven’s role is a small one, but she brings laughs at every appearance and her song, “I’m Coming Out of My Shell,” is a good message for anyone:

“I thought, ‘I’m just a snail.
A lot of shell. A little goo.
But all of that has changed,
As now the following is true
I got something I do
Something I’m proud of
Because I do it pretty well”

James Hayakawa and Chloe Sears leave the birds’ nest for a scene in which they play Mother and Father Frog, with Alyssa Denman outstanding as Young Frog.

Seminoff, no stranger to children’s theater herself, gets high marks for her direction and choreography, which is exuberant without going overboard and all the kids do her proud.

John Bowles has designed a utilitarian stage with two blocks for the houses of Frog and Toad, which rotate to show different rooms of the house, or to blend into the grassy background, when necessary.
This is a show that gives its audience — and the Opera House was filled with exceptionally well-behaved children of all ages — a great time enjoying good songs, good comedy and plenty of heart.

Crawdads CD Release Party

 

The Putah Creek Crawdads are throwing a party at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 28, at the Palms Playhouse in Winters to celebrate the release of their second CD, “Rolling On.” Their first CD, “Going Back” was released in January 2009, which was the last time I met with the group for an interview.

The Crawdads are an acoustic vocal and string band, which plays folk, Americana, gospel and bluegrass music. They have been playing around Yolo County and beyond for almost 50 years. Members reside in Davis, Woodland, Knights Landing, Winters and Arbuckle. They span an age range from 45 to 93. They often can be seen playing at the Davis Farmers Market, at Ludy’s Main Street BBQ in Woodland or at a host of charitable events to which they donate their time and talents.

There is disagreement about the exact start date of the group, but agreement that the distant genesis was a yearly gathering held by members of the Unitarian Universalist Church over at Dillon Beach, when everyone would sit around in the evening and sing music.

Marc Faye, a farmer from Knights Landing, remembers that he and the other three original members —Ray Coppock, Cap Thomson and Oliver “Chip” Northup — started playing together in the 1960s when hootenanny music was popular and everybody seemed to be playing guitar.

The Crawdads eventually grew to include: Coppock, a retired information specialist for the UC Ag Extension and the senior member; Thomson, former director of Yolo County Mental Health and former director of Sutter Center for Psychiatry; Wayne Ginsburg, a retired English and journalism teacher, who now acts as the band manager; Kate Laddish, the fiddle player who learned to play the fiddle in order to be a Crawdad; and Northup.

John Rominger joined the group in 2011, having returned to Davis after his retirement. He had been playing guitar with various groups, and as a solo keyboard performer in the Bay Area.
“I had known Marc and Cap for many years and when I was talking to Marc I made a comment about looking for someone to play music with,” Rominger said. “They invited me to play a few times and after awhile invited me to join the group.”
At a recent rehearsal at the Thompson home, band members discussed why they decided to put out a CD now.
“Well, we have a very fine guitarist (Rominger) now,” Thomson said, with Coppock adding, “All we had before was Chip and me … and we aren’t really guitar players.”

“We’ve reconstituted and we’re celebrating that,” Thomson said. “We love to make music, and we were grateful for the opportunity.”

“Reconstituted” refers, of course, to the tragic loss of Oliver “Chip” Northup, one of the original Crawdads, who had played guitar and taken many of the lead vocals for the group since its formation 50 years ago.

“After we lost Chip, one of the things we did, was substitute duets for Chip’s solos,” Coppock said.
“Chip had a wonderful memory for words and for music,” Thomson said. The group laughed, fondly remembering their friend, but in agreement that Northup was religious about never changing the key, never modulating, never straying from the original way a song had been performed.

“There are certain songs we don’t sing any more because they were all Chip. Songs like “Strawberry Run” … he’s the only one who knew all the words!” Coppock said.

“There were lots of songs that I never had a role in singing and thus never learned the words,” Faye added.

The group paused to specify that the dedication of this album reads, “We dedicate this album to the memories of Oliver “Chip” Northup and Claudia Maupin. Chip was our lead singer for 48 years (1965-2013), and the warmth in his voice matched the warmth in his heart and spirit. They were two of the most generous and giving people we’ve known. We miss them deeply.”

Ginsburg also talked about the value producer Keith Little has had in the Crawdad history and in the production of this album.

“Keith has helped the group grow vocally over the last several years,” Ginsburg said.

They met Little at a band camp and he became their producer, coach and friend. In fact, both CDs were recorded at the Crockett recording studio of Little’s singing partner, Jim Nunally.

“One of the things that really shows (comparing) our pre-Keith days and now is our understanding of arranging and the difference in what you can do when you are performing versus what you can do in a studio, in terms of what is happening behind the singing,” Laddish explained. “When you listen to our recording now versus when we first went into the studio in 2007 there’s a huge difference.”

They called this album “Rolling On” because they knew this is what Northup would have wanted — that the group keep “rolling on.”

In fact “Rolling on” is a theme which parenthetically encloses all of the 17 songs in this new album, which starts with a traditional bluegrass song, “I’m rolling on,” first recorded by Bill Monroe, the granddaddy of bluegrass, in a special Crawdad version.

The final song is Woody Guthrie’s “Roll On, Columbia,” recorded by the Crawdads in 2007, but never released until now. This version features Northup. “Chip’s voice, as you will hear, was something special,” the album cover states.

In between are popular tunes like Stephen Foster’s “Camptown Races,” and less familiar tunes like the instrumental “In Memory of Herbie MacLeod,” which features Laddish’s fiddle.

“Cap taught me the tune in about 2002, and we brought it to the full band when we were looking for an instrumental for this album,” Laddish said, explaining that it was inspired by the music of Cape Breton and was written by Jerry Holland in memory of Helen Thomson’s late father, Herbie.

After 50 years, what keeps these guys together is their enjoyment in playing together. Coppock remembers that he was told by Keith Little that the thing that drew him to the group in the first place was that they were the only group who had been together for a long time where the members all actually still liked each other.

Not to be found on this new album (but will be on the next CD, they promise) is a brand new song written for the Crawdads by John Rominger, which nicely traces the history of the group and sums up their popularity very well:

“Those crawdads have a knack for makin’ people want to smile.
They love to entertain their fans with a laid back down home style”

Come out to The Palms Playhouse on March 28 and get a preview of the new song, as well as the songs on the album. Let the Crawdads entertain you with their laid back style and let their music “soothe your mind.”

Rain

 

I had not seen that many arms waving the peace sign in decades.

The Beatles Tribute band, Rain, has returned to the Sacramento Community Center with a new and improved Beatles tribute, and the hundreds of ecstatic fans were screaming and whistling and clapping as soon as the lights went down, before the curtain even went up.

Their excitement was rewarded by a two-hour homage to the Fab Four by a group that has been celebrating The Beatles phenomenon for longer than The Beatles themselves actually were together (the Rain band started in 1975).

Aided by an incredible multi-media presentation using LED and hi-def screens, “Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles” takes the audience through Beatles history, starting with their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” through the Shea Stadium concert, into their psychedelic years and their final concerts together, becoming more socially conscious and working to “give peace a chance.”

Included in this updated tribute are songs The Beatles recorded in the studio, but never performed for an audience. It’s all music, with no scripted dialog, though there are some clever asides to the audience now and then.

The audience whistled and cheered, clapped, waved their arms, sang along with familiar songs, got up and danced and in general had a fabulous time, all the while waving at themselves projected large on the screen on stage at the grand finale.

All four of the performers in Rain — Joey Curatolo (Paul), Steve Landes (John), Joe Bithorn (George) and Ralph Castelli (Ringo) — also performed in various versions of the Beatlemania band. All were profoundly affected by The Beatles at an early age.

Castelli knew from the moment he saw Ringo Starr on “The Ed Sullivan Show” that he wanted to be a drummer. He not only toured as Ringo in Beatlemania, but also played Starr in “Beatlemania: the Movie.”

Bithorn likewise was smitten after watching the Sullivan show and took up the guitar. He toured with Beatlemania as George until he joined Rain in 1983.

Curatolo, who taught himself to play the guitar at age 10, toured with the Broadway production after winning multiple McCartney sound-alike contests.

Landes is a second-generation Beatles fan who also taught himself guitar at age 10 by listening to Beatles records. He also traveled with Beatlemania and joined Rain in 1998.

The four are joined by keyboardist Mark Beyer, to fill in not only piano sounds, but also, when necessary, violin, harp and other instruments.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I was never a Beatles fan, so I cannot speak to the accuracy of arrangement or vocal imitation, though it all sounded pretty spot-on to me, and the audience loved it. These are talented musicians and they put on an amazing show.

The opening segment alone, with banks of TV screens showing clips from Ed Sullivan — the host and the group and then thousands of screaming fans in the audience — set the stage for what was to come.

Later, the Shea Stadium concert was given authenticity by a stage-wide projection of the audience at that concert that made you feel you actually were there in the stands looking at the audience on the other side of the field.

The clever introduction of period television commercials to entertain the audience while the group members change costumes was fun. (Who remembers that Fred and Barney were once spokespersons for Winston cigarettes?)

As the group hits the ’60s and ’70s, light shows enhance the psychedelic years along with “Yellow Submarine”-type animation.

What is best about this show for the audience is the shared experience, remembering back to those bell-bottom days. Everyone (except perhaps me) has their own memories of how they were affected by The Beatles and Rain gives them a chance to relive those days.

It doesn’t matter that these guys aren’t the real deal — they sound real, they look real and they sing the songs that became the fabric of our lives.

Rapture, Blister, Burn

 

The message of Gina Gionfriddo’s hilarious “Rapture, Blister, Burn” — now given a wonderful treatment at Capital Stage, under the direction of Shannon Mahoney — is “be careful what you wish for.”

Catherine (Megan Pearl Smith) is a beautiful, intelligent successful author, a darling of the talk show circuit, who was a recent guest on Bill Maher. She’s the author of books delving into “the connection between reality TV and the collective loss of national privacy, torture porn as a reaction to second-wave feminism, and the rise of degradation as entertainment in the wake of 9/11.”

She’s also single and “living the dream” in New York City.

Her former college roommate Gwen (Kelley Ogden) has it all — a beautiful home, two children, a hunky husband any woman would want.

Husband Don (Sam Misner) is the dean of a small college, counselor to students with behavior problems. He is also Catherine’s former lover. When Catherine went off to London for a year, Gwen moved in and married him.

When Catherine’s mother Alice (Phoebe Moyer) has a heart attack, Catherine decides, based on family history, that her mother’s death is imminent and she rushes home to take care of her in her final days (though Alice seems fine).

Concern for her mother brings the three old college chums together again, as Don uses his contacts to get a teaching job for Catherine while she is waiting for Mom to die. As the play begins, there is an awkward reunion of the trio.

Apparently, Catherine and Gwen had a telephone conversation which, owing to having drunk too much, Catherine does not remember, which prompted her invitation to visit the couple and which explains Gwen’s nervous constant chatter.

When Gwen leaves the room, it is apparent that the old sparks have rekindled for Catherine and Don.
Rounding out the cast is Madilyn Cooper as Avery, the baby-sitter with a black eye whom Gwen insists on firing because “we can’t let our son thinking this is normal, like someone punching out his baby-sitter is no big deal.”

The plot device of having Catherine teach a special seminar in her home to only two people — Gwen and Avery (with Mom on hand to provide martinis) — is contrived, but an efficient way to get to the meat of the show, which is feminism as viewed by three generations of women.

As each of the three gets fuel for her own particular fire, unhappy Gwen, who wishes she had pursued a career, agrees to switch places with unhappy Catherine, who misses marriage and a family. Gwen will take her older son, with whom she has a better relationship, and take over Catherine’s apartment and her bank account. Catherine and Don will move in together with the younger son, who is the problem child.

As expected, there is some crabgrass in that greener grass on both sides of the fence as each woman discovers that her heart’s desire may have been in her own front yard after all.

There is first-rate acting in this comedy. Ogden is a wonder as Gwen, her insecurity and people-pleasing personality leading to nervous chatter, changing to a dark mood when she realizes that Catherine wants her husband. The personality change is night and day, and wonderful.

Smith’s Catherine is self-assured and confident until hormones and suppressed longing take over and then she leads with her hormones and loses herself in the passion of what Avery calls “the love drunk.”

Misner’s Don goes along for the ride. He spends his time watching porn, with which he finds no problem. He drinks too much. He’s lost his ambition. He lusts after Catherine. He is unlikely to change his behavior, though Catherine is convinced that the love of the right woman can restore him to the man she knew in college.

Cooper’s Avery is the most level-headed one of them all, a young woman who rejects the feminism of Betty Friedan and her opposite, conservative Phyllis Schlafly, both of whom she finds outdated. Avery and the rest of her generation believe they have seen the mistakes made by the older generation and have learned from them.

Her observations are right on target, and she has a comment about Google maps that may be the funniest line of the night.

Phoebe Moyer is a jewel as Alice, Catherine’s mother, raising her child in the days before feminism became a “thing,” with some solid, down-home observations. She also is ready to make a martini at the drop of a hat.

If you suspend disbelief in some of the plot, and just enjoy the snappy dialog and the comedy, this is a very funny show, but one with a bit of substance to make one think.

And by the way, Sam Misner and Megan Pearl Smith comprise the popular Davis-based musical group, Misner & Smith, which is playing a concert at Capital Stage on Sunday, March 29.

Oblivion

Julie’s parents have always taught her to think for herself. As the 16-year-old entered adolescence, they were prepared for her to experiment with drugs or alcohol or with sex (gay or straight) and they were OK with that.

They are modern parents raising a modern kid, but when Julie decides to explore religion, specifically Christianity, all those parenting values come into question and set off an exploration not only of parent-child relationships, but the husband-wife relationship as well.

“Oblivion” is a comedy by Carly Mensch, perhaps better known as a writer for the popular Showtime series “Weeds” and “Nurse Jackie.” It opened, in its West Coast premiere, last weekend at the B Street Theatre, under the direction of Buck Busfield.

Dad Dixon (Kurt Johnson), a non-practicing Jew, is an attorney who just quit the profession when he had a nervous breakdown. Now he spends his time sitting in the house, wearing pajamas, smoking pot and writing what his wife thinks is a John Grisham-type novel, but in reality, porn. Dixon is the “dad-pal,” who cares more about being Julie’s buddy than about being her father.

Mom Pam (Elisabeth Nunziato) is an atheist, the high-powered breadwinner who works for HBO, making documentary films. She is also the disciplinarian in the family, the “bad guy” who battles Dixon when it comes to issues concerning Julie’s behavior.

The two of them are described by Julie’s best friend, wannabe filmmaker Bernard (Arthur Keng), as “the most open-minded, liberal people on the planet.”

The problem starts when Julie (Julie Balefsky) returns from a weekend with Bernard. She says it was visiting Wesleyan College, but Pam and Dixon think they know better and question her unmercifully. When they discover (through snooping through Julie’s diary and grilling the intimidated Bernard) that she has been attending his Baptist church and reading the Bible, all hell (or what passes for hell in an atheist household) breaks loose.

Julie’s curiosity about Christianity is only the jumping-off point for the more serious revelations that expose the cracks in the relationship between Pam and Dixon.

Like Mensch’s “Nurse Jackie,” this is a comedy with lots of dramatic overtones to it, so it may be more appropriately called a “dramady.”

Balefsky gives a fine performance as the rebellious teenager, trying to find her own path. Julie isn’t a bad kid. She’s trying to discover who she is, and is surprised that she has none of the sexual angst of many of her peers. Her friendship with Bernard is strictly platonic but she has a yearning to fill a hole in her soul and hopes that Christianity will provide the answer.

Nunziato is both strident and vulnerable in her portrayal of Pam. Her long-held ideas are falling around her and she is desperately trying to hold on to them.

Johnson's Dixon is laconic and detached from life. He has withdrawn from just about everything, but the crisis with Julie is slowly bringing him back to life, a life he may find difficult to adjust to.

Though Bernard seems an odd character in this dramady, Keng is actually the soul of the story — a geeky kid who wants to invent something “new” in film that has never been seen before. Critic Pauline Kael is his hero and he writes her heartfelt letters and holds imaginary conversations with her. He is devastated to discover that she died several years before.

The end of the story is almost a cop-out, though it is Bernard who kind of ties it all together.

This is an odd show, but with lots of laughs along the way.

(The multi-level set by Sam Remo is wonderful.)

Italian opera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Julius Caesar

The first thing to notice, entering Sacramento Theatre Company’s main stage for its current production of “Julius Caesar,” is the beautiful set by scenic designer Eric Broadwater.

Plain and simple, the series of walls with graceful arches in a light brownish/salmon color is striking. On the walls behind the arches can be seen posters in various sizes, giving it the look of a pending political rally, which, in fact, it is.

When Matt K. Miller, as the title character, is wheeled in on a large pedestal, arms upraised, to greet the adoring crowd, the only quote that comes to mind is that he “doth stride the world like a Colossus,” which is, of course, exactly what is said about him.

While so many of the phrases in common usage come from the works of William Shakespeare, it seems that Julius Caesar is filled with more of them than most. It’s almost as if the entire play was written using colloquial expressions that we commonly use today. This is perhaps a result of the truncated script for this production, but still notable.

Directors Kirk Blackinton and Brian Harrower have set their production in modern times in a world filled with selfies and paparazzi. Everyone has a cell phone and even when the Soothsayer (Bert Andersson) warns Caesar about the Ides of March, he does it by showing him a warning on his cell phone. It’s amazing how this little device makes the Shakespearean dialog more accessible, recited as it might be on “Law and Order” or “CSI.”

There is also gender bending at play. While Brutus and Marc Antony (Jeb Burris and Ryan Snyder, respectively) are men, Cassius and Casca are both played by women, both making their STC debut.
Melisa Pereyra lends an aura of sensuality and seduction to the role of Cassius, displaying a deep hatred and a resolve that the ruler should die, while Melinda Parrett could have stepped off the set of “House of Cards,” in her portrayal of Casca as crisp, businesslike and as ruthless as Claire Underwood (whom she resembles).

While Miller owns the role of Julius Caesar and is as professional as he ever is, the role is a small one and the show really goes to Brutus (Jeb Burris) and Marc Antony (Ryan Snyder).

And while Caesar’s murder resembles more a street fight gone wrong than a neatly coordinated execution taking place in the large Senate chamber, enough blood was spilled that the stage required mopping during intermission.

Miller also deserves kudos for doing nothing, lying as a dead body on the stage after his assassination, and as a draped corpse on a pallet during his eulogy. It takes a lot of talent to play “dead” so convincingly.

Burris is excellent as Brutus, the man who is truly noble, but makes the wrong decisions over and over again. He is like a son to Caesar, whose pained “et tu, Brute?” is the wail of a man who, realizing that even those closest to him have turned against him, seems to give up his will to live. The decision to help murder his mentor is obviously a difficult one for Brutus.

The production, however, may really belong to Snyder, as the charismatic Marc Antony. His oration to the people of Rome — seeming to support the assassination, but all the while provoking the crowd to anger against the assassins — was masterful.

Costume designer McKayla Butym has chosen an eclectic assortment of costumes, resembling more Times Square than a Roman Forum, but fitting for the period in which the production was set.
This is perhaps “Julius Caesar” light, for those who fear heavy-duty, unexpurgated Shakespeare, but nonetheless enjoyable.

Sweeney Todd

When you look through your program and see that the production you are about to witness has a “blood manager” on the tech crew, you have a pretty good idea that it’s going to be messy.
Indeed, Davis Musical Theatre Company’s current production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” lives up to that promise. This dark tale of kidnapping, rape, murder and cannibalism doesn’t have a lot of laughs (though they do manage to find one here and there).

Director Steve Isaacson (who is also musical director [with Jonathan Rothman], set designer and lighting designer) has created a first rate cast who do justice to this Sondheim classic.

John Haine plays Benjamin Barker, a young barber sent to a penal colony in Australia on false charges because the infamous Judge Turpin (Nathan Lacy) had designs on his wife, whom he kidnaps and rapes. Barker has now returned to London, under the name Sweeney Todd, and seeks revenge on the man who destroyed his family.

He returns to the apartment he shared with his wife and infant daughter and is told by the landlady, Mrs. Lovett (Cyndi Wall), that his wife committed suicide and daughter Johanna (Jori Gonzeles) is now a ward of Judge Turpin.

Mrs. Lovett, who runs a bakery under the apartment and bakes what she admits are “the worst pies in London” reveals that she has kept his barber tools and produces a box of shiny razors. An idea is born, and Todd sets up his barber shop once again, hoping to lure his enemies to his chair, and to use his blades, and then kill them.

The affable Mrs. Lovett, never one to let opportunity pass her by, hates to see all that good “meat” go to waste as Todd begins his killing spree (“Seems an awful waste… / I mean, with the price of meat / What it is, / When you get it, / If you get it…”) and so they work together to improve the quality of her pies, which soon become the talk of London.

Their duet, “A Little Priest” is one wonderfully macabre moment of lightness in an otherwise very dark musical. Wall is delightfully coquettish as Mrs. Lovett, enjoying her new-found success as a pie baker, and attempting to woo Todd and move him out of London.

Haine is a surprisingly charismatic Sweeney Todd, filled with rage, but you can’t help but feel his pain and root for him with each throat he slits. Those who surround him are so much more evil that we feel empathy, we care about him, and we hope for his success in avenging the terrible things that were done to him.

One might have hoped for a tad more volume from Haine, but he gives a wonderful performance.
F. James Raasch is Anthony Hope, a sailor who rescued Todd at sea and who falls in love with Johanna. He has a steady, strong voice and a great presence on stage. His relationship with Johanna is touching.

As for Gonzales, she is a beautiful, innocent Johanna with a lovely voice, who has a chance to shine in “Greene Finch and Linnet Bird,” and sing a beautiful duet, “Kiss Me” with Anthony. The two are symbols of goodness in the evil world that surrounds them.

Also important to the plot is the beggar woman (Eimi Taormina), who seems to be the only one aware that terrible things are happening in the pie shop, but her mind is so far gone, nobody will believe her. Taormina gives an outstanding performance, displaying a strong voice and an ability to go mad in memorable fashion.

Outstanding in the minor role of Tobias Ragg, a simple young man who is devoted to Mrs. Lovett, is Joshua Smith, whose final scene is one of the most poignant in the play, and who got the strongest applause at the curtain call.
The chorus deserves its own mention for its impeccable diction. The pasty-face makeup they seemed to be wearing, with the darkened eyes, made them look like they were auditioning for an episode of “The Walking Dead,” but they sang the heck out of their songs.

Mention also must be made of the new barber chair, designed by Tim Shockley, which is the central part of Act 2. A simple chair rigged to easily drop Todd’s victims into the bakery below was ingenious.

This is not a fun night of theater, based on plot, but based on execution, it’s a good way to spend the evening. Davis Musical Theatre Company has done it again.

Woyzeck

Woyzeck is the original bad luck kid.  Poor guy can’t get a break to save his soul.

Woyzeck is the subject of the sumptuous play, directed by Granada Artist in Residence Bob McGrath, currently on the UCD Main Stage.  Written by Georg Büchner, and unpublished at the time of his death in 1837, at the age of 23, it is one of the most performed and influential plays in the German theater repertory.

“Woyzeck,” “an investigation of desire, exploitation and madness,” is known as the first great drama to feature a member of the working class as the central character and is hailed as a masterpiece of expressionist theater, years ahead of its time. It deals with the dehumanizing effects of doctors and the military on a young man’s life.

The play is based on the true story of Johann Christian Woyzeck, who murdered his mistress in 1821. At the trial, his defense was that he had experienced hallucinations and paranoid delusions, but the court decided that he was ultimately in control of his actions and the man was executed in 1824.

Though there have been many translations and interpretations of this ground-breaking play, the current production is adapted by Neil LaBute, a playwright famous for his black humor and violent tales in which often women run afoul of men with borderline personality disorders.  In this production, there are fewer characters, and fewer episodes than in the original, but the mad, intense quality remains.

Hien Huynh gives a masterful performance in the title role.  A movie, directed by Werner Herzog, portrays Woyzeck as somewhat of a simpleton, while McGrath’s hero has principles and dignity, even as being the victim of the experiments of a sadistic Mengle-like physician (Michael Harris), who insists that his patient eat nothing but peas. 

At the same time Rose Kim is a strong Marie, Woyzeck’s common-law wife.  She is wildly sensual, though tender as a mother.  She taunts Woyzeck with her attraction to the Drum Major (Taylor Church).

Harris is a powerful Doctor, using Woyzeck as an example to his students as he lectures to them in the operating theater.  He also plays a carnival barker, putting a horse through its paces.  The comparisons between the hapless Woyzeck and the trained horse are clear, though the horse is better able to express how he feels about being so used (one of the funny moments in the otherwise bleak show).

Likewise David d’Olimpio is overbearing and dictatorial as the Sergeant who does his best to make Woyzeck’s life a living hell.

Special mention should be made of Karl Uriza, as “Karl,” a disembodied head offering comment on the action going on on stage.  His delivery was, to say the least, “unique.”

McGrath has set the action for this production in the China of the 1930s, as represented by slides and video projected onto a scrim in front of the action.  (Projections are by Joan Grossman).  The projections very effectively create the world of the proletariat and its abuse under those in power.

Projections are also used to create scenes, such as a door, or an apartment so that the play can progress with minimal pieces of scenery and still have that rich feeling of a full stage of scenery, though watching all of the action through a scrim does remove a layer of intimacy that one gets in other types of theater.

The often discordant mood music is by David Lang, who manages to create both the strident tenor of the times and the progression of Woyzeck into madness.

Woyzeck has been called the single most influential play of European theater and the beginning of modern drama.  Yet, it is rarely performed.  U.C. Davis is fortunate, indeed, to have the opportunity to  present this work, and happily it done extremely well.

Dia de los Cuentos

 

There were a lot of happy, excited children at the opening performance of the new B Street Theater Family Series production, “Dia de los Cuentos.” I had a great view of one little guy, about 5 years old, who sat and watched intently, clapped enthusiastically, talked back to the performers and just about turned himself inside out with delight at the parts that he liked.

“Dia de los Cuentos” (a day of stories) is the 161st original play written by B Street (46 in the Family Series alone) and the first collaboration among B Street writers Buck Busfield, Jerry R. Montoya and David Pierini.

It celebrates Mexican-American folk tales, in celebration of California’s Latino influence. The four stories (a fifth was removed from the production due to union restrictions on length for theater for young audiences) dramatized the myths and fables that remain at the heart of Latino culture.

The multicultural ensemble cast — Nestor Campos Jr., Amy Kelly, Joel Ledbetter, Dena Martinez and Armando Rivera — worked well together and nicely engaged the children in the audience.
Scenic design by Samantha Reno consisted of a few pieces, mostly two large staircases, that were able to be moved around to represent several scenes and sites, with the addition of a table here, a bed there and a few other pieces.

Costumes by Paulette Sand-Gilbert were over the top and brightly colored, to appeal to children. Perhaps the most clever and most colorful was a parrot costume for Dena Martinez, giving her not only a very colorful costume, but gloves that resembled claws, so that when clutching a branch, she looked for all the world like a parrot on her perch.

The stories began with “Pepito the Mouse” (author credit to Montoya), which explains how the tradition of the tooth fairy came to be. Rivera took the lead as Pepito, a mouse who causes his father (Campos) to lose a tooth. His ingenious solution to help his father continue to eat food started the practice of taking teeth from under the pillows of sleeping children and replacing them with something else of value.

“The Legend of Popocatépetl and Itzaccihuatl” (written by Pierini) is a mouthful and even after hearing “Popocatépetl” many times throughout the play, I’m still not sure I can pronounce it as fluently as the cast.

This play explains something that many mountainous locations take for granted, that a beloved mountain peak (like Mount Tamalpais) is really the sleeping body of a princess or a prince. Popocatépetl (Ledbetter) is in love with Itzaccihuatl (Martinez), but goes off to war against the Aztecs, hoping to return victorious, to ask her father (Campos) for her hand in marriage.

But a jealous young man (Rivera) carries the message that Popocatépetl has been killed in battle, thinking that if he professes his own love to Itzaccihuatl she will marry him instead. His plan backfires and in a Romeo and Juliet-like finale, not only is Itzaccihuatl lost, but Popocatépetl as well.

Rivera becomes a B’rer Rabbit-like bunny in “Rabbit and Coyote” (by Busfield), a zany crowd-pleaser filled with slapstick comedy and chase scenes as the clever rabbit outwits both the wily coyote (Kelly) and the hunter (Campos) looking to have hassenpfeffer for dinner. It explains why coyotes howl at the moon.

The show closes with “The Parrot and the Firewood,” with Martinez as a wonderful parrot, owned by a mean old woman (Kelly) and her very sweet, hen-pecked husband (Campos). How the parrot makes life better for the husband offers an unexpected twist, that will have children cheering and  adults laughing.

These shows are designed for children 5 and older, and judging by my little 5-year-old friend in the front row and the two retired women sitting next to me, it is certain to delight all ages.

A Flea in Her Ear

There’s a whole lot of laughing going on at the Woodland Opera House by an audience enjoying George Feydeau’s farce, “A Flea in Her Ear,” directed by Rodger McDonald.

This frenzied and hilarious comedy relies on the razor-sharp characterizations of a top-rate cast and the crisp direction of MacDonald (who also plays the libidinous doctor, Finache).
The play was written in 1907, at the height of La Belle Epoque, a period that ended with World War I, in which life was peaceful and the arts flourished. The current production was translated from the French by Barnett Shaw.

The story, told in three acts, is set in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, when Raymonde, wife of Victor Emmanuel (Analise Langford Clark) begins to suspect her husband may be getting a little romance on the side, since their previously active and apparently quite satisfying love life has suddenly come to a screeching halt. (This suspicion is the “flea in her ear.”)

(As an aside, I will mention that the printed program for this production is extremely frustrating. Actors aren’t listed in order of appearance, or alphabetically or, it seems, even in order of importance. Most characters are not called by name by the other characters, and when you have a character named “Raymonde” who turns out to be a girl, and a character named “Camille,” who is a boy, your head can go spinning. (They say you can’t tell the players without a program, but in this production, I had difficulty telling the players even with a program!)

But I digress. Back to the show. Raymonde confides in her best friend, Lucienne (Kirsten Myers), who suggests that her friend play a little trick on her husband to see if her fears are confirmed. She suggests that Raymonde send him an anonymous letter from a secret admirer, offering to meet him at the local seedy hotel, Le Coq D’or (“door,” not “di-or,” as some in the cast insist on calling it) for a little rendezvous.

Raymonde likes the idea, but knows that her husband will recognize her handwriting, so Lucienne writes the letter for her. As Lucienne is married to a hot-tempered and passionate Spaniard, Don Carlos Homenides de Histingua (Gabe Avila), we can see what is coming when all of the mixups occur in Act 2.

Standouts in this production include Steve McKay as Victor Emmanuel and, later, his doppelganger, the Coq D’Or bellhop Pochel. His transformations — which involve both quick costume changes and personality changes from the prim and proper Victor to the laconic and confused Poche and back again — are wonderful.

Another outstanding performance is by Brent Randolph as Camille Chandebise, Victor’s nephew who suffers from a speech impediment leaving him unable to pronounce consonants. I don’t know how long it took Randolph to perfect the impediment, but he does it eloquently, broadly and impeccably, giving long speeches that are all but unintelligible until he is given a little instrument to insert in his mouth to correct it. When he loses it later, in mid-harangue, and immediately switches back to his old impediment, it’s brilliant.

McDonald himself, always wonderful, does not disappoint in this role. The women, Clark and Myers, carry most of the first scene and are prim and proper and somewhat soft-spoken so one had to strain to understand them. There was none of that problem with MacDonald, who confidently strode in the door and took over the stage, and we could all heave a sigh of relief knowing we were in excellent hands.

Gil Sebastian plays Victor’s best friend Romain Tournel, smitten with Raymonde and delighted when she turns up at Le Coq D’or, thinking she is finally going to give in to his amorous advances.

Avila, costumed in the bright red and yellow of a Spanish soldier about to do battle and wielding a long sword, is in stark contrast, both visually and temperamentally, to the rest of the cast. He makes the most of the chance to be outrageous.

Tim Gaffaney is Ferallon, the manager of Le Coq D’or, who spends most of the second act kicking Victor/Poche in the backside.

The meat of the show occurs in Act 2, which is reminiscent of the second act of “Noises Off,” with so many coming and going, so many things going wrong, and so many misunderstandings, so many doors. It will leave the audience breathless with laughter, especially the diversion while the set crew changes back to the first-act set in the brief stay-in-your-seat second intermission.

So when all the world is a hopeless jumble and the raindrops tumble all around, leave your troubles outside and come to the Woodland Opera House for a good two hours of fun and laughter.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Andrew Lloyd Webber was only 19 years old when he was asked to write a piece for a local school choir, to sing during an Easter service. He asked his friend Tim Rice (then 22) to write the lyrics, and the two settled on the Genesis story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. As originally performed by those children, the work was only 15 to 20 minutes long.

After a number of additions, changes and performances by amateur companies, the full production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” opened on Broadway in 1982. Now it has returned to the Sacramento Community Center Theater.

The show, the retelling of the beloved Bible story, is full of all those things that make for a fun musical – sibling rivalry, betrayal, fratricide, deception, slavery, seduction, imprisonment, execution, and famine. A natural for a fun evening.

The new production, under the direction and choreography of Andy Blankenbuehler, is a lively, energetic 90 minutes of nonstop singing and dancing. In creating a version of the musical more to 2015 tastes, Blankenbuehler has eliminated a children’s chorus, present in many productions (since this was essentially a children’s story that is told as a dream of the lead character) in his cast and has replaced them with scantily clad women and bare-chested men, which the audience didn’t seem to mind at all.

Though there is a graphic seduction scene it is done so tastefully that even the little 3-year-old sitting in front of me wouldn’t realize what was going on, so it’s quite kid-friendly.

In this day of digital effects, one does not have to have expensive sets to create an elaborate setting. The actual set pieces for this show (designed by Beowulf Boritt) are curtains, moveable blocks and steps, but the projections on the “walls” and in one instance the costumes of the performers are pretty spectacular and make you forget that there are actually no impressive sets on the stage. All are enhanced by the lighting design of Howell Binkley.

But if there were savings on the set, there was none in the costumes of designer Jennifer Caprio, especially the coat of many colors itself (particularly in its second appearance) and the costume of the Pharaoh.
Leading the cast are newlyweds and former American Idol contestants, Ace Young as Joseph and Diana DeGarmo as the narrator.

It is DeGarmo who keeps the story flowing in the most demanding role of the show. She’s energetic, cute and funny and has a set of pipes on her that rocks the house, though it tended to be shrill, which hurt my ears.

Young is a fine Joseph, looking tall and handsome with a charisma that charms the audience. He gets the opportunity to display his voice in the solo “Close Every Door.”

But the supporting cast actually make more of an impact. Brother Reuben (Brian Golub) takes the lead in “One More Angel in Heaven,” a salute to country and western music, while brother Simeon (Paul Castree) shines in “Those Canaan Days” (a parody of French ballads) and Judah (Max Kumangai) heads up “Benjamin Calypso.”

The show stopper, though, is always Pharaoh’s song, “Song of a King,” sung by Ryan Williams in the manner of an Elvis Presley. Williams gyrates and thrusts his hips, courts the audience and pays homage to the King of Rock and Roll. His encore is built into the song and the audience loved it.

There is stunningly precise choreography in several numbers. Particularly outstanding is “Canaan Days,” with the antics that go to divvying up a rat into 11 portions to serve for dinner.

The show’s final number is the ballad “Any Dream Will Do,” a beautiful duet between the Narrator and Joseph, and it set up the finale, “Megamix” with all the cast dressed in white. It seemed to be as long as the entire second act and had the audience clapping and bouncing along with the cast.

This show is always fun and this production does not disappoint.

Ideation

When Aaron Loeb’s “Ideation” premiered at the San Francisco Playhouse in 2013, critics called it everything from “a demonically dark comedy” to a “psychological thrill ride,” a “taut locked-room mystery,” a “gripping satire” and both a “corporate farce” and a “corporate thriller.”
Capital Stage’s production, adroitly directed by Michael Stevenson, proves that this very funny play is indeed all that.

Loeb, senior vice president of Kabam, a free-to-play video game company in San Francisco, writes plays as his second profession and has earned seven Emerging Playwright Awards. He explained that his video gaming experience, combined with his wife’s work as an international human-rights lawyer at San Francisco’s Center for Justice and Accountability, is the inspiration for this Glickman Award winner for Best New Play of 2014.

It is difficult to talk of the specifics of the plot, since they are better revealed in their own time, but the setting is a generic corporate office, with set design by Jonathan Williams, featuring a conference room table designed and built by Marc Foster.

As the show begins, Hannah (Carrie Paff) in her red power suit, is setting up for an important meeting that is about to take place. While it is obvious that Hannah is the brains of the group about to discuss a thorny corporate problem, she is “just” a woman and has to play her cards very carefully.

She first butts heads with Scooter (Russell Dow), an office boy hired because he is the son of one of the corporation’s board members. Scooter believes the work for which he was hired is beneath him and wants to be part of the serious discussion, leaving Hannah with the problem of how to handle this upstart who has no respect for her authority.

The trio of Brock (Jason Kuykendall), Ted (Peter Mohrmann) and Sandeep (Jimmy Sidhu) arrive, fresh from a trip to Crete, in high spirits, laughing and high-fiving about the complicated deal they have signed that will make the stockbrokers rich while causing financial difficulties for Greece. Laughter and good-ol’-boy hilarity ensues.

The dialogue comes fast and furious, and don’t try to figure out what is going on — it may be irrelevant at this point. The beauty of Loeb’s script is how he crafts the action to slowly build tension. Just when you are horrified at what you are hearing, a new element is added and the picture changes completely, and then the paranoia begins and the story evolves even more.

This play needs skillful hands to make it work, and in this cast, Stevenson has that in spades. Kuykendall’s Brock is a Don Draper-like alpha male, arrogant, sure of himself and a take-charge guy. His subtle body language changes throughout the play are brilliant.

Mohrmann is at his finest as the blustery Ted who is the numbers guy, who wants to get on with the discussion so he can get out of the room and make it to his daughter’s soccer game in time. By the same token, he realizes the enormity of the ethically ambiguous project they are tasked to design; his thoughts about it ultimately change everything.

Sidhu is the Indian Sandeep, here on a work visa, who is committed to seeing the project through to completion, though he is having second thoughts and realizing that to disagree with his colleagues risks his legal standing in the country.

Patrick Murphy is the disembodied voice of “J.D.,” the CEO who has demanded a completed project plan in 90 minutes and puts additional pressure on the committee members, all of whom are obviously terrified of incurring J.D.’s displeasure.

“Ideation” challenges the audience to weigh their moral values against global responsibility. Do the needs of the many outweigh the desires of the few — and whom can we really trust when we are making these decisions?

This is a top-notch production of a play that makes you laugh, cringe and question all at once.

5 Songs

Jack Gallagher is the busiest Renaissance man whom you may never have heard of.

This three-time Emmy Award-winning playwright and comedian has played every comedy club in America (or so it seems from his bio), was a regular at The Improv in Los Angeles, appeared in movies, co-hosts the popular nationally syndicated public television show, “Money Track,” starred in his own sitcom (“Bringing up Jack”) and had a recurring role on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

He’s been on a number of talk/variety shows, including “The Tonight Show” (with both Johnny Carson and Jay Leno) and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” He was even the host of the California Lottery’s “Big Spin” from 1996 to 1998.

Yet, all I knew of him was that he was the friendly guy in the old Crystal ice cream commercials.

Gallagher’s new show, “5 Songs,” is the fifth show commissioned by the B Street Theatre, where it opened this past weekend and will run for the next six weeks. It is outstanding.

The central theme is the music of our lives, how sometimes it only takes a few notes of an old song to transport us back to another time and place, with memories that may be pleasant or may be unpleasant, but you can’t escape the story that accompanies that particular song.

The walls of the B Street Main Stage theater, by scenic designer Meg McGuigan, are lined with titles of songs that have special meaning to Gallagher. The audience is given a choice of four from a list of seven or eight. Each of the four sections of the audience selects a song, Gallagher selects the fifth, the rest are removed and the show is on.

Your show may be quite different from mine, as it will change every night, depending on the songs chosen.

With the accompaniment of Tommy Dunbar on guitar, Gallagher begins to reminisce about his memories connected to each particular song. The first song opening night, for example, was Phoebe Snow’s “Poetry Man,” which evoked a visceral reaction and then led to a lengthy description of what it is like to be the opening man for such names as Snow, Dolly Parton, Paul Simon and Tony Bennett, among many others, living life on the road and being the guy nobody wanted to see because everyone was there for the headliner. Some experiences were very bad; some were not so bad (and Bennett, apparently, was the best).

Gallagher has an easy delivery that makes the audience feel as if they were sitting in his living room listening to this delightful man tell them stories from his past.

The most poignant of the songs discussed was “Danny Boy,” which brought up stories of his complicated childhood, his relationship with his parents and how their idiosyncracies shaped his life and turned him into the parent he has become to his two now-adult children. It a beautiful piece and anyone who shares some of the experiences he describes will be moved to tears.

Junior Walker’s “What Does It Take?” opened the door to Gallagher’s memories of his first job, working 13 hours a day in an ice warehouse at age 15, and of developing a work ethic that has followed him the rest of his life.

This is a two-act show, the second act being much shorter than the first, but the time flies by and when it ends, you wish you’d had a chance to hear what he had to say about the songs that did not get selected.

It was a delightful evening spent with a likable guy, who makes doing something very difficult look very easy.

But I missed the ice cream.

Nunsense

Dan Goggin apparently enjoyed his Catholic school upbringing so much that he decided to honor those wacky nuns of whom he was so fond. He penned a cabaret show called “The Nunsense Story,” which opened for a four-day run and was so popular it was extended to 38 weeks.

Encouraged, he expanded his original concept into a full-length comedy called “Nunsense,” which opened off-Broadway and ran for an unbelievable 10 years, the second-longest running off-Broadway show (after “The Fantasticks”). By the time it ended its run, it had been translated into 26 different languages and had seen more than 8,000 productions worldwide. It has even spawned five different sequels.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of this show, the Sacramento Theater Company is bringing it back to the Pollock Stage.

The story involves the Little Sisters of Hoboken — who once worked in a leper colony in the south of France — who are now living in New Jersey, after having been ousted by Protestant missionaries.

While several of the sisters were out playing bingo with a bunch of Maryknolls, their cook, Sister Julia, Child of God, accidentally poisons 52 of the nuns with her tainted vichyssoise. The remaining sisters managed to bury all but four of the departed when they ran out of money and discovered that the Mother Superior took some of the funds raised to buy a flat-screen TV. So the four remaining are being kept in the freezer (“blue nuns,” you might say) and the health department is beating at their door.

They have decided to put on a show to raise the rest of the money so they can finally bury their fellow sisters … and thus is the set-up for the rest of the show. In a somewhat strange explanation, the nuns feel their frozen sisters can’t get to heaven until their bodies are buried … which isn’t what I learned in Catholic school, but let it pass — it’s a plot device.

While the material may be somewhat dated and the jokes real groaners, this two-hour farce kept the audience in stitches and praise was heaped on the show as people left the theater, so it’s obviously a humor that people still enjoy.

Heading the nuns is the marvelous Lucinda Hitchcock Cone, an STC favorite. Her Sister Mary Regina is strongly in command, except for that little episode at the end of Act 1 which gives the perpetual understudy, Sister Robert Ann (Gina Coyle), her moment in the spotlight as she reminisces about what it was for her “Growing up Catholic.” It is a beautiful and poignant song about changes in the Catholic Church, which Coyle delivers beautifully.

Miranda D. Lawson is the Sister Mary Hubert, Mistress of Novices, the second-in-command who, in previous productions of this show that I have seen, has delusions of grandeur and desperately wants to be No. 1, though in this production the two women seem to have a good relationship. Hubert’s “Holier than Thou” is the show-stopper of the evening.

Kiki Burns and Bella Coppola are double-cast as Sister Mary Leo, the novice. Burns played the role on opening night. She is very sweet and wants to be the first ballerina nun. I’m not sure what the Little Sisters of Hoboken are doing with a Daughter of Charity cornette, but Mary Leo dons the headpiece and dances for all the world like The Flying Nun.

Rounding out the gang of five is Sister Amnesia (Amanda Goldrick), who can’t remember who she is but who ultimately comes up with the solution for the burial of the blue nuns just in the nick of time.

Some of the material is mildly offensive (I didn’t like the song about the leper colony) but there is no denying that the audience loved it.

Stop Kiss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anything Goes

 

A patron stopped me on my way out of the Jean Henderson Performing Arts Center at the conclusion of Davis Musical Theatre Company’s new production of “Anything Goes.”

“If you weren’t having fun during this one,” she said, “you should check your pulse because you might be dead.”

I agreed. This sparkling, toe-tapping, high-kicking, silly musical by Cole Porter (with book by P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton), directed by John Haine and choreographed by Kaylin Scott, is a delight from start to finish.

And guess what? DMTC has an orchestra! They’ve been telling us for years that they did, but now they have put the musicians front and center at the top of the simple, but attractive ship deck designed by Steve Isaacson. Hearing them with no stage floor to muffle their sound was wonderful, and we found out what a really good band they are.

It’s a dream cast. Everyone is first-rate, even 15-year-old Anthony Swaminathan, a member of DMTC’s Young Performers’ Theater, who is one of the ship guests, but also comports himself well in the role of a reporter at the start of the show.

Adam Sartain is the blow-hard Wall Street banker Elisha Whitney, with an eye for the ladies and a taste for good spirits.

Billy Crocker (Andy Hyun) is Whitney’s best boy, who sneaks aboard the ship to woo his girl Hope (Katherine Tracy) away from her stuffy fiancé Evelyn Oakleigh (Joel Porter). It’s nice seeing the talented Hyun in such a big part and he sings, acts and dances up a storm. He handles the rather difficult and odd song “All Through the Night” like a pro.

Tracy plays the dutiful debutante well, allowing her true feelings for Billy to slowly rise to the surface.
Her mother, the stuffy socialite Mrs. Evangeline Harcourt, is played by Cyndi Wall, who has the best disdainful glance ever.

As for Joel Porter, he’s just a delight as the pompous Brit, marrying American aristocracy, but gradually finding his taste turning to the dynamic Reno Sweeney (Chris Cay Stewart), who is more his age and who brings new life into his predictable routine. Their duet, “Let’s Misbehave,” is a highlight.

Stewart is a dynamite Sweeney, an evangelist-turned-nightclub singer. The role was originally written for Ethel Merman and, even if you didn’t know that, you would guess from just listening to the songs. Stewart makes the role her own and shines throughout, particularly when her religious roots come out for “Blow, Gabriel Blow.”

Mike Mechanick is con man Moonface Martin, Public Enemy #13, disguised as a minister, who has some of the best lines in the show and delivers them perfectly, to the delight of the audience. His “Be Like the Blue Bird” is not to be believed.

His girlfriend Bonnie is given a wonderful performance by Jessica Arena, who lit up the stage at every entrance. The character of Bonnie was a minor one in the original 1934 production but expanded for the 1962 revival and how lucky we are that Arena was given the expanded version to play. She is a real firecracker who is such fun to watch explode.

Costumer Jean Henderson has outdone herself for this production. From the various skimpy costumes for Sweeney’s “Angels” to Reno’s dazzling Act 2 gowns, everything was perfect, even the ingenious disguises for Billy, as he tries to keep from being picked up as a stowaway.

And for DMTC regular audience members, have a good time playing the DMTC version of “Where’s Waldo,” spotting favorite Mary Young among the passengers.

This is a wonderful way to start the 2015 theater year.

The Fantasticks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: The Unexamined Life of Katharine Hepburn

There is a moment in theater that I just love. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s magical. It’s that moment when the actor on stage has so engaged the audience and they are giving him or her such rapt attention that you can almost feel the silence.

Most of the time you hear people moving in their seats or other soft, unobtrusive noise. But in the magical moment, you can literally hear a pin drop.

I heard that moment several times at the opening-night performance of the world premiere of “Kate: The Unexamined Life of Katharine Hepburn” by Rick Foster, now at the Sacramento Theatre Company, under the direction of Peter Sander.

Janis Stevens so embodies the character of Katharine, and gets more and more inside her as the play progresses, that by the last quarter, there is no longer any doubt about who is sitting on that stage talking to you.

It’s all Mitch Agruss’ fault.

The Grand Old Man of Sacramento Theater (whom some may remember from his television days as “Captain Mitch”) was watching a Katharine Hepburn interview a while back, when it hit him that Hepburn would make a great character for his friend Janis Stevens, who already had won critical acclaim for her one-woman shows such as “Vivien” (about Vivien Leigh) and “Master Class” (about Maria Callas).

So he contacted their friend, playwright Rick Foster (who had written “Vivien”), with his idea. Stevens was intrigued, Foster did some research on Hepburn, and now it has come to life on STC’s Pollock Stage.

The time is New Year’s Eve, 1999, and the setting is a bleak attic, where Katharine, age 92, sits in a wheelchair and begins speaking with the audience. She explains that she entered the “undiscovered country” of old age at age 90 and now, at 92, she’s trying to create a map for how the rest of her life should go.

Joining Stevens is Marty Parker in the small role of the long-suffering Mr. Rotterdam, a non-speaking role, but he is there to help Miss Hepburn and to be bossed around by her. Playwright Foster says we don’t know if he is a stage hand or a personal assistant or something else, but it is up to the audience to decide for themselves who he is.

As she begins her soliloquy, Katharine reflects on her family, who she assures us were perfect (though she also remarks sadly, several times, that she never made her mother proud and that her mother never saw any of her movies).

The Hepburns were the stiff-upper-lip New Englanders who were so detached from their feelings that after their oldest son Tom took his life when Katharine was 13 (she found the body), his name was never spoken in the family again, after his funeral. In fact, Katharine took Tom’s birthdate, Nov. 8 (coincidentally the date this play premiered, and the birthdate of Janis Stevens!) as her own for many years as a tribute to her brother, who still haunts her 92-year-old self.

She shares with the audiences her various romances with Howard Hughes (“yes, that one,” she says, coyly) and others, but saves her heartfelt feelings for Spencer Tracy, with whom she spent 27 years (and then would not attend his funeral out of respect for his wife). The ache of his loss is still visible on her face when she discusses him.

We get a picture of a surprisingly insecure Katharine, who pushed herself to step outside the box. She was the first artist to buy a property (“The Philadelphia Story”) for herself and go head-to-head with the studio bosses and not only win their battles, but an Oscar to boot.

The performance of Janis Stevens in this role is one you will long remember. She exudes Hepburn’s indomitable spirit without trying to become a caricature. She doesn’t just play Hepburn, she is Hepburn.

Treat yourself to this once-in-a-lifetime performance. You won’t be sorry.

My Fair Lady

 

They could have danced all night. 

Under the capable hands of choreographer Ron Cisneros, the cast of Davis Musical Theater Company’s production of “My Fair Lady” danced around Covent Garden, the Ascot Races, and an Embassy ball, and they got Alfred P. Doolittle to the church on time.

Directed by Steve Isaacson, this production brought the DMTC faithful to their feet with a standing ovation at the end of the show.

This is a show that has a special place in Isaacson’s heart because it was his first memory of music.  He remembers the iconic album cover of Al Herschfeld’s drawing of George Bernard Shaw as God manipulating the puppet strings of Rex Harrison, manipulating the puppet strings of Julie Andrews.  “For years I thought God looked like George Bernard Shaw,” he says.

Isaacson’s love of this Lerner and Lowe musical is apparent in every scene.

It had been Jori Gonzales’ dream to play Eliza and her dream comes to life as she dons the rags of the flower girl Eliza, later struggling to learn her vowels, and finally making a triumphant appearance at an Embassy ball, ultimately finding her voice and pride in herself as a woman. Gonzales has a beautiful voice and one loves to float along on her high notes.

John Haine takes a little adjusting to as Henry Higgins, but once one realize he is only going to use a barely perceptible British accent and can concentrate just on his performance, he does a beautiful job. Better no accent than a bad accent.  This Higgins has little concern for the rules of social conduct, cares little for his appearance (rumpled, ill-fitting trousers), and treats everyone badly, but his fun side comes out in the classic “I could have danced all night” and his petulant confrontations with his mother (the always delightful Dannette Vassar).

Richard Kleeberg is Higgins’ sidekick, Col Hugh Pickering, without whom Eliza might never have consented to subject herself to Higgins’ relentless elocution lessons.  Kleeberg is a blustery Pickering, with Arthur Sullivan-like mutton chops.  But he is the eternal gentleman, who (almost) always treats Eliza with dignity and respect.

Eliza’s father, Alfred P. Doolittle, the dustman who is not above selling his daughter to Higgins–but not for too much money, because too much would change his life, is given a royal treatment by the marvelous Brian McCann. McCann is always a delight to watch on stage and he does not disappoint in this production.

Scott Scholes is the lovesick Freddy Eynsford-Hill, so enamored of Eliza that he prefers to spend all of his time “on the street where she lives.” Scholes brings a clueless innocence to the role and a tenor voice that is outstanding.

Higgins’ housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce is given a fine performance by Catrina Ellis.  Mrs. Pearce is critical of much of what Higgins does, but she is a loyal employee and follows his directions to the letter.

“My Fair Lady” must be a costumer’s dream (and nightmare!), with all those elegant gowns for the ball, fun costumes for the dustmen of Covent Garden and the spectacular black and white costumes for the Ascot races.  Jean Henderson does a wonderful job with this show and Ascot, in particular, is memorable.  Eliza’s white gown and red coat for the Embassy ball are dazzling.

Isaacson also designed the sets, which are utilitarian, though not outstanding.  Higgins’ study, with its elevated “library” is quite nice and the steps entering the ball look steep enough that one is glad there is a bannister for the women in high heels to hold onto!

“My Fair Lady” is a classic piece of American musical theater and DMTC has served it up in good shape for the Davis audiences.