R.I.P. Paul Newman

Paul Newman has died at the age of 83. Known
of course for his film roles (my favorites are actually
his later ones, like Absense of Malice, The Verdict
and Nobody's Fool) and his amazing philanthopy,
he was also a stalwart of the American theatre,
notably for taking over the historic Westport Theatre
with his wife, Joanne Woodward. His contributions
to our time in all three areas were exemplary. A life
well lived.

I note also that last month, the English playwright Simon Gray died at the age of 72. Probably best known for Butley,his work was generally so well respected that his frequent director was Harold Pinter.

Elizabethan Sitcom: Merry Wives of Windsor

First the good news: The Merry Wives of Windsor at North Coast Repertory Theatre is skillfully comic.

 With David Hamilton’s fluid direction, an accomplished cast excels at comic invention, and the evening features at least a few moments of comic brilliance.

 Old Falstaff, one of Shakespeare’s most beloved characters from the “Henry” plays, writes love letters to two wealthy wives, who trick him three times. There’s a suspicious husband and other comic and slightly romantic subplots. Nearly everyone in this large cast shines, particularly JM Wilkerson as Falstaff. Janet Waddell as the horny housekeeper is especially memorable, as is Jim Buschmann as the French physician by way of Inspector Clouseau. Pat Hamilton’s costumes are pleasing, and scenic designer Tony Leitch’s set helps make the action believable, even as locations change.

 The only problem—and it’s unlikely to be a problem for everyone—is that it’s one of Shakespeare’s weakest and least characteristic plays. When poet W.H. Auden lectured on all the Shakespeare plays at the New School in New York, he devoted just four sentences to this one, calling it “very dull indeed,” and spent the rest of the class playing a recording of Verdi’s opera based on it. Critic Harold Bloom denies that this is even the same character as in the Henry plays; he calls this version “False Falstaff.”

 Even the legend that Shakespeare wrote this play at the special request of Queen Elizabeth is questionable, although it may have been a good excuse. That it is mostly prose is said to make it more understandable to modern audiences, but the words are actually less comprehensible than in many more “poetic” plays, with lots of topical allusions and jokes that you had to be there to get. (Shakespeare was apparently settling scores with people that this play’s first audience might know.)

The actors speed you through this pretty well, so mostly what remains of the language is pretty dull: apart from puns there’s little verbal wit, and even less depth. So what can a production do? Some have underlined the class differences in the characters, or emphasized Falstaff as a man out of his time as well as past his prime. Or you might do as Hamilton did: assemble an impressive cast, give them plenty of individualized comic business, and turn them loose. He does avoid the cruelty possible in some of the “make fun of the fat guy” bits. Basically this is an Elizabethan sitcom, with some burlesque house emphasis on double entendres and even odd remnants of ethnic humor.

 There were some problems opening night: a few uncertain and inconsistent accents, a few comic bits repeated a few too many times, and a few fine voices too indistinct. At two and a half hours, it’s also pretty long for an episode of “I Love Falstaff.”

But if you accept that the usual depth and levels of Shakespeare are largely missing, and that it’s all pretty predictable, you are likely to enjoy this production for its admirable comic dexterity. And for the laughs: even if it’s mostly sketch humor, a lot of it still works. The best moments were full of subtle actions and reactions between two characters, and those were real treats. There could be even more of them by the time you see it.

This North Coast Weekend

I'm remiss this weekend, what with the drama of the presidential debate, but you still have tonight to see "Elektra" at the Arcata Playhouse. You'll see at minimum some very fine acting by the Ghost Road Company of L.A. I'll be writing about it in my next Journal column, which is scheduled for the week after next. (I'm apparently on a strict every-other-week schedule now, alternating with Art Beat.)

Meanwhile North Coast Rep presents The Merry Wives of Windsor. I review it in the Journal, and both the T-S and ER review it as well.

Elsewhere: Stoppard by the Bay

ACT in SF has opened their production
of Tom Stoppard's play, "Rock & Roll."
The Chronicle reviews it here.

Merry Wives of Windsor

First the good news: The Merry Wives of Windsor at North Coast Repertory Theatre is skillfully comic. With David Hamilton’s fluid direction, an accomplished cast excels at comic invention, and the evening features at least a few moments of comic brilliance.

 Old Falstaff, one of Shakespeare’s most beloved characters from the “Henry” plays, writes love letters to two wealthy wives, who trick him three times. There’s a suspicious husband and other comic and slightly romantic subplots. Nearly everyone in this large cast shines, particularly JM Wilkerson as Falstaff. Janet Waddell as the horny housekeeper is especially notable, as is Jim Buschmann as the French physician by way of Inspector Clouseau.

 Pat Hamilton’s costumes are pleasing, and scenic designer Tony Leitch’s set helps make the action believable, even as locations change.

 The only problem—and it’s unlikely to be a problem for everyone—is that it’s one of Shakespeare’s weakest and least characteristic plays. When poet W.H. Auden lectured on all the Shakespeare plays at the New School in New York, he devoted just four sentences to this one, calling it “very dull indeed,” and spent the rest of the class playing a recording of Verdi’s opera based on it. Critic Harold Bloom denies that this is even the same character as in the Henry plays; he calls this version “False Falstaff.”

 Even the legend that Shakespeare wrote this play at the special request of Queen Elizabeth is questionable, although it may have been a good excuse. That it is mostly prose is said to make it more understandable to modern audiences, but the words are actually less comprehensible than in many more “poetic” plays, with lots of topical allusions and jokes that you had to be there to get. (Shakespeare was apparently settling scores with people that this play’s first audience might know.)

The actors speed you through this pretty well, so mostly what remains of the language is pretty dull: apart from puns there’s little verbal wit, and even less depth. So what can a production do? Some have underlined the class differences in the characters, or emphasized Falstaff as a man out of his time as well as past his prime. Or you might do as Hamilton did: assemble an impressive cast, give them plenty of individualized comic business, and turn them loose. He does avoid the cruelty possible in some of the “make fun of the fat guy” bits.

 Basically this is an Elizabethan sitcom, with some burlesque house emphasis on double entendres and even odd remnants of ethnic humor. There were some problems opening night: a few uncertain and inconsistent accents, a few comic bits repeated a few too many times, and a few fine voices too indistinct. At two and a half hours, it’s also pretty long for an episode of “I Love Falstaff.”

 But if you accept that the usual depth and levels of Shakespeare are largely missing, and that it’s all pretty predictable, you are likely to enjoy this production for its admirable comic dexterity. And for the laughs: even if it’s mostly sketch humor, a lot of it still works. The best moments were full of subtle actions and reactions between two characters, and those were real treats. There could be even more of them by the time you see it.

The Fire-Bringer

HSU does a staged reading of a new play, The Fire-Bringer, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 PM in the Gist Hall Theatre. Beti Trauth also previews this in Northern Lights.

I emphasize that this is a staged reading, which basically means the cast will carry scripts as they move around the stage. There's also minimal staging, lighting and costumes. This is usually how plays in development are first presented, and though staged readings are rare hereabouts, some of the best theatre I've seen has been in this form. It really emphasizes the script and the interactions of characters. In my past experiences with staged readings, I've often gotten so absorbed in it that I stopped noticing the actors were carrying scripts.

The play is about characters in a small timber town dealing with a forest fire, set in 1942. (Since the Journal's cover story this week was about the fires, you'd think they'd mention this play, but they didn't. I mentioned it in my column, which is all I'm permitted to do, since I do publicity for HSU theatre.)

I'm actually writing this after the first performance, which I understand was SRO. (I was at NCRT; I'll be at Gist on Friday.) There was a lively talk-back in which audience members told their own stories about forest fires, especially from this year. There's another talk-back Friday, and perhaps Saturday.

A sidelight: When Judy GeBauer, playwright of The Fire-Bringer, was in Arcata from Denver last week, she stayed with HSU Theatre, Film & Dance chair Bernadette Cheyne and her husband, scenic designer Ivan Hess. Eventually GeBauer and Hess realized they’d both grown up in Oakland at around the same time, let’s say more than a few years ago. Then that they had gone to the same high school, with the same drama teacher. Then that they were there at the same time. Finally, when Ivan found his high school yearbook, there they were: literally on the same page.

The North Coast News

Arcata Playhouse hosts its periodic local All-Star show, "Club Shampoo" on Friday at 9pm: lots of comedy, music, various forms of theatricals, including Jeff DeMark. 822-1575.

Then there are the events on Saturday celebrating, or at least marking, the 150th anniversary of Arcata's founding. The 9th annual Storytelling by the Sea happens Saturday at Patrick's Point.

This note comes from Ferndale Rep:
The Ferndale Repertory Theatre will hold auditions for Jean Shepherd’s family favorite A Christmas Story on Saturday, Sept. 13 at 3 pm and Sunday, Sept. 14 at 2 pm at the Ferndale Repertory Theatre, 447 Main Street in Ferndale.

Director Vikki Young seeks: 2 men, ages 35-45; 2 women, ages 30-50; 5 boys, ages 6-13; 2 girls, aged 9-13. Prepared auditions pieces are not required. Auditioners will read from the script. Adapted for the stage by Philip Grecian from the popular motion picture, we meet the Parker family and 9-year old Ralphie who receives the ever-present warning, “You’ll shoot your eye out!” when he asks for an official 200-shot Red Ryder Carbine Action Range Model Air Rifle for Christmas.

Production dates are November 29 through December 21 and all rehearsals will be held in Ferndale. For further information, call 786-5483 x 203.

North Coast Rep begins its season next Thursday with The Merry Wives of Windsor. and HSU has a staged reading of a new play, Fire-Bringer, Thursday through Saturday. We're going to have quite a Shakespearian year, with HSU doing The Winter's Tale in October and North Coast Prep planning King Lear.

My Journal column on Donald Lacy's show got bumped for space, and is promised for next week's issue. I may post an expanded version here before then.

Color Struck Strikes The Right Notes

On August 28, 1963 I was one of more than a quarter of a million people in the now-famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I was 17, and as magical as that day was, I recall that it was very controversial.

 On August 28, 2008, I watched an African American accepting the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. But as hopeful and personally satisfying as this historic moment is, the presidential campaign of Barack Obama also exposes undercurrents of residual racism that most white people don’t normally notice.

 Race has been a topic on stage for these 40 years and more, in lots of different ways, employing different styles with different effects. The Lorraine Hansberry family drama of the 1950s stressed universality, evoking empathy. The in-your-face, up-against-the -wall confrontations of the 60s were shocking, which opened eyes but also provoked some defensive white anger. These styles exposed the problem of how to deal honestly with the facts of racism without driving the wedge deeper between the races.

 New strategies emerged in the comedy of Richard Pryor and the plays of August Wilson: using comfortable forms (traditional theatre, stand-up comedy) and showcasing cultural style (music, humor, ways of talking, etc.) but with clear evocation of the costs and realities of racism.

 But over the years, as racial discrimination became less overt and less visible to whites, and pious lip service as well as sincere commitment to color blindness became standard, the realities of racism have receded from public dialogue. The racism playing out in this campaign for instance, is at the “dog whistle” level: frequencies heard and understood only by racists and their victims.

 All of these pose problems and possible strategies for an on-stage attempt to deal with race in 2008, such as Color Struck, a one-person show by Donald Lacy, up from Oakland for a couple of performances last weekend at the Arcata Playhouse (though the show may return to Humboldt in the spring.)

 Lacy has a formidable resume. He’s acted in films by Francis Ford Coppola and Taylor Bickford, and in plays by August Wilson, Brecht and Octavio Solis. He’s directed and written plays, including “The Loudest Scream You’ll Never Hear,” about the Atlanta child murders. He’s written for TV, and he’s a stand-up comic, with appearances on HBO and BET. He’s a radio broadcaster—you can hear him on the web at KPO.com. He’s received accolades for his humanitarian work in the Bay Area, and he’s had what I consider a major dream job: the Voice of the Harlem Globetrotters for a 75-city tour.

 He brings all this experience and all these skills to bear in “Color Struck.” Lacy uses music, dance and projected images to evoke style (hairstyles from the conked 40s, the processed 50s, through the Afro-Sheen 70s to today’s dreds) and shared experience (TV shows, family life) along with his own discoveries of racism and theories about it.  He had the additional problem of being a light-skinned African American, in a black Oakland neighborhood that abutted white San Leandro.

 This personal review touches upon topics like the Black Panthers, Rodney King, OJ and Katrina, as well as black grandmothers, the symbolism of King Kong and the images of black lynchings in the not too distant past.

 The show (directed by Michael Torres, with music and sound by Tommy Shepherd) uses radio to organize the content in a couple of ways. Lacy is introduced at the radio microphone in silhouette, and he seems to change subjects in his monologue according to songs we all hear as if randomly from the radio.

 The strategies of humorous recollection up against pathos and tragedy deftly evoke the human costs of racism, with that quick dose of shock that makes the moment memorable, although (if I understood one person in the Q and A after the show I saw) some white people can still feel attacked.

But older audiences of any race could relate to aspects of common culture now gone (including the kind of middle class factory jobs his parents had: his father at RCA, his mother at Western Electric.) Younger audiences learn history they may never have heard.

 It’s worth celebrating that while our society is getting more diverse, race matters less to young people. But this may also augment an embarrassed but damaging silence on racism that still does exist. Lacy’s show is one of the few opportunities to bring these realities to light, and it does so effectively, while being an entertaining piece of theatre.