Blithe Spirit

Anyone who has enjoyed the many performances of Lenore Sebastian over the years will want to be sure to get tickets to see her as Madame Arcati in the Woodland Opera House production of Noel Coward’s ghostly comedy, “Blithe Spirit.” It may be one of her best performances.

Thanks to direction by Robert Cooner, costuming by Denise Miles and Sebastian’s magnificent inhabiting of the character, she has brought the eccentric medium to life delightfully.

Madame Arcati is brought to the home of Charles (Matthew Abergel) and Ruth (Patricia Glass) Condomine, to perform a seance for them and their guests Dr. and Mrs. Bradman (Steve Mackay and Christine Deamer). Charles, a writer, needs material for a book he is writing about professional charlatans. All four think the seance will be great fun and laugh at the antics and gestures of Arcati.
All is great fun until Arcati somehow conjures up the spirit of Charles’ first wife, Elvira (Analise Langford-Clark), visible only to Charles.

Charles has a difficult time convincing his current wife, who thinks he just had too much to drink, until he finds a way to prove to her that Elvira is really there — he convinces her to move a few objects.

Arcati has to admit she doesn’t know how to send Elvira back to the other side, and Elvira is having a lovely time back in her old house, taunting Ruth, who can’t see her but realizes that she really is there.

What to do with two women you love, but who hate each other, both inhabiting the same house, only one of whom is actually living?

Abergel makes Charles a not-so-lovable egotistical novelist who is rather enjoying having both of his wives around. As the play continues, he becomes irritated with them both, but you can see he is enjoying the game.

Glass, as Ruth, while obviously in love with her husband, also has hen-pecked him. She is more interested in appearances and showing off her perfect home (great design by Don Zastoupil), serving the perfect martini and making fun of Madame Arcati.

A victim of Ruth’s need for perfection is the maid Edith (Rachel Tauner, last seen as Anne Frank in last year’s “Diary of Anne Frank.”), who is overwhelmed by her boss’ demands but can’t run to keep up because that bothers Ruth, too.

Deamer is what everyone might think of as an uppercrust British “dame,” (that’s a as in “ahh” not “ay”) but sadly, much of her dialog is lost in the very, very British accent. A little less accent would be oh-so-much better. One misses her half of some very witty conversation with Ruth.

Mackay has no such accent problem and is the solid doctor who takes charge when Arcati collapses during the seance.

There is a lot of humor in this classic play, but it also has a sting to it, as it examines the difficulties within a marriage and what causes the disintegration of both of Charles’ marriages.

All in all, this is an excellent play by the Woodland Opera House, which is worth seeing on its own — but especially to watch Sebastian’s performance.

The Diary of Anne Frank

Dale Lisa Flint (as Mrs. Frank), Maddy Wood (as Anne Frank)
and Eric Wheeler (as Mr. Van Daan) perform in
Sacramento Theatre Company's “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Charr Crail Photography/Courtesy photo

When Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl in Amsterdam, received a diary on her 13th birthday, she dreamed of one day becoming a writer.

Given that her famous diary has been translated into more than 70 languages, published in more than 60 countries and sold more than 35 million copies, her dream was achieved beyond her wildest expectations! Her diary appears on lists of the bestselling books of all times.

A play, dramatized by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, opened on Broadway in 1955, ran 717 performances and won several Tony Awards, including one for Best Play.

Now, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Anne’s receipt of the diary, the Sacramento Theatre Company is presenting an outstanding version of the story of eight Jewish people hiding in a secluded room for more than two years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

The production, directed by Casey McClellan, boasts a stellar cast, starting with Olivia Ingram as Anne (she shares this role with Maddy Wood). Ingram is perfect as the irrepressible young girl whose spirit cannot be dampened despite the circumstances of their claustrophobic incarceration.

During her time in the room, she works through problems with her mother, a first love and irritation with the other occupants, but keeps her positive attitude: “I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains,” and “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart.”

Michael Jenkinson is Anne’s father, Otto Frank, whose job it is to keep the peace among the disparate group forced to live together.

Mrs. Frank (Dale Lisa Flint) struggles with her relationship with Anne, and she is in charge of keeping the room running smoothly.

Kate Brugger is Anne’s older sister, Margot, quiet and shy. Brugger shares this role with Paige Johnson.

Otto’s business partner, Mr. van Daan (Eric Wheeler), joins the Franks with his wife (Natasha Hause) and son Peter (Nick Leras, sharing the role with Owen Larson). Mr. van Daan is perpetually hungry and tends to steal the small amounts of food the group has. His wife’s dearest possession is her fur coat, which she eventually must sell.

Peter is painfully shy to begin with and spends most of his time in his room with his cat (who must be the best cat in the world, since he lives in a small bucket without complaint!).

A late addition to the room is the dentist, Mr. Dussell (STC favorite Gary Martinez), arriving to spend a day or two, but staying for the duration. Dussell is persnickety and acerbic, allergic to the cat and resentful of having to share a room with Anne. Martinez is reminiscent of Leo G. Carroll.

Frank’s employee, Miep Gies (Kirsten Myers), and Mr. Kraler (William Oberholtzer) keep the secret identities hidden and bring supplies and news of the outside to the group weekly.

While this is a dark, depressing story, it is not without its lighter moments. There is a lovely Hanukkah celebration, where Anne reveals that she has made gifts for everyone, and the joy at hearing of the invasion of Normandy, which brings promise that their incarceration soon may be over.
But in the close quarters, nerves fray and little irritations take on greater significance, and though the audience knows how the story ends, the discovery of the hidden room by the Nazi soldiers is still heart-rending.

Anne died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, but because Miep Gies saved her writings, Anne’s father, the only survivor of the group, was able to put her diary into shape to be published.

Anne’s message resonates with all of us today, as we look at all the problems we see around us: “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

Behind the Scenes

Stage manager Kimmie McCann, takes a peek onto the stage as actors wait backstage for her instructions during Davis Musical Theatre Company's production of "Jekyll & Hyde." Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo

When an audience sits down for a local musical-theater show, they see a polished production — told by actors through words, song and dance — that allows them to escape into another time and place.
But what they may not realize is how much coordination and activity goes on during a night’s show behind the scenes: rapid costume and set changes, the orchestra playing on cue, lighting and sound technicians working with precision, actors doing last-second rehearsals in the wings, makeup touch-ups and mic adjustments.

The Enterprise spent a day at Davis Musical Theatre Company during its current production of “Jekyll and Hyde” to give audiences an inside glimpse into everything that happens before and during showtime that they don’t see.

Here is how a Sunday-afternoon performance unfolded:

The actors are called to the theater at 12:30 p.m., so I showed up at noon and found Conrad, from a professional cleaning service in Oakland, scrubbing the lobby and taking bags of trash out. The lobby smelled very clean.

Dannette Vassar, who would later appear on stage as Lady Beaconsfield, was in the ticket booth making final adjustments on ticketing for the day’s show.

I moved inside the theater itself and stage manager Kimmie McCann was smoothing out some problems with set placement the previous night. McCann, I would learn throughout the afternoon, is the real anchor for the show and seems to be everywhere at once, fixing problems along the way.
She conferred with costumer Jean Henderson about repairs she had made to a couple of costumes while Henderson was out of town.

“They aren’t your quality, of course,” she said. “It’s fun and games always,” she said to me as she went backstage.

Lights came on in the light booth and there was Vassar again. She’s also on the light crew and presumably was making last-minute adjustments there as well.

They sat me at a chair out of the way and it was fun to observe my surroundings — walls covered with writing from various people over the past years in the Jean Henderson Performing Arts Center theater, each wall with a big “DO NOT PAINT” sign on it.

One wall is covered, all the way to the ceiling, with various chairs, which will hang there until they are needed. Shelving units are set aside for things like baskets of varying sizes or bottles, while a hanging shoe bag is used for smaller props.

Meanwhile, the actors started arriving backstage, and began getting out of their T-shirts and jeans and into costumes. The air-conditioning had gone out in the dressing rooms, so they could not close the doors and big fans blew air into the rooms.

“I’m not sure where we’re going to get the funds to fix it,” McCann said to me as she passed by.
To avoid crowding into the stuffy rooms, some of the actors were helping one another with costumes or makeup in the hallway.

Musicians started arriving at 1 p.m., including 88-year-old violinist Helen Mendel, who has been playing with DMTC for many years. Mendel chose not to climb all those stairs down into the orchestra pit, but took the small elevator. All the orchestra members volunteer their time and are “paid” a drink and a cookie at intermission.

The cast was called to the stage for the sound check. Some were doing individual vocalizations and then they did vocals in unison.

At the same time, a group walked in and across the stage with a leader, who was speaking to them softly. These were ushers for the show, learning what their jobs would entail. (There are different volunteer ushers for every performance — it’s a way to see the show for free.)

With the cast on stage, there also was a final check on lights and then everyone was backstage again while director and DMTC co-founder Jan Isaacson passed through each dressing room and gave final notes from the night before.

McCann announced that the house was opening, so the backstage lights were turned off and the orchestra started to warm up.

“Places, please,” McCann called, while Isaacson went out on stage to welcome the audience.

The actors paced back and forth in the wings or did stretching exercises while waiting to go on. I commented on Vassar’s costume and she confessed that she had a quick change coming up, so she had dressed in layers so she’d only need to remove her top layer when she came off stage.

The first set pieces came off stage, with the actors, and the girls of the ensemble quickly stripped McCann’s husband, Brian, of his bulky clothes and got him into the costume for the next scene. With three of them working, the change was accomplished in less than a minute.

Meanwhile, Kimmie McCann was everywhere — helping people straighten their costumes, moving set pieces and making sure props were put away immediately.

“I don’t say this just because she’s my wife,” Brian said, “but she’s the most actor-friendly stage manager I’ve ever worked with.”

There’s even time for a quick tender moment between the couple before Brian goes on for his next scene.

DMTC co-founder Steve Isaacson came backstage to tell me of a sound problem they had just solved. Tomás Eredia, working the light board, noticed a problem with the sound board, so Steve relieved him of his duties and the two worked to fix the sound.

In the meantime, Steve gave control of the light board to Jenna Karoly, a teen who has been learning how to run the system.

“She’s been with us since she was 8 years old,” Isaacson said, adding that her father helps with sets and her mother sometimes bartends for the theater.

He explained that there is a lot to running a sound board, especially when it’s a new addition to a theater. (This is only DMTC’s third show since sound augmentation was added.)

But it went off without a hitch.

“I was giving her cues,” Isaacson said. “She did the next scene without my saying anything. I didn’t have to worry. The show continued flawlessly.”

At intermission, I walked from one side of the theater to the other, backstage, surprised to find a near life-size elephant on the other side. This is a prop for the youth theater’s production of “Aladdin Jr.,” which is being presented at Saturday matinees.

Jan Isaacson explained that after the Friday evening performance of “Jekyll and Hyde,” those sets are pushed out of the way and “Aladdin” sets are moved into place. Then following the “Aladdin” performance the next afternoon, the parents of the young actors move those sets back in place and the “Jekyll and Hyde” sets are ready for Sunday’s performance.

As Act 2 began, some of the actors sat on set pieces in the wings, taking cat naps while waiting for their turn to go on stage.

In the meantime, the show continued to run like a well-oiled machine under the constant movement of Kimmie McCann.

Actors assisted in set changes, donning black-hooded capes before going on stage.

“They make the actors mildly unobtrusive,” Steve Isaacson said, explaining that there’s a light that reflects from the costumes onto the floor and this is a way of cutting down on their visibility. One actress nearly didn’t get to the stage in time to don her cloak — but McCann was there to make sure she did.

At the end of the show, there was thunderous applause. The cast stayed on stage to greet the patrons.
Meanwhile, Kimmie McCann made certain that everything was put back where it should be, and ready for the next performance.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?

 

Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” is an American classic, first produced in 1962, winning the Tony and Drama Circle award for best play, the Pulitzer Prize for best play and Tonys for its stars.

In 1966 it was made into a movie, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and is one of only two films to be nominated in every eligible category at the Academy Awards, winning five awards. It is preserved in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

It’s heavy history for a local theater company to take on, but B Street Theatre is up to the challenge. Director Dave Pierini confided to the audience before the play began that to get permission to do an Albee play, the Albee estate has to approve the actors, the director, the stage design, costumes, etc. — so it is a real privilege to be given the rights to do this play.

The B Street production does not disappoint.

This story of George and Martha, the Bickersons of the 1960s, is an intense look at a marriage that appears to be falling apart, but what holds the couple together is their hatred of one another, and a dark secret they are holding that binds them to each other. Watching them go at each other for three hours (with two intermissions) is exhausting, but at the same time exhilarating.

Kurt Johnson and Elisabeth Nunziato are simply marvelous. Martha’s father is the president of a college and George is a professor in the history department (not the head of the department, Martha is fond of reminding him, as a way of putting him down).

It seems that everything she says has the intent of evoking some sort of a response from him that will lead into a further argument.

George is henpecked and knows it, but he can give as much as he receives in the verbal sparring with his wife. Both know how best to hurt each other and don’t hesitate to do it.

The play begins at 2 a.m. when George and Martha have just returned home after a party, obviously feeling the effects of the liquor they have consumed. Martha confesses that she has invited a new professor, 20-something Nick (Jason Kuykendall, Nunziato’s real-life husband) and his wife Honey (Dana Brooke) to drop by.

Nick and Honey aren’t quite sure what they are doing there so late at night, but the four consume massive quantities of alcohol. I was mostly impressed with Kuykendall, who got drunker and drunker very convincingly, while the others went from sober-sounding to drunk-sounding quickly.

Kuykendall’s reaction was not only in the slow slurring of his speech, but the changes in his body language, too.

The more he drinks, the more he drops the innocent young professor persona and displays his disdain for George, who has been at the college for years and still has not risen to the head of his department.
Honey, on the other hand is more childlike and in awe of George and Martha, but physically affected more and more as the arguments escalate. She also begins to realize that as much as George is a source of Nick’s contempt, so, too, is she. One wonders if in 20 years they will be the George and Martha of the campus.

Martha uses Nick to mock George by making sexual advances to the younger man, though after a tryst in the bedroom, she is not above pointing out that he is sorely lacking in his sexual prowess. George insists that they all play a game, a grotesque game that leave all four stripped bare.

The play comes to a dramatic conclusion with an agonizing monologue by Martha, performed by Nunziato with heart-rending authenticity.

Albee died in 2016. With the finicky restrictions on productions of his works, continued by his estate, one can only think that even he would be proud of this production.

The audience should be aware that herbal cigarettes are smoked throughout the evening.

Anne of Green Gables

I have a confession to make. I did something on Friday that I have never done before.

My plan had been to review the Woodland Opera House production of Noel Coward’s “Blythe Spirit” and I did indeed go to the Opera House, only to be very surprised when I sat in my seat, looked at my program and realized that I was about to see “Anne of Green Gables, The Musical,” one of the Opera House’s family series. No wonder the Opera House was so full!

Confused, I looked through the program and discovered that I was a month too early for “Blythe Spirit.”

But my error was fortuitous because while I rarely review one of the family series shows, this one was delightful.

This musical tells the story of Anne Shirley, the heroine of the Lucy Maud Montgomery books and her impact on her adopted family and the town in which she lives.

Gretchen Cryer has written the book and lyrics with music by Nancy Ford. The production is directed by Eva Sarry, with musical direction by Lori Jarvey.

Katie Halls has a monumental task carrying the show as the spunky Anne, as she is in just about every scene, as well as 12 of the 15 musical numbers. She is at her best as the young orphan longing for a permanent home after several unsuccessful placements. She is upbeat and loves everything about the countryside, her new home and the prospect of having people to love her.

This poses a problem for Matthew Cuthbert (Steve Cairns) and his sister Marilla (Nancy Agee), who had asked the orphanage for a boy to help with farm chores. But Matthew is taken by Anne’s enthusiastic and endearing attitude and really hopes to convince Marilla to keep the girl.

Agee is great as the reticent Marilla, a woman who has had her share of hurts throughout her life and does not want to give her heart to anyone, especially not a young girl. Though she finally relents and allows Anne to stay, she keeps the girl at emotional arms length while slowly growing to care for her.

Emily Jo Seminoff is Diana, who becomes Anne’s BFF. Watching Seminoff grow as an actress over the years has been part of the fun of being a critic. Her range of performances from Peter Pan to Helen Keller have all been top-notch and her Diana is no exception. Watching the two girls together is such fun, especially when they accidentally get into the wrong berry cordial and end up drunk.

Barrett Shepherd is Gilbert Blythe, the young man whose ill-advised comment on Anne’s appearance causes a rift between the two which lasts for years.

Mimi Walker is Rachel Lynde, the stereotypical town busybody, suspicious of everyone and determined to think the worst of orphans and especially girl orphans.

Maris Samsel plays several roles — everything from a school girl to Diana’s mother, all with the assistance of different wigs or hats, while Spencer Alexander — who recently won a best-actor award for his Seymour Krelborn in “Little Shop of Horrors” — is Mr. Phillips, the town teacher, who firmly believes in the adage “spare the rod and spoil the child.”

“Anne of Green Gables” is no Noel Coward, but it is a fun family show.

Jekyll and Hyde

Why should you attend the Davis Musical Theater productions?

Well, it’s not for the sets, which are often utilitarian, sometimes nonexistent. Funding is always a problem.  But when you have a cast of the caliber of the musical-horror, “Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” which opened this past weekend, who needs sets?

This may well be the very best cast I have seen in 33 years of DMTC productions.  Every single member is outstanding.“It’s Jan’s dream cast,” says Steve Isaacson, justifiably proud of his wife’s accomplishments as director for this show, described as a “gothic-pop musical.”

 J. Sing, as Jekyll could easily perform on any professional stage.  Apparently he performed with DMTC in two shows back in the 1990s and then left Davis.  That he has returned is Davis’ gain.  He plays the brilliant, but tortured Dr. Jekyll, determined to find a cure for his comatose father, lying in an insane asylum.  It is his belief that it was the evil in his father’s soul which caused his illness and if he can find a cure, a way to separate the good from the evil within a person, he can cure his father.

While every number is a stunner for Sing, “This is the Moment,” in which the scientist, his proposal to perform this experiment having been rejected by the Board of Governors, decides to do the experiment on himself is outstanding, as is his later “Confrontation,” a battle between his two personalities.

As good as Sing in, he is supported by a superb cast.

Rachael Sherman-Shockley is Jekyll’s virtuous and loyal fiancee, who doesn’t understand his obsession, but is willing to put up with anything because she loves and believes in him.  She has several wonderful duets, but none as beautiful as “In His Eyes,” sung with Lucy (Nicole King), a prostitute with a heart of gold and the only one who has seen both sides of Jekyll/Hyde.  King is amazing, a soaring voice giving full throat to “Someone Like You” and  “A New Life.” 

Richard Spierto is sir Danvers Carew, Emma’s father, who grows increasingly uncomfortable, to downright frightened at Emma’s resolve to marry Jekyll, despite evidence of his increasing mental derangement.

Scott Minor is Jeckyll’s attorney, John Utterson, who doesn’t understand what Jekyll is doing and resists some of his client’s requests because they make no sense to him.

Brian McCann also comports himself well as Rupert, Bishop of Basingstoke, another eventual victim of Hyde’s murderous rampage.

The show, by Leslie Bircusse with music by Frank Wildhorn had mixed reviews when it opened in 1997.  It was crticized for the discordant music, the loud rock sound, and “extreme vocal pyrotechnics,” but under the expert hands of director Jan Isaacson, it all comes together into an impressive, if frightening look at a man whose devotion to his father has driven himself to the point of madness.

Jean Henderson’s costume designs are appropriate, as always, but special kudos to whoever was in charge of wigs, which are amazing.

Isaacson also choreographed the show and has created some wonderful numbers.

This isn’t a light and frothy musical, but give this show a chance.  It’s one you aren’t likely to see on any other local stage, and it’s well worth it!

Sister Act

As a product of 12 years of Catholic school, all taught by nuns in habits, it did my recovering Catholic soul proud to see habited nuns singing and cavorting on stage.

“Sister Act,” with music by Alan Menken, brings to an end the successful 2017 Music Circus season, and director Glenn Casale pulled out all the stops to guarantee that patrons will leave the Wells Fargo Pavilion in good spirits and eager for the 2018 season to begin.

The musical is based on the 1992 film, starring Whoopi Goldberg, but it takes it over the top, losing the more personal, poignant pieces of the story — so flashy it’s like the nuns had moved from a low-income parish to the Vegas stage.

I did miss the heart of the movie, but you can’t help but love the glitz and the glitter. (Heck, even the pope loved it.) This is not to say it is without poignancy — just not in the same way that the smaller movie showed.

Zonya Love, who appeared as Celie in the original Broadway production of “The Color Purple,” is Deloris Van Cartier, a lounge singer whose career is going nowhere, who accidentally witnesses her criminal boyfriend Curtis (Rufus Bonds Jr.) commit a murder. Her life is in danger and she runs to the police to ask for protection.

Bonds is tall and menacing and you don’t want to mess with him.

Alan Wiggins is Eddie, an old school friend of Deloris, now a police officer who decides to hide Deloris in a local convent.

Wiggins is outstanding as the guy who has been in love with Deloris for most of his life. His poignant “I Could Be That Guy” built and built until it was a full-fledged stage number with the most incredible costume change of the night.

Love is extraordinary, a square peg trying (not very hard) to fit into a rigid round hole, but ultimately finding her place among the other sisters. She has a voice that will knock your socks off. And her costume for the finale is spectacular!

Lynne Wintersteller plays the Mother Superior, an old-school nun determined not to let the temptations of the world reach inside her convent. (You can imagine she was one of those ruler-carrying teachers in her day!) Wintersteller played this role in the show’s first national tour. Her anguished “I Haven’t Got a Prayer,” trying to ask God for guidance, was a stand-out.

Mother Superior assigns Deloris the task of helping with the convent choir which, under the direction of Mary Lazarus (Audrie Neenan), can barely hit a note that is not sour and is part of the reason why the church is about to be foreclosed. Neenan originated this role on Broadway, so it’s no surprise that she has perfected it.

Jeanna de Waal plays the postulant, Mary Robert, a mousy thing afraid to speak or sing out, whose life is completely transformed by her experiences in the choir.

Nikki Switzer is Mary Patrick, whose role is sadly not nearly as big as in the movie, and I missed that since she was one of my favorite characters. But Switzer is big and enthusiastic and you love her anyway.

Under the direction of Sister Mary Clarence (the name Mother Superior gives to Deloris), the choir is transformed into a show choir, going from black habits to black habits with sequins, and then white with sparkles lining the flowing robes.

They sing, they dance, they raise their arms to God as they sing “Take Me to Heaven” and “Sister Act.” Simple church songs become big glitzy show stoppers, but also the Donna Summer-like number at the beginning becomes a religious hymn by the end.

(This is where I had trouble with the show, it being too over-the-top and un-nun-like for me, but as an audience-pleaser, you could not ask for better!)

This has been a strong season for Music Circus and each show seems to be better than the last. “Sister Act” is definitely a crowd-pleaser.

The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey

Rich Hebert plays multiple characters in
“The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey” on stage now at B Street Theatre.
Rudy Meyers Photography/Courtesy photo

It was a sad irony that we saw B Street Theatre’s B3 production of “The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey” on the horrible day of the Charlottesville violence.

The James Lecesne play tells the story of the murder of a gentle young gay man whose life made an impact on many people in the small town where he lived, but who had long been a victim of bullying in school.

It is described as “an affecting and entertaining treatment to the beauty of a world in which difference is celebrated rather than denigrated” — a lesson we would all do well to remember.

“The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey” is a stunning solo performance by Rich Hebert, who tells of the disappearance, investigation and eventual murder of a 14-year-old boy known as much for his gentleness and kindness as he was for his “difference.”

Hebert starts the play as Chuck DeSantis, the world-weary detective in charge of the investigation, remembering that time 10 years ago when he worked on the Pelkey case. DeSantis is your stereotypical New Jersey cop, right off the pages of a “Law and Order” script.

In a flash he is no longer the cop, but the boy’s aunt, a beautician, who took him in when he was orphaned and raised him.

Leonard was an individualist, his aunt explains, who insisted on making his own shoes by gluing multi-colored flip-flop soles to his Converse high tops to give a rainbow effect and wearing eye shadow — though he knew it would make him the object of ridicule and bullying. He wanted to live life on his own terms and was willing to pay the price for that.

“He told me that if he stopped being himself, the terrorists would win.”

Then Hebert is her daughter, bitter over Leonard’s intrusion into their lives, but obviously tormented by his disappearance.

Throughout the play, Hebert plays many characters, male and female, young and old, whose statements, when put together, give us a pretty clear picture of Leonard, perhaps more clear than the only available photo him, which is quite blurry and shows only a hint of who he really is.

Hebert’s many character changes, including a British drama and dance teacher and a widowed moll, are amazing, as with only simple body language and voice modulation, he becomes a completely new character.

While the story centers around a tragedy that will bring a tear to the eye, there is a lot of joy, too, as we enter a world many of us may not be familiar with. Leonard, who works in his aunt’s salon, has many friends among the clientele, who try to help him fit in better.

“Tone it down, honey. The nail polish, the mascara — maybe not so much.”

As we look back on the events in Charlottesville and the hate that spawned it, we could all do well to think of Leonard and how much one “different” person can make an impact on those around him.

Damn Yankees

From left, Dennis O’Bannion as Vernon, Dallas Padoven as Rocky,
Justin Keyes as Smokey and Stephen Berger as Van Buren
sing a number in “Damn Yankees,” produced by Music Circus
at the Wells Fargo Pavilion through Sunday, Aug. 13.
Charr Crail/Courtesy photo

The Music Circus has hit a home run with its current production of “Damn Yankees,” the modern-day version of “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” set in the dugout. While this is the seventh time Music Circus has presented this show, it is only the second time in the Wells Fargo Pavilion.

This Richard Adler/Jerry Ross musical, directed by Charles Repole, features Jason Graae as the devilish “Mr. Applegate,” who enters from beneath the stage in a cloud of red smoke and carries his own smoke with him, in case you forget from whence he came. (How did they do that? Kudos to costume designer Heather Lockard.)

For a production of “Damn Yankees” to really soar, one must have a terrific Mr. Applegate, the role made famous on both stage and screen by Ray Walston. Applegate should steal the show, and steal it Graae does. His signature song, “Those Were the Good Old Days,” was an all-out production number using all of the Music Circus raised platforms. It was a high point of the evening.

Applegate has been summoned unwittingly by Joe Boyd (Jeff Howell), a lifelong baseball fanatic, who dreams of a winning season for his beloved Washington Senators. After a particularly painful loss, he cries that he would sell his soul for a winning season.

Enter Mr. Applegate, gleam in his eye and a contract for Joe’s soul in his hand. Not only will he give him a winning season, but he himself can become the player who saves the team. Naive Joe makes sure he has an escape clause in case he decides this life is not for him and agrees, singing a bittersweet farewell to his beloved wife Meg (Lynne Wintersteller, last season’s Dolly Levi in “Hello, Dolly”).

The transformation from middle-aged, balding, pudgy Joe to tall, young, virile Joe (now called Joe Hardy, played by Zach Trimmer) is pretty impressive.

Meanwhile, the team is suffering the depression that comes with yet another loss and gets a pep talk from manager Benny Van Buren (Stephen Berger), who reminds them that all a team needs is “Heart.”

Applegate, in the guise of Joe’s agent, coerces Van Buren to give his client an audition. Joe, of course, impresses everyone with both his batting and fielding and is signed immediately to the team.

A reporter sent to get a story on the team (Danette Holden), is fascinated by Joe and determined to make him a star. She sees him trying to find shoes that will fit him and dubs him “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.” Holden’s role is small, but she’s fun to watch.

With Joe at the helm, the Senators make a big turn-around and are on top of the league, heading into the World Series, but Joe finds he misses his wife and his old life and even manages to rent a room in his old house so he can be around her (“A Man Doesn’t Know”).

As Applegate realizes Joe is about to exercise his escape clause, he summons Lola from Hades to be a seductress. Lindsay Roginski slithers and shimmies and does all she can to seduce Joe, who is only centered on his memories of his wife. It may be true that “whatever Lola wants, Lola gets,” but not in this instance. Instead, she and Joe become friends.

Applegate sets up more roadblocks to keep Joe from returning home, but in the end, true love wins out over evil and Applegate must return to Hades.

If you love dancing, this is the show for you. Choreographer Michael Lichtefeld has created some great numbers, including “The Game,” a raunchy reminder of what players give up in order to focus on playing the game.

“Damn Yankees” is a fun show that should appeal to baseball fans, their long-suffering spouses and anybody who just enjoys spending an evening watching a bunch of talented actors give it their all.

My Fair Lady

 

“My Fair Lady” has been called “the perfect musical.” The Alan Jay Lerner/Frederick Loewe musical version of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” opened on Broadway in 1956 and set the record for the longest run on Broadway up to that time.

It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version and numerous revivals. It has won countless awards for the show itself and for many of the performers.

Over its 60-plus-year history, “My Fair Lady” has been a staple of community theaters around the world.

The Woodland Opera House production, which opened last week under the direction of Andrea St. Clair (who also choreographs), can add its name to the list of outstanding versions of this theater classic. With an exceptional cast, amazing costumes by Denise Miles, and a skeleton, but competent six-piece orchestra directed by Lori Jarvey, this show is a definite audience-pleaser.

Over the years, I have seen Rodger McDonald play numerous roles and have the impression there is nothing he can’t do well. Henry Higgins is certainly a role that seems made for him. He’s no Rex Harrison, of course, but as the stern taskmaster who takes the cockney flower girl under his wing, intending to turn her into a “princess,” he’s excellent.

In the light-hearted moments (like “The Rain in Spain”) it’s fun to see Professor Higgins let down his hair, and his “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” will break your heart.

David Cross is solid as Higgins’ colleague, Col. Pickering, who agrees to pay for Eliza’s lessons as part of a bet between himself and Higgins. Pickering is the man who makes Eliza realize how a lady should be treated.

Jori Gonzales, as Eliza Doolittle, is simply loverly. I loved watching not only her cockney and her “lady” but also the midway point, which took perhaps more acting.

Her best acting may be in the scene where she says nothing at all. As Higgins, his staff, and Col. Pickering are dancing and celebrating the triumph of the ball, totally ignoring Eliza, the look on her face was poignant and heartbreaking.

But stopping the show — twice — is the bombastic Brian McCann, as Eliza’s profligate father, Alfred P. Doolittle. He brings down the house in both acts, with “With a Little Bit of Luck” and “Get Me to the Church on Time.”

Freddy Eynsford-Hill is a thankless role. He’s a lovelorn nebbish whose real job is to serve as distraction while the crew is changing the set. However, Alex Grambow has a beautiful voice and is so hopelessly in love with Eliza that you can’t help but love him.

Charlotte French has not been seen on the local stage in a long time and even in the small role of Mrs. Higgins, she reminds us of what a force she has always been. Her “Bravo, Eliza” was a short line but definitely memorable.

There are wonderful moments throughout the show, but everyone’s favorite is always at the Ascot races. The costumes are fabulous and the hats alone are worth the price of admission.

The production is a real winner for the Woodland Opera House and if you have never seen it — or haven’t seen it in a long time — by all means get tickets and give yourself a real treat.

The Odyssey

Acme Theatre Company opened one of its stronger productions this week.

“The Odyssey,” an irreverent and witty version of Homer’s classic tale by Mary Zimmerman, is directed by Alicia Hunt, former Acme member, who made an amazing impression in her one-woman show, “Grounded” at B Street Theater two years ago.

“I’ve worked them very hard,” Hunt said, and it shows. This is a strong cast and other than the vocal projection problems in some of the actors, always an issue with Acme, the production is very good.
Don’t expect any help from the program, though. The names appear to have been printed in reverse alphabetical order with no rhyme or reason as to who comes on stage when. Unless a character is called out by name (by someone who can project), it is impossible to know who is who, especially in a dark theater.

And it doesn’t help that there is a typo in the program. Two are listed as Zeus/drummer, when Giancarlo Gilbert-Igelsrud is the only drummer. His drumming is essential to creating many of the scenes. He’s a treasure, with the very best costume of the night. All percussionists should wear flashy gold.

But enough of the complaints. The show opens when McKella van Boxtel walks on stage as a tourist trying to get the history straight and is transformed by two muses (Cassidy Smith and Emma Larson) into the character of Athena, who will help Odysseus (Ryan Johnson) through his travels home from the Trojan War, which ended 10 years ago.

Van Boxtel does a wonderful job, a master of disguise who becomes the ever-present being in Odysseus’ journey.

Smith provides vocals in several spots and displays a beautiful voice.

Odysseus is eager to get home to his wife, the patient and wise Penelope (Garnet Phinney), but Poseidon (Mez) is holding a grudge and refuses to let the hero return home. Penelope spends the show fending off suitors.

Johnson gives a powerful performance as the tortured Odysseus, whose return home involves encounters with characters like the enchantress Circe, the goddess Calypso and the Sirens, beautiful creatures who lure sailors to their death by their singing (Gracelyn Watkins plays both Circe and Calypso as well as one of the Sirens).

Waiting at home with mama Penelope in Ithaca is Odysseus’ son Telemachus, played by the Chris Colfer look-alike Grey Turner. At only 14, Turner is one of the youngest in the cast, yet gives one of the strongest and most memorable performances. This young actor is going to be a pleasure to watch as he moves through his time with Acme.

There is also an absolutely fabulous Cyclops eye for which the tech crew gets high praise.

Odysseus takes this journey home with his BFF Eumaeus (Rocket Drew) who is there at the end to get rid of Penelope’s many would-be suitors and convince her that Odysseus is, indeed, finally home.
This is a perfect show for high school-age actors. As director Hunt says “they are enduring experiences that high schoolers viscerally understand: loss, isolation, searching, adventure and, above all, the pain and beauty of love.

We are very fortunate in Davis that we have such an organization as Acme, which can get high school kids excited about learning the classics and working so hard to bring them to life.

9 to 5

Doralee Rhodes (Tricia Paoluccio) gives some payback to Franklin Hart Jr. (Paul Schoeffler),
with help from co-workers, in “9 to 5 The Musical,”
produced by Music Circus at the Wells Fargo Pavilion through July 30.
Kevin Graft/Courtesy photo

 Audiences are going to love the Music Circus’s new production of the Dolly Parton/Patricia Resnick musical, “9 to 5, the Musical.” Based on the popular 1980 movie, featuring Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, the story involves sexual harassment in the workplace of the 1970s, and how three women manage to get revenge on their boss.

This is a splashy, wonderfully choreographed (by Mara Newbery Greer) bit of fluff, directed by Glenn Casale. All the plot points are there, the fun is there, but the intensity and heart of the movie are not. Except for the title song, there are no songs you will remember (and with the continuing ear-shattering level of Music Circus sound, you probably will miss a lot of the lyrics). But that’s all irrelevant to the fun the opening night audience was having.

Judy Bernly (Anne Brummel) is a newly divorced woman with no office skills and no self-esteem who joins the staff of the company. She is taken under the wing of Violet Newstead (Vicki Lewis), who has worked for the company for years and is hoping to be given a promotion.

Doralee Rhodes (Tricia Paoluccio, the Dolly Parton role) is accepted to be the office slut and everyone thinks she is having an affair with the boss, Franklin Hart Jr. (Paul Schoeffler).

“We don’t like her,” Violet tells Judy, though Doralee is actually happily married and is constantly fighting the advances of her boss in order to keep her job.

The production makes wonderful use of the Music Circus movable stage and all those various platform levels and the tech crew does yeoman duty running sets in and out of the stage while many scenes take place in the aisles.

The show belongs to the women. Lewis is a force of nature, a bold, brassy, under-appreciated Violet who is trying to raise a teenager as a single mother and convinced that if she works hard enough, she can break through the glass ceiling. When the coveted position is given, instead, to a young man she herself trained, hell hath no fury like this woman scorned.

Paoluccio is a wonderful Doralee, making the role her own, while still echoing Parton. Her “Backwoods Barbie” was wonderful.

Brummel, in the least notable role of Bernly, has the show-stopping number “Get Out and Stay Out,” which is reminiscent of a song Elphaba sings in “Wicked.” That’s interesting because the actress has played that role all over the country in touring shows.

Kristine Zbornik has the small role of frumpy Roz, Hart’s sycophantic assistant, who has a secret crush on her boss and whose song “Heart to Hart” brings down the house.

When Violet accidentally puts rat poison in Hart’s coffee, the girls get the idea of kidnapping him and holding him hostage in his own home while his wife is on vacation to prevent him from reporting Violet to the police.

While Hart is tied up, the girls take over running the office, reversing his cruel policies, and turning the office into a pleasant place to work. At the same time, a little research uncovers a double set of books showing Hart has been stealing from the company for years.

Parton herself makes an appearance. When this show played the Broadway series in the Community Center, a huge projection on the back of the stage gave Parton the opportunity to introduce and end the show. The same technique is used here, to lesser effect.

While the video shows Parton turning to her left or right to indicate a character, in the round, often she is turning to the opposite of where the character really is. Again, the enhanced audio made her comments difficult to understand.

“9 to 5″ had a disappointing run on Broadway, but it has more than made up for it in the popularity of productions around the country, and the Music Circus Production is no exception.

On the Town

After seeing Davis Shakespeare Ensemble’s superb “Wonderful Town” and Music Circus’ sparkling “On the Town” — both by the team of Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Leonard Bernstein and both paens to the Big Apple — I have a strong craving for a slice of New York pizza.

The energetic “On the Town” burst onto the Music Circus stage this week, the 1944 musical as fresh as it was when it first opened on Broadway. The show opens with a lament (“I feel like I”m not out of bed yet”) by a workman (Joseph Torello) whose voice is clear and deep and wonderful. He appears as several other announcers throughout the show.

This is the story of three sailors on a 24-hour leave in New York City. It is the first time each of them has visited the city and they are determined to see everything and maybe pick up a lady along the way.

Chip (Matt Loehr) has a tour book his father used many years ago … and he’s determined not to miss anything. Gabey (Sam Lips) falls in love with a picture of “Miss Turnstyle” that he sees on the subway and is determined to find her. Ozzie (Clyde Alves) just wants to find a date because Manhattan women are “the prettiest in the world.”

The trio decide to split up and see if they can find Miss Turnstyle (real name Ivy Smith, played by Courtney Iventosch). They agree to meet up back in Times Square at the end of the afternoon.
Gabey steals the poster off the subway and is pursued through the rest of the show by an umbrella-waving little old lady (Karen Hyland) and a growing posse of police and others.

Chip is accosted by taxi driver Hildy Esterhazy (Jennifer Cody), who has just been fired from her job. She is a real firecracker, oversexed and determined to get back to her apartment for a little canoodling. Cody is marvelous and brings a real spark to every scene in which she appears.

Ozzie heads to the Museum of Modern Art, because he believes beautiful women love art. There he finds anthropologist Claire de Loone (really) played by Holly Ann Butler, who mistakes Ozzie for a prehistoric man. She is engaged to a famous judge, Pitkin W. Bridgework (Donald Corren), who has encouraged her anthropological studies as a way to sublimate her sexual addiction. He is very understanding when he sees her with another man because he knows it is just scientific investigation.

Gabey goes to Carnegie Hall, where the subway poster says Ivy studies, and he actually finds her, but is hustled out by her teacher, the tipsy Madame Maude P. Dilly (Susan Cella), who wants Ivy to keep her job as a cootchie dancer because it pays her bills for vocal instruction.

Through a parade of increasingly sleazy nightclubs, the group ends up on Coney Island, where Gabey finds Ivy again and all end up back on the dock, where we began. As our three heroes say sad goodbyes to the girls before boarding their ship, three fresh new sailors descend for their own adventure in New York! New York!

Original costumes for this dazzling production were by Jess Goldstein, with Music Circus designer Marcy Froehlich. They are wonderfully, colorfully ’40s, down to the seams in the stockings.
Choreography is by Mark Esposito and includes a dream ballet, an effect that would be used even more effectively a year later by Rodgers and Hammerstein in their “Carousel.”

“On the Town” is a lively, flashy production, last seen on the Music Circus stage in 1961. It’s been a long time — and it was worth the wait.

Wonderful Town

Ruth (Gia Battista) gets a lift from the Brazilian cadets in
Davis Shakespeare Ensemble's “Wonderful Town” on stage through Aug. 6.
Yarcenia Garcia/Courtesy photo

 The Davis Shakespeare Festival has strong entries for its 2017 season. Opening with “The Three Musketeers” and “Wonderful Town,” the festival will close in October with “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Sisters Gia and Gabby Battista play the Sherwood sisters Ruth (Gia) and Eileen (Gabby), who have “escaped” their childhood home in Ohio and come to the Big Apple for all of the opportunities they believe it offers.

Ruth is an aspiring writer, while Eileen wants to break into show business. Along the way they feel like fish out of water and have to learn how to become part of that crazy world that is New York.
The musical is based on the stories of Ruth McKenney and was first produced as a play (“My Sister Eileen”) by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov. The music is by Leonard Bernstein, with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

The festival director for this musical is Dennis Beasley, who made such an impression with “Bells are Ringing” last season.

“Bells are Ringing” has a “thin plot,” I said last summer, but the show was fabulous. If that plot is thin, “Wonderful Town’s” plot is even thinner. It is more a study of stereotypical New York types, and Beasley’s cast is so strong that it makes for an enjoyable production.

The girls first learn that lodging is much too expensive until they meet unscrupulous landlord Mr. Appopolous (Kevin Caravalho), who rents them a basement apartment recently vacated by Violet (Annie Dick), who was running a bordello. The apartment is below the street level within clear view of passersby who lean over and look through the windows, and is near periodic explosions from subway constructions.

The multi-talented Caravalho, who plays Cardinal Richelieu in the festival’s other production, “The Three Musketeers” also plays several other members of the ensemble (as do most of the actors). While Caravalho is wonderful in each of his roles, he has such a “unique” appearance, it is often not clear whether he is Appopolous or some other character.

Others in the apartment house include Helen (Andrea J. Love), living with her muscle-bound boyfriend Wreck (Brian Bohlender), who is not strong in the brains department but he sure could “pass that football” in his days as a player. The couple are trying to hide their relationship from Helen’s snooty mother (Jessica Woehler).

Eileen seems to be a dude magnet and all men who meet her fall for her. This includes Ian Hopps, as Frank, who works for Walgreens and sees that Eileen eats for free there every day. Hopps was the romantic lead in last summer’s “Bells are Ringing,” and while Frank is quite a different character, he still makes an impact.

Kyle Stoner is Chick Clark, a sleazy newspaper editor who has designs on Eileen, while J.R. Yancher is Bob Baker, reader for a magazine who lets Ruth know her stories have no chance of ever being published.

There are several beautiful songs, like the lush duet “Ohio,” sung by the sisters when they suffer homesickness. The Battista women have voices that blend together beautifully, like rich melted chocolate.

Gia has several moments to shine in her songs about “One Hundred Easy Ways” and the plaintive “Quiet Ruth.”

Choreography is by Katie Peters and includes everything from Irish jig to swing, to a lively “Conga” by Eileen and a bunch of Brazilian cadets. Music is provided by the on-stage seven-member orchestra, under the direction of David Taylor-Gomes.

From top to bottom, this is a fun production with a strong cast and it shows that the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble continues to grow and thrive.

Bad Jews

Over the years, I have seen actress Tara Sissom in many comedies and have long admired her talent for comedy. However, in Capital Stage’s production of “Bad Jews” by Joshua Harmon we see an entirely different side of Sissom. She is funny, yes, but also angry, poignant — and amazing. She dominates as Daphna, one of the grandchildren of “Poppy,” who has just died.

The four-actor play takes place in a cramped New York apartment where three grandchildren have gathered the day after the funeral of their grandfather, the lone family holocaust survivor. The stated plot concerns which of the three will get Poppy’s “chai,” a gold pendant signifying “life.”

It was given to him by his father, and while a prisoner in Auschwitz he hid it in his mouth for two years until liberation. When he had no money for an engagement ring, he gave it to his soon-to-be wife as a symbol of his love. After he was able to buy a ring, he wore it around his neck for the rest of his life, so this has tremendous meaning for his family.

Daphna is certain that he meant for her to have it after his death. Mild-mannered Jonah (Noah Thompson) doesn’t care and just doesn’t want to discuss it. But cousin Liam (Jeremy Kahn) — who missed the funeral because he was skiing in Aspen and whose mother fed-exed him the chai as his grandfather lay dying — feels it rightfully belongs to him.

There is longstanding enmity between Liam and Daphna and they can hardly stand to be in the same room together. Daphna feels that Liam is really a self-hating Jew who chooses “tapid little Bambi” creatures out of insecurity, since with them he can be arrogant and masculine.

As for Liam, “She is horrifying. Just listen to her. Every other word that comes out of her mouth is some unbelievably offensive insult that we’re supposed to pretend not to hear?”

Things explode when Liam (a self-described “bad Jew”) arrives with his Delaware-born girlfriend Melody (Chloe King). He intends to continue the family tradition and give the chai to her in lieu of an engagement ring.

Though the argument over ownership of the chai is volatile, it unearths a lot of long-held feelings about religion, family and tradition. For Daphna, the chai symbolizes the survival of the Jewish faith and to give it to a gentile is unthinkable.

But as this is basically a comedy, there are some very funny moments in it, like remembering when Poppy took them all to Benihana and everyone was struck with bowel problems. The memory brings the three cousins together literally rolling on the floor in laughter.

But then things that seem very innocent (Daphna asking Melody about her background, growing up in Delaware) suddenly turn ugly when she accuses Melody’s family of the genocide of the Native Americans.

Director Amy Resnick has kept the delicate balance between funny and serious so that you’re never quite sure which you are seeing.

But Sissom is a wonder and Kahn, a newcomer to Capital Stage, is a worthy match for her diatribes.
King’s Melody is innocent and totally ignorant of the seriousness and importance of Jewish history (“I don’t see why any of it matters, you know? Where people come from? People are just people.”) which further inflames Daphna, the rabbinical student and uber Jew whose dream is to go to Israel and join the army.

As Jonah, Thompson spends most of the play cringing, hiding and saying he does not want to be involved in the argument — though in the end it is he who has the biggest impact on everyone, on and off the stage.

This is a unique piece of theater, which ends Capital Stage’s “Love and War” season. It is perhaps my favorite of the six plays in the series of excellent pays. Capital Stage just keeps getting better and better.

Beauty and the Beast

Jessica Grové as Belle and James Snyder as Beast perform in
“Beauty and the Beast,” produced by Music Circus
at the Wells Fargo Pavilion through July 2.
Charr Crail/Courtesy photo

 The folks at Music Circus would like to invite you to be their guest (for a fee) at the opulent production of Disney’s family classic musical, “Beauty and the Beast,” through July 2.

The near-capacity opening night audience had a lot of little princesses, tottering about on jeweled heels, in royal garb with rhinestone crowns.

This excellent production is directed by Glenn Casale and features several Broadway veterans in the lead roles and sumptuous costumes from Casale’s European tour of this show.

The production inaugurates California Musical Theatre’s new state-of-the-art projection system, a series of screens that circle the upper portion of the theater and project things like the rooftops of buildings, trees in a forest, and parts of a spooky castle, allowing for fewer on-stage set pieces and giving the audience a feeling of being in the action.

There aren’t enough superlatives to describe Broadway veteran James Snyder as the prince who is under the spell of a sorceress to whom he was once rude. He must live life as a hideous beast until he can learn to love another person and have that person love him in return.

A red rose charts his progress and if the last petal of the rose falls without a love interest in the picture, he will remain a beast forever.

Not only is the prince enchanted, but his entire house staff is as well. The maitre d’ has been turned into the candelabra Lumiere (Michael Paternostro) and the major domo is Cogsworth, a clock (David Hibbard), while Courtney Iventosch is Babette, the flirty feather duster, and Jacquelyn Piro Donovan is Madame de la Grande Bouche, the opera singer who is now a dresser, complete with drawers that open.

Dear Mrs. Potts (Shannon Warne), the teapot, sings the title song. Her son Chip (Cooper Miller, alternating with Mia Fisher) was very cute.

I was pleased to see that as the story progresses, the changes in the staff become more and more pronounced. I have seen community theater productions where this does not happen, so it was appreciated that this professional company follows those directions.

Jessica Grové is specializing in princesses at Music Circus. She was last seen as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” and plays Belle in this production. Belle is a feisty loner and bookworm in the little town where she lives with her inventor father Maurice (Gordon Goodman). She dreams of finding an enchanted prince who will sweep her away.

After Maurice is set upon by wolves and saved by the Beast, who then imprisons him, Belle agrees to take his place if the Beast lets the old man go.

It’s a rocky start for this eventually happily-ever-after couple, but with help and lessons in being a gentleman from the house staff, the Beast is able to tame his temper and a friendship slowly develops between himself and the young woman. His anguished “If I Can’t Love Her,” which ends the first act, is a tour de force for the actor.

In the meantime, there is the town hunk, Gaston (Peter Saide), who is in love with himself, but determined to have Belle as his wife. His sidekick LeFou (Jared Gertner) thinks of this as a real bromance and puts up with a lot of abuse from this man he admires.

When Gaston leads a band to go and “kill the beast,” it is up to Belle to save this beast she has come to love and, in the process, break the spell.

This is a wonderful production and a great way to start Music Circus’ 67th season. If I have any complaint, it’s that the volume is much too high. I have hearing problems and it bothered me, so I can only imagine what a person with normal hearing would hear.

Legally Blonde, the Musical

Omigod, you guys! Elle Woods has finally come to the Davis Musical Theatre Company, under the direction of Jan Isaacson.

“Legally Blonde” (music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin and book by Heather Hach) is as light and frothy as cotton candy — and just as pink. It has all the story of the movie with Reese Witherspoon, but without the depth. The scenes are so short (nine in the first act, eight in the second) that there is little time to get a feeling for the characters.

The songs aren’t memorable (except for the opening and recurring “Omigod, you guys”), but the cast is so enthusiastic and the dancing so infectious that you find yourself enjoying it in spite of yourself.
The story follows sorority diva Elle Woods, who came to the university to catch her man and discovers that she was only a chapter in his life. He’s going to become a famous attorney and politician and she … well … she just doesn’t fit into his view of a politician’s wife.

As he goes off to Harvard, flighty Elle does the only logical thing … she studies hard, for the first time in her life, and gets into Harvard Law too, thinking that, given time, she can win him back.
Her parents (Steve Isaacson and Dannette Vassar) are aghast. “You could have a film career out here,” her father protests. “There’s no movie studio there and the girls all have different noses.”

It’s a silly plot, but we get to watch Elle begin to think about things seriously and ultimately have more respect for herself than to want someone like the guy who ditched her.

Ernestine Balisi is the bleach-blonde, pink-clad Elle, with Mac playing her constant companion Bruiser, the Chihuahua. Last seen as Peggy Sawyer in “42nd Street,” Balisi brings the same energy and sparkle to the role of Elle. She and Bruiser work well together and neither had a misstep throughout.

Boyfriend Warner Huntington III (Jonathan Kalinen) is a real loser (to quote a current political figure) and Kalinen brings out all the worst in him until we don’t want Elle to get her man anyway!
Adriel Cruz is Professor Callahan, the womanizing hot-shot instructor who sets his sights on Elle. Cruz gave a subdued performance throughout Act 1 and it was difficult not only to understand him, but to find him all that menacing until he sings the very dark “Blood in the Water.” His performance improved in Act 2.

Mitchell Worrell-Olson is Emmett, Callahan’s teaching assistant, who takes Elle under his wing with a friendship that may grow into something deeper, as he helps her with her studies along with a study group that includes Erynn Kinch as the dark and brooding brainiac Enid.

Ashley Marie Holm makes a wonderful impression as Paulette, the cosmetician who becomes Elle’s friend, as the two of them support each other. Paulette dreams of marrying an Irishman and settling down in the suburbs (she sings the beautiful song “Ireland”). Then along comes the UPS man Kyle (Matthew Evans) to set her heart a-flutter.

Longtime Davisites may know the story of UPS delivery man Tim Spencer, for whom a downtown Davis alley is named. Evans is the epitome of Tim Spencer, in his macho-ness and his short shorts.
A real scene-stealer is Paulette’s dog, Rufus (played by Savannah), a bulldog missing teeth on one side of her mouth, leaving her tongue hanging out all the time. She was definitely a crowd-pleaser.

Rachael Sherman-Shockley plays the bitchy Vivienne with venom. Because the character changes as the show progresses, Sherman-Shockley gave a multi-layered performance and displayed a beautiful voice on “Legally Blonde Remix.”

Morgan Bartoe is Brooke Wyndham, on trial for killing her husband, defended by Callahan and his students. Brooke is an exercise guru and her exercise routine “Whipped into Shape” done with a chorus of women, each with jump ropes, is a highlight of the show. How they sing and jump and still have breath left at the end of the number is a marvel. (Choreography is by Terri Taylor.)

There is a Greek chorus of sorts, made up of Elle’s sorority sisters — Serena (Joelle La Guerra), Margot (McKinley Carlisle) and Pilar (Julia Hixon) — who become Elle’s cheering section.

The message of this musical is to be yourself and that you can be better than you think you are. And along the way, don’t forget to dress in pink!

Hand to God

From left, Margery (Elisabeth Nunziato) leads a church puppet workshop as her son Jason (Ryan Borses)
works his demon-possessed puppet, Tyrone, in “Hand to God”
on stage through July 23 at the B Street Theatre.
Rudy Meyers Photography/Courtesy phototion

When a critic goes to see a show, he or she is usually given a packet of information about the show, the playwright and other pertinent information. When the B Street Box Office handed me a packet for “Hand to God” that included not only a “history of puppetry” but also a “brief history of demonic possession,” I knew we were in for something … unusual.

Unusual is putting it mildly.

This hilariously funny play from the demented mind of playwright Robert Askins is everything a normal person should hate (and some in the audience did leave at intermission). It is raunchy and irreverent, and yet, we in the audience laughed uproariously and gave the cast a standing ovation.
The story concerns a puppet, Tyrone (who resembles a Muppet from the wrong side of the tracks), who is possessed by the devil and is manipulating the life of teenager Jason (Ryan Borses), a young man depressed about his father’s recent death.

Borses gives an outstanding performance as both Jason and Tyrone, who seems permanently attached to Jason’s arm. Borses is able to create distinct personalities for the two characters and accurately displays a range of emotions, including the depth of Jason’s depression and Tyrone’s anger, often simultaneously, in one fast-paced dialog between the two. It has to be seen to truly be appreciated.
The action takes place in a church basement where Jason’s mother Margery (Elisabeth Nunziato) is leading a puppet workshop, as part of Pastor Greg’s (Dave Pierini) outreach to younger people.

Also part of the group are Timmy (Andrew Mazer), the perennial bad boy who is more interested in making moves on Margery than on making puppets. Jessica (Stephanie Altholz) is the polar opposite to Timmy, a goody-two-shoes who tries to keep the peace, despite her own puppet’s desires.

Margery isn’t really interested in the workshop, since she has just lost her husband, and is trying to work through her own grief and depression, which does not include Jason, who turns to Tyrone for comfort.

Tyrone becomes more and more demonic as the play progresses, growing teeth and pointy ears along the way. He and Jessica’s creation, a busty puppet named Jolene, find a mutual attraction and the resulting puppet-on-puppet action, while hilarious, would earn the play an X rating if the beings involved actually had genitalia.

Everyone in this workshop eventually succumbs to their baser instincts and under Tyrone’s delighted cheering, they all give in to temptation to express the hate, lust, violence and fear that exists in all of them. The professional skills of the puppeteers, who keep up a running in-depth conversation while their arms are engaged in unspeakable action with each other, is remarkable.

This wildly irreverent but very funny play also explores the more serious topics such as the nature of grief and the repression of human nature, and ultimately finds redemption and a way to defuse the out-of-control Tyrone.

All of the actors are wonderful, with Mazer as the greaser who appears just dumb and horny, but actually longs for the love that Jason seeks as well. Nunziato’s grief at the loss of her husband is always just below the surface as she is drawn to her baser instincts and ultimately her realization of her feelings for her son.

Altholz is not as prissy “goody two-shoes” as she seems and has her own moments of audaciousness.
Rounding out the cast, Perini is a well-meaning pastor who has the hots for Margery, but manages to keep himself in check.

Samantha Reno’s set is a fun puppet workshop until Act 2, when Tyrone takes over and the change is very striking.

This is a play you really want to dislike and feel somehow you should not be watching, but you can’t help being drawn into the story and laughing uncontrollably throughout.

Lungs

“Lungs,” a play by the young playwright Duncan Macmillan (whose “Constellations” was produced by B Street recently), may have been written with millennials in mind, but it has appeal for all ages.
It follows the lives of M and W (no names are given) through the rocky eras of their lives, an odd love story, but fascinating, in its many twists and turns.

Directed by Lyndsay Burch, this two-person, 100-plus-minute piece features the talents of the amazing Jahi Kearse as M and Dana Brooke as W.

The set by Samantha Reno pictures an amorphous outdoor scene. While the script calls for no set at all, the designer wanted to create an environment that could represent both inside and outside and “the circle of life.” Also, as questions of threats to the environment loom large in this work, this seemed appropriate.

As the action begins, the couple are in line at IKEA when M decides to broach the subject of whether this might be the time to start thinking of having a family. This takes W by surprise and she starts one of her many diatribes about the ethical issues of raising a child in an age where there is political unrest, where climate change is a major issue, and if you really care about the planet, even if you are a “good” person, is it right to have a child? Particularly when the carbon footprint of that infant will be 10,000 tons of CO2?

“That’s the weight of the Eiffel Tower. I’d be giving birth to the Eiffel Tower,” W wails.
On the other hand, maybe this child will be the one who makes major contributions to all of these problems.

But what about the in-laws, who are none too happy with the whole relationship in the first place? The discussion goes back and forth, agonizing over wanting a baby and worrying about if this is the right time — or if there will ever be a right time.

Both very funny, and then very poignant, these issues are at the heart of this play. The characters are maddening and lovable by turns, each with his or her own flaws, but always, no matter what happens, deeply in love with each other.

W is the more high-strung of the pair, while M is more laid-back, a good man desperately trying to figure out what he can do to make things better for the woman he loves, but not really understanding what she is saying most of the time (a situation any woman can relate to!).

The dialog would put the wordy David Mamet to shame, as it is smart, rapid-fire with impeccable comic and dramatic timing, which works only because of the talent of the two actors. Sometimes the monologues of one or the other of them leaves the audience breathless trying to keep up.

This is a moving, funny, always engrossing play raised to new heights by the talents of two actors. When Macmillan wrote this he was only 30 years old. One wonders what a career he has ahead of him.

The Ju;ngle Book

 

Panthers, tigers and bears! Oh my!

It’s a jungle out there, as Acme Theatre Company presents its annual thank-you gift to the city of Davis on the Art Center amphitheater stage in the form of a free performance of Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book,” as written by Acme alum Briandaniel Oglesby and directed by Emily Henderson.
Kipling’s 1894 book was a collection of fables using animals to give moral lessons, and Oglesby gives the story a modern ecological twist.

This version of the story was commissioned by Big Idea Theatre in Sacramento and opened its 2014 season.

The first thing to observe on the Art Center stage is the set, designed by Benton Harshaw, an innovative use of umbrellas of all sizes, shapes and types, painted in various shades of green and grouped together to form the jungle in which the action takes place.

Costumes designed by Cassaundra Wages are fairly minimal suggestions of costumes — ears and a tail, for example, but the most fun costume of all is for the vulture, Kite (Sophia Waxman) whose voluminous wings allow her to fly all over the stage area and Waxman has perfected the art of swooping and settling, quite vulture-like, on a tree stump.

It is the story of the young boy Mowgli (Gracelyn Watkins), orphaned after his parents were killed by the hungry tiger Shere Kahn (Dedrick Underwood). Mowgli is a puzzlement to the creatures of the forest and there is discussion concerning what to do about him until he is adopted by Raksha (Garnet Phinney), a wolf mother who recently lost her cub. She will raise the boy as her son and teach him to be a wolf.

Mowgli joins the pack of wolves, led by Akela (Ben Kimmel) and learns the ways of the forest, though he never quite “belongs,” and is taunted by his fellow wolf cubs. He is the perpetual outsider just looking for a home.

The story is told by the bear Baloo (Cassidy Smith) and his panther partner Bagheera (Cory McCutcheon), who take on the instruction of the young man-cub. Baloo explains that he is “tasked with the edification of the wolf pack. I teach them jungle law and the stories of us Jungle People.”
In his search for a place to belong, Mowgli briefly joins a pack of monkeys but is fascinated by the dangerous snake Kaa (Laura Britt). To escape, Mowgli flees to the nearby city.

The pace of life in the city, with everyone rushing by, is confusing to the young man-cub and when he is discovered by the humans, they, too, are confused by what to do with him, suggestions which include everything from experimenting on him to locking him up in a zoo.

But he is adopted by a wealthy socialite, DeeDee (McKella von Boxtel), who is determined to civilize him. (Husband Duke is played by Underwood, previously seen in the jungle as tiger Shere Kahn.

(In one of the more clever bits of set design, DeeDee’s home is decorated with paintings, represented by cast members looking through picture frames.)

Still finding himself an outsider, Mowgli can’t find a home with his own kind and decides to return to the forest, but in the years of his absence, the forest has been transformed by clear cutting and his old friends are losing their home.

The play ends on Mowgli’s solution for saving his friends and finding a new place away from the destruction of the forest.

This is a play that will delight children of all ages (I sat next to a toddler who was mesmerized throughout). What better way to spend a couple of hours on a holiday weekend than outside enjoying a delightful play?