The Year That Was: Topical and Timeless on North Coast Stages

A version of this year-end retrospective appears in the North Coast Journal "Top 10" issue.  I didn't do a top ten, though.  It's not practical.  Though I see a lot of shows, I don't see everything, so it wouldn't be fair.  And I've got multiple conflicts of interest when it comes to HSU shows.  But it's not fair to ignore those shows either.  So this is my compromise.

“Drama is a mansion with an almost infinite number of rooms,” wrote Michael Billington, the great drama critic for the Guardian. “I see no point in shutting off any of them.” As I’ve noted on other occasions, there are gaps in the North Coast theatrical ecology. But it’s worth noticing the variety that does exist, and that this past year’s productions supported and altered that ecology, however subtly.

Dell’Arte pioneered “theatre of place” on the North Coast, and this year saw a unique example in the second version of Mary Jane: The Musical. It’s unique precisely because it’s the second version. Dell’Arte has brought shows back before, updating their topical and local references. But this time they re-conceived a show from just the summer before, and so the 2012 version was actually the product of two successive years, which resulted in a deeper (and darker) show. I still recall their Blue Lake: The Opera as the more successful production (a coincidence of talent, music and story), but certainly Mary Jane is more relevant to local identity and its future.

Another successful “theatre of place” show was Women of the Northwest at the Arcata Playhouse. It also was a group effort, part of the national fascination with “devised theatre” that worked in these two productions, with adequate time and thorough process.

  It wasn’t so successful in the Dell’Arte holiday show, The Fish in My Head— well-performed and produced, but so disjointed that it’s the first show I can recall that got me to root for the villain: the guy who wanted it to make more sense.

  This year also brought an unusual number of topically relevant dramas written by actual playwrights: Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room at Ferndale, Justin Lance Black’s 8 and Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus at HSU, for example. HSU and College of the Redwoods also contribute classics (Moliere at CR, Noel Coward at HSU) and a glimpse of a different cultural approach in HSU’s version of the Sanskrit drama Shakuntala. A theatrical ecology is sustained by educational inquiry for both participants and audience.

   Humboldt Light Opera Company added to its high quality contributions with Damn Yankees and Cinderella. Redwood Curtain continued to concentrate on small cast contemporary American comedies, but took a few more chances this year with plays of challenging form and content, such as Circle Mirror Transformation, Dusty and the Big Bad World, For Better and The Language Archive.  These forays work largely because Redwood Curtain nurtures a high level of acting.

  Our two community theatres (Ferndale and North Coast in Eureka) have the words “repertory” in their names, which refers to producing shows from “the repertoire,” or the roster of successful plays (artistically, commercially or both) of the accessible past. There are a lot of judgments involved: some shows are too big (and expensive) or too small, too new (rights are unavailable) or too old.

But how old is too old? Looking back at this year yields a rule of thumb. Dramas can be quite old, though Shakespeare is about the limit. This year we got a searing drama from the 1950s (Look Back in Anger at Ferndale Rep) and a mystery from the 1940s (Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap at North Coast Rep.) Comedies and musicals are usually more recent. Which is another reason that North Coast Rep’s production of the pioneer musical comedy Anything Goes was so fascinating.



There are few if any Broadway musicals older than Anything Goes that get produced anymore. In fact, only 3 previous shows are generally classified as modern musicals (Show Boat in 1927, The Band Wagon in 1930 and Of Thee I Sing! in 1931.)

Songs have since been stolen from other Cole Porter shows for this version of Anything Goes, and the script is not exactly the same as the show that premiered in 1934. That script began with legendary Brits P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton but the Broadway version was quickly assembled by its director Howard Lindsay with a press agent named Russel Crouse.  They were so successful at it that they themselves became a legendary Broadway writing team.  The script was revised for the 1987 revival by John Weidman and Timothy Crouse, Russel's son and the author of one of the great books on U.S. presidential campaigns and the press, The Boys on the Bus (1972).  I knew him for a few years around then.

Anyway, the changes in the latest, the Tony-winning 2011 version that’s on tour into 2013 seem to be in musical arrangements, etc.  So I don't actually know who is responsible for my favorite bit of dialogue.  Asked by a ship's officer if he'd seen infamous racketeer Snakeyes Johnson somewhere on the ship, one of the characters says he saw him at the mizenmast. “ But this ship doesn’t have a mizenmast.” “Oh. It must have been somebody else.” 

The constant in all this is Cole Porter.  His songs have not changed. His music is timeless, but his lyrics are very topical—particularly in one of this show’s most famous songs, “You’re the Top.”  They haven't been revised, so the lyrics are still a kind of mini-tour of 1934. While some of the places and the famous people named in the song are still well known, others mostly aren’t. Quite a few clever references go right by a lot of the audience nearly 80 years later.

 So how does the song still work? It was interesting to watch how Molly Severdia and Erik Standifird relieved anxieties by acting out contemporary reactions to some references in their performance of the song, a highlight of the North Coast Rep production. For instance, they gave the line “You’re broccoli!” the icky vegetable look, but in 1934, broccoli was new to the U.S. and quite fashionable.

They simply ignored other references, like Jimmy Durante, a showman who was often parodied into the 1960s. In fact some lyrics are now so obscure that there are several online attempts to track down their meaning. There was a long and involved theory about “you’re a drumstick lipstick” (which involved ice cream and kissing) until somebody uncovered an old ad that showed that Drumstick lipstick was a 1934 brand name.

 Still, it isn’t necessary to know that moisture-proof cellophane was a modern miracle in the 30s to laugh at the exuberant brilliance of “You’re the National Gallery/You’re Garbo’s salary/You’re cellophane!” The strange alchemy of the topical and the timeless in a play that lasts is one of the wonders of theatre, as it is in other arts. So it’s a vital part of our theatrical ecology.

Any North Coast Weekend

This North Coast weekend, stuff continues: Evita at Ferndale Rep, For Better (which I reviewed in the NC Journal this week) at Redwood Curtain.   And there's Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 at Eureka High.

So there's time for a little comment.  Last week I mentioned an article in the Tri-City Weekly on North Coast theatre by Pam Service.  It begins with the assertion "Humboldt County is theatrically rich," and suggests that this success is not due to facilities (that's for sure!) but "the wealth of theatrical talent. There's something about Humboldt that breeds, attracts and retains that talent. Maybe it's the gorgeous natural environment, maybe it's the more leisurely pace of life, maybe it's the atmosphere of intellectual and artistic creativity. But whatever it is, talented actors are here in abundance. And all of us are the richer for it."

While she's right about the talent, the "something about Humboldt that breeds, attracts and retains that talent" isn't completely so mystical or mysterious.  One of the prime somethings is Humboldt State University, and in a somewhat different way, Dell'Arte and its School. 

Look no further than the current Redwood Curtain production.  Nearly everyone involved in it is a student or graduate of the Humboldt State theatre program. In fact, several were involved in the HSU 10 Minute Play Festival that was on stage during For Better's opening weekend.  Director Kristin L. Mack is a recent recipient of an M.A. in Theatre Arts.  She directed for a previous 10 Minute Play Festival.

Of course not every play at every theatre features an entire cast from HSU, plus the director, scenic and costume designer.  But almost every production at every theatre does involve one or more creative participants who is studying theatre at HSU or got one or another degrees there.  There is also cross-fertilization, with directors from other theatres directing a show at HSU (and earning some money doing it) and HSU faculty directing at other theatres.  The importance of HSU extends to high schools and specialized theatre groups.

The HSU role goes beyond the theatre program (for example, both principal founders of Redwood Curtain earn their livings there) but the theatre program has been the most crucial element, certainly in the breeding and even retention of talent.  Young people studying at HSU (perhaps in Music or some unrelated field, but generally in or including Theatre) enliven theatrical productions here, and they are missed when they leave. But some remain, and some who came here by another route got advanced degrees there, or operate and work for community and other theatres while teaching part-time at HSU (and also at College of the Redwoods, which shouldn't be forgotten either.)  

But there is perhaps a sad ending to this story, and certainly a cautionary tale.  But first let me clear away the disclosures.  I myself can review theatre here, not because I am paid a living wage by the North Coast Journal, but because I am paid something a little bit closer to a living wage by HSU to write and disseminate publicity for HSU Theatre, Film & Dance and HSU Music Department shows.  Those are two part-time jobs that sometimes get in the way of each other, but awkwardly putting together jobs like that isn't exactly rare on the North Coast. 

And in such a small community, here's another common complication.  My partner is a tenured faculty member and current chair of Theatre, Film & Dance at HSU.  This certainly may color my feelings on these matters, but you can judge the facts.  There is also the drawback that I can't say all that I know.  So to complete this disclaimer: nothing I say here should be construed as coming from HSU or any of its departments.  And I certainly am not being paid by HSU to say any of this. 

But I can point out a few things relevant to my topic here.  There have been a lot of changes at HSU, and many affecting the theatre program, mostly due to budget pressures from Sacramento. They haven't been expansions. 

  For one thing, Kristin Mack is one of the last M.A.s in theatre arts that HSU will produce for the forseeable future.  Some of the graduate programs have been axed, and some "suspended" with the possibility of parole.  But no new candidates for graduate work are being accepted. 

One of the consequences of the loss of graduate students is the end of the graduate courses in dramatic writing, which were the rationale for the 10 Minute Play Festival.  Without that course, it became clear this year that the Festival couldn't continue.  The Festival had become an incubator for directing and acting talent as well as writing.  But then there is no graduate level directing or acting anymore either.  

All of these changes are now happening and whatever they mean to HSU and its students,  I feel sure their consequences will soon be felt in the rest of North Coast theatre.  

Dell'Arte's influence is also important, both stylistically and in terms of the talent pool.  Graduates of various Dell'Arte programs and participants in Dell'Arte productions can be found throughout North Coast theatre.  But the Dell'Arte School teaches a particular kind of theatre, and its students are international---they don't usually participate in local theatre while they are here, and they typically leave soon after.  Still, Dell'Arte in total is a rich resource, and the formal ties between Dell'Arte and HSU that are just beginning seem a positive for North Coast theatre in general.    

How this economic mess has played out hasn't been good to local theatre in a number of ways.  And adapting to change is a key to flourishing.  But my point here is that the importance of HSU to North Coast theatre can't realistically be overlooked.  Apart from what resentment there might be (or how justified), it's easy to take it for granted.   That might be a mistake.

  

This North Coast Weekend

This is the final night for [title of show] at Ferndale Rep.  Also the final weekend for The Miser at CR.

It's also a high school drama weekend, with the screwball comedy Twentieth Century at McKinleyville High and the comedy Little Shop of Horrors at Arcata High.

March Muse: Don't Bogart That Script

It’s been disturbingly like summer on the North Coast, though it’s actually only March. Meanwhile Dell’Arte is starting to prepare this summer’s Mad River Festival show, which is going to be...last summer’s Mad River Festival show. Only different. And the difference may be...you.

"Mary Jane: The Musical was the biggest grossing show in a single run we’ve ever done,” said Producing Artistic Director Michael Fields. “And some people still didn’t get to see it.”

 So that’s one impetus for reprising it this coming summer, as is an unusual circumstance for such a large cast. “Everybody who was in the show last year is available to come back,” Fields said. “Even our graduate students. It’s never happened before.”

 But there are a couple of other compelling reasons. First and foremost is the community’s deep interest in the topic, the Humboldt marijuana industry that was recently estimated as generating an astonishing one billion dollars for the county economy.

 The second reason is artistic. “Last summer we were just trying to get material on stage that allowed people to think about it,” Fields said. “Now we can develop it more, deepen it, especially the characters and relationships.”

 Dell’Arte’s artists can deepen the story, but they decided to seek help in broadening it. They’ve posted last year’s script online, and are asking anyone with an idea, a suggestion or even a song to email them. These contributions are posted at the end of the script, and taken into consideration as the revised show is being developed.

 The contributions received so far have included song lyrics and even music in Mp3 files and a CD. “We’re trying to make a bigger conversation with the community,” Fields said. “We really want people to write stuff down, so we can get a broader perspective.”

 For example, several contributions posted so far suggest portraying the trimmers. Someone noted that Mary Jane mentions her son, but he’s never seen. Why not more about him? Fields noted that when Joan Schirle (as Mary Jane) sang Joani Rose’s song “My Son” for the production’s visit to the Hempfest in Garberville in November, “people were weeping,” particularly in response to such lyrics as “He was by my side, the very first time I put a seed in the ground.” So this suggestion is likely to result in an addition to this summer’s version.

 Additions also mean there will be some subtractions. “We know we’re keeping the key songs,” Fields said, like Tim Randles’ “Why is Whiskey Legal and Pot is Not?” and Scott Menzies’ “The Industry.” And though there will be some topical updates to 2012, it will all still be set at the Emerald Ball. But what’s different will depend in part on what suggestions are received.

 “We’re also doing this show for three weeks instead of two,” Fields revealed. So to participate in creating this show, you can start at www.dellarte.com/maryjane, which will link you to the script and the suggestions posted so far. You can contribute directly by emailing info@dellarte.com.

 Coming Up:

Opening Thursday at 8: A performance by Rudi Galindo (Artistic Director of  Teatro Pachuco and Los Payasos favorite) and dancer-choreographer Lisa Da Boit called All Fall Down, described as a site specific event with no text, a love story about the Twin Towers interwoven with a legend of the man who takes care of the moon.  It's at Dell'Arte's Carlo Theatre, continuing through Saturday evening.  Tickets through Dell'Arte.

Beyond the weekend, there's a free reading by Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller of Independent Eye from their newly published memoir on Monday at 7 p.m. at the Arcata Playhouse.

Opening last weekend and continuing until March 26 is the tenth annual spring production at College of the Redwoods, a reprise of the first play in the series, Moliere’s comedy The Miser. It reunites the same creative team of Kjeld Lyth (director), Daniel Lawrence (scenic design) and Denise Ryles (hair & makeup.) It’s onstage at CR’s Forum Theater Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2. Tickets at CR Bookstore or at the door.

 Ferndale Repertory Theatre presents a limited run, North Coast premiere of the musical [title of show.] Yes, that’s the title of the show: it’s about two struggling young artists assembling a show for a musical theatre competition. Written by Jeff Bowen (music and lyrics) and Hunter Bell (book), it had a 100-performance Broadway run in 2008. The Ferndale production features Philip De Roulet, Craig Waldvogel, Elena Tessler, Jo Kuzelka and Laura Welch. It runs just two nights, but on successive weekends: this Friday (March 16), and next Friday (March 23) at 8 p.m. Rated PG-13. (800) 838-3006, www.ferndale-rep.org.

 This weekend Dell’Arte International’s first years present the results of their immersion in melodrama (in class at least) called Saved At Last From the Awful Flood of Life. Seven pieces seek to exemplify the struggle pitting loyalty, honor and justice against deceit, greed and intolerance—and the good guys win! There’s an opening night benefit for International Student Aid on Thursday at 8 p.m., with tickets at $25. Friday and Saturday shows are pay-what-you-can. (707) 668-5663 or www.dellarte.com.

 On Friday (March 16) the Arcata Playhouse starts its sixth annual Family Fun series with Japanese storyteller Kuniko Yamamoto in Magic Mask, Mime and Music of Japan at 7 p.m., with Saturday shows at 2 p.m. and 7. Future family-friendly shows in the series bring Faustwork Mask Theater in April and San Francisco’s Sweet Can Circus in May. Tickets can be purchased at Bubbles, Wildberries Marketplace and Redwood Yogurt in Arcata, or online through brownpapertickets.com. More information: (707) 826-1575, arcataplayhouse.org.

 For your long-range planning, North Coast Repertory Theatre opens Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing on March 29.

Stoppard's Start

[This is an expanded version of my North Coast Journal review of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead at the College of the Redwoods, where it completes its run this weekend, April 1-3.]

Celebrated for his erudition and wit, British playwright Tom Stoppard never went to college. Admired for his stagecraft, his only experience in theatre was as a newspaper drama critic. His “overnight success,” Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, took years before an Oxford student group did it in 1966. It nearly failed, until rescued by praise in a newspaper column. Audiences, tipped off that it’s a comedy, came and laughed. Then Kenneth Tynan (another drama critic) got Laurence Olivier and the National Theatre interested, and Stoppard has been a major playwright ever since.

Stoppard’s m.o. is as a clever wordsmith, but it’s not just the vocabulary or even the ideas—it’s the rhythms.  They make his plays appealing to actors (for the movie version of R&G, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth kept exuberantly running scenes even after they’d been filmed) and especially appealing to read.  That’s fortunate, because Stoppard’s plays aren’t often available to see.

Above left--the original National Theatre production.
Above right, the New York premiere program. John Wood
played Guildenstern in New York, and he would become
the lead that Stoppard preferred for subsequent plays.

But there were new dimensions suggested by seeing the current College of the Redwoods production of R&G. As on the page, it’s still an “elsewhere in Elsinore” story while Hamlet is center stage. It’s still Samuel Beckett meets Beyond the Fringe (or perhaps Firesign Theatre—Stoppard was writing its prototype while in a traveling fellowship program with Firesign’s Peter Bergman.)

But on the stage it’s also Laurel and Hardy as scripted by Oscar Wilde. There’s the same fabled existential situation of two lost souls swept along in an indifferent world. But it occurred to me that there’s also a class aspect: they are powerless middle class gentlemen caught in the struggles of royals.

Not that this is necessarily the CR version’s viewpoint—it’s just a product of seeing live actors perform it. The mesmerizing words reveal structure and metaphor. These two characters are so gripped in the logic of fate, of formal tragedy, that time itself is disappearing, like an episode of Doctor Who (already a BBC hit in the 60s when Stoppard started writing for that TV network, around the time that R&G was first produced.)

In particular, the correspondences and refractions with the Players who entertain at Elsinore are more robust on stage than on the page. Rosencrantz and Gilderstern find themselves as trapped in their roles at court as actors in a play—which of course, they also are. They speculate that they could have refused the summons from the King, and they ruminate on decisions they could make, but in the end they are exactly like the Players—they have some latitude in what they play, but they are fated to be players at the beck and call of their patrons.

Except for some edited (or dropped) speeches, some funny physical business and the larger crowd scene for the ending eliminated, CR honors us with the whole play.  The physical comedy written into the play but not played is a real loss, though.  Stoppard’s theatricality is not just verbal: his early plays are full of physical humor. Sometimes he employs variations on tried and true gags (there's even a pants falling down scene in R&G) but often the visual and physical jokes are outrageous and completely integrated into the plot.

He added even more to R&G in the movie version, which he directed, including a running gag of Rosencrantz offhandedly inventing all kinds of things, including the Big Mac.  (The movie DVD, by the way, is well worth obtaining, especially for the extensive interviews with Stoppard, Roth, Oldman and Richard Dreyfuss, whose performance as the Player is terrific.) 

At CR, Daniel Lawrence provides a simple set and Kjeld Lyth directs a straightforward production. Lexus Landry as Rosencrantz and Charlie Heinberg as Guildenstern are a physical contrast, and they use this for character as well as comedy. Landry, like Oliver Hardy (of Laurel and Hardy) is a big person who moves delicately, and that’s on view in his many tip-toe strides to see and report what’s happening elsewhere in Elsinore.

The two keep up with the relentless dialogue for the most part, and make its humor and rhythms sing at certain moments—even in the third act, remarkably, for this play takes stamina to perform.

The other key character is Dmitry Tokarsky as The Player, who provides crucial connections. Tokarsky is a seasoned actor, so he communicates what’s needed from this character, though he didn’t look entirely comfortable on that stage. Aaron Thiele as Hamlet and Jesse Chavez as Polonius make the best of their fewer moments. Other roles are played by Jonathan LaValley, Levi Goldin, Morgan Johnson, Raylene Henderson, George Thorpe, Laurene Thorpe and Amanda Wood. Many of the supporting players are CR students in their first post-high school shows. Denise Ryles and Rosemary Smith provide the theatrical costumes.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead completes its run this weekend, April 1-3 in the College of the Redwoods Forum Theater.

This North Coast Weekend

College of the Redwoods presents Tom Stoppard's first hit, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, about what's happening elsewhere in Elsinore during Hamlet, in the CR Forum Theater on March 24-26, March 31-April 2 at 8 pm, with Sunday matinees at 2 pm on March 27 and April 3. Info: 707-476-4558.

Stage Matters Special: Humboldt Staged Marathon

The Humboldt Tourism Bureau hosts a 24-hour marathon of theatre in its first annual Staged Humboldt extravaganza, beginning at midnight (right now!)Thursday at the Arcata Theatre.

Expanding the concept of David Ferney’s solo show, The Misunderstood Badger, Arcata Playhouse presents Roob, a new Ferney work about a hick professor in the Australian outback obsessed with kangaroos, performed entirely on a trampoline. Jackie Dandeneau adds an a cappella rendition of the Van Halen classic, “Jump.”

Dell’Arte contributes California Faust, a commedia version of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, starring Joan Schirle as Ahnold the Magician and Michael Fields as his tempter, Robus Arklius. The Tyler Olson-penned tunes include “If I Only Had a Soul.”

Former members of Shake the Bard and Shakespeare in the Park combine for two shows: a new version of Othello set in the 2001 Los Angeles Lakers locker room, called Shaqthello, and a time travel mash-up of authors too dead to sue in Antony and Cleopatra and Jane Austen, and Vampires, Dude.

The Bard is also represented in NCRT’s Macbeth, set among burl sculptors in Orick in the 1980s, with music by Devo, Cyndi Lauper and the Cars.

Dan Stone combines elements of plays by Beckett and Eugene O’Neill with Neil Simon and the Firesign Theatre in the Santuary Stage production of Waiting for the Iceman or Someone Like Him, starring Tinamarie Ivey as Tina Fey playing the Virgin Mary, and Bob Wells as Father Time. “It’s even more obscure than usual,” Stone promises.

Redwood Curtain presents the postmodern Small Cast Sex Melodrama by contemporary playwright Tabitha Overly-Werkshopt. Graduates of HSU’s dramatic writing program return to perform Sixteen Playwrights in Search of a Production.
The Very Precious Players of Northcoast Prep combine music from Threepenny Opera and Oklahoma in a socially conscious dinner theatre presentation, Oklahoodie. Director Jean Bazemore warns sensitive Arcatans not to be alarmed if they see Klingons in the parking lot—it’s all part of the show.

Ferndale Rep presents a stage version of Hitchcock’s Psycho. Director Jasper Anderton confirms that Kimberly Haile’s shower scene will be “realistic, taking place offstage in a real motel room shower, probably in Garberville.”

Humboldt Light Opera continues its tradition of adaptations from classic novels with lots of parts for women with the operatic version of The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, with Brad Curtis in the role of Troy Aiken. However, the College of the Redwoods rendition of Richard III, set on a contemporary community college campus in northern Ca---no, that's southern Oregon--has been suddenly cancelled.

And what would a Humboldt theatre marathon be without live radio drama? KHSU brings back its all-star cast in the first of a series of underwriter-specific radio dramas, The Wildberries Mysteries: The Case of the Mislabeled Organic Banana. One innovative feature announced by co-organizer Jeff DeMark: “Special glasses will be available for those in the audience who want to watch this radio show in 3-D.”

This column--minus a few web-only additions--appears in the current Arcata Eye.

This North Coast Weekend

Did you miss me? Don't answer that. But with the car and the computer both in the shop this week, it's been quiet hereabouts. Elsewhere however, there are shows up and running: Antigone at the College of the Redwoods Forum Theatre at 8 pm Friday and Saturday, with a 2 pm matinee on Sunday (photo above.)

Dell'Arte School's first years present their annual melodrama, titled On the Wings of A Dove, in the Carlo at 8 pm, Friday and Saturday. Arcata High School presents A Midsummer Night's Dream at 7:30 pm Friday and Saturday.

Random People Monologues: SoHum Tales happens on Sunday at 2 pm at the Mateel.

This North Coast Weekend

The first and second year students of Northcoast Prep present Cervantes’ comic classic, Don Quijote de la Mancha, adapted and directed by Gretha Omey, on Wednesday and Thursday, May 20 and 21, and Saturday and Sunday, May 23 and 24, in the Gist Hall Theatre at HSU at 7:30.

North Coast Repertory Theatre opens Mel Brooks musical comedy, The Producers on Thursday, May 21 at 8.

On Friday and Saturday (May 22-3) the Arcata Playhouse hosts a circus adaptation of Alice in Wonderland by the San Francisco Circus, at the kid-friendly time of 7 pm.

The Arcata Arts Institute will be performing Jean Paul Satre's one act play, No Exit, and monologues from the works of Christopher Durang on Thursday and Friday at 7:30 pm in the Arcata High School Multi-Purpose Room.

The second group of thesis plays by Dell'Arte School students is performed May 21-24, at 8 p.m. in the Carlo. As noted below, the HLO/CR production of the musical Little Women concludes Friday and Saturday at 7:30.

Little Women

I feel pretty good about my review of Little Women, produced by the Humboldt Light Opera and College of the Redwoods, so I'm reproducing it below. I'm not happy with all my reviews, for one reason or another, but this one is okay.

A couple of additions to the historical background: The humorous newspaper article by Louisa May Alcott I refer to, was in the form of a letter she submitted under the name Tribulation Periwinkle to the Springfield MA Republican. It's described and excerpted in the introduction to the new book, American Trancendentalism: A History by Philip Gura (Hill and Wang.) Referring to Concord, MA, she writes: "No gossip concerning this immortal town seems to be considered too trivial for the public." She writes of a new hotel for visitors to "this modern Mecca," eager to see Emerson (who "will walk by at 4 pm") or hear her father, Bronson Alcott, (who will "converse from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m.")

Later in this book, it's mentioned that Bronson Alcott's own book was an account of the education he provided for his daughters. Apparently Emerson was hard put to say anything in its favor.

As it happens, there's a review of several books about Margaret Fuller (mentioned below) in the May 24 issue of the New York Review of Books. Fuller was also educated by her father, and her achievements were substantial. She had read Virgil and Cicero by the age of ten, and Horace, Livy and Tacitus in her teens--all in the original Latin. This level of achievement was unusual, especially for a girl, but not entirely unknown among these New England families. Josiah Quincy, son of the president of Harvard, was reading Virgil by age six. Thomas Wentworth Higginson entered Harvard at 13.

In 1868, Louisa May Alcott created a classic American story that enthralled and inspired generations of (mostly) girls, by writing about aspects of her own life and family—and also by ignoring other aspects.

In Little Women, a mother and four sisters are isolated in a small New England town, dreaming their dreams despite an absent father and poverty that contrasts with the better off characters around them. Actually, Alcott’s family was fairly famous (though comparatively poor). Her father, Bronson Alcott, began and ran a well-known school, and was associated with the liberal thinkers known as Transcendentalists. He took particular pride in educating his daughters, and among Louisa May’s personal teachers were Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne. Their presence made Concord (and her own house) a magnet for reporters and tourists, which she herself noted in a satiric newspaper account.

She had strong and accomplished women models as well, including her own mother, an activist for womens’ voting rights and abolition of slavery. Perhaps the most brilliant and independent women of the era, Margaret Fuller, taught for awhile at her father’s school.

But when the publisher of her romance novels (much like Jo’s in Little Women) requested something in another genre—an uplifting book for girls—Louisa May Alcott concentrated a story that transcended its time and place, and elevated creativity from Puritan disrepute to a natural element in moral development. In some of the many stage, screen, etc. versions since, bits of her background were added back. A little got into the 2005 Broadway musical version, currently performed by the Humboldt Light Opera at the College of the Redwoods.

Even more than the novel, the musical emphasizes the quest of second-oldest daughter Jo March to become a writer. Some of her swashbuckling fantasies are acted out on stage (with spirited performances, particularly by Coral Bourne), but her success comes from writing the home truths, and by her devotion to others. Essie Bertain as Jo capably unites the show, maturing before our eyes from the petulant bravado of adolescence to a centered young woman.

The script dramatizes the novel’s most cherished moments, but with so many characters, the other players must make the best use of their brief time on stage. Shaelan Salas is sweet and then steady as the eldest daughter, Meg. As Amy (the youngest), Rachael Fales breaks through with her energy and commitment. Jessica Malone is so perfectly pretty and angelic as Beth, that even if you didn’t know the story and only the conventions of melodrama, you’d be sure she’s doomed. But she’s affecting anyway, with an especially attractive voice. Her duets with Bill Ryder (as the wealthy Mr. Lawrence) and especially her second act duet with Bertain felt to me like the show’s most emotionally effective moments. The final Bertain-Sharkey duet was another high point.

Tyler Rich (Laurie), Tandy Floyd (Marmee), Valerie Bourne (Aunt March) and especially Kevin Sharkey as Professor Bhaer played their important supporting roles well. Since this is an HLO production, directed by Carol McWhorter Ryder, with musical direction (and piano accompaniment) by Sharon Welton, the singing is superior.

Some of the songs are charming, some are Broadway- bombastic, and with so many characters and so much to do (and sing about), plus frequent clamorous scene changes (though the crew was very efficient), the play feels choppy, without dramatic momentum. The costumes, designed by Kevin Sharkey, are dazzling, though I’m not sure how well they support the impression of poverty.

With comic moments in the mix, Little Women is reasonably entertaining for those not already devoted to the story. I can’t speak for devotees—mostly what I recall from watching the 1949 movie on TV with my sisters was getting a little buzz from June Allyson. But maybe all that devotees need to know is that the characters are more contemporary interpretations but still the same March girls, and their favorite scenes are given life, ready to evoke memories and tantalize another generation.

Little Women concludes its run this Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 in the CR Forum Theatre.

This North Coast Weekend

Humboldt Light Opera and College of the Redwoods presents the musical version of Louisa May Alcott's classic story, Little Women, Fridays and Saturdays through May 23, starting at 7:30, with a 2 p.m. matinee this Sunday (the 17th), in the CR Forum Theatre. My review in the NC Journal is here. Photo: Essie Bertain as Jo and Jessica Malone as Beth.

The Dell'Arte School students who created the Glasnost Family show last Christmas present original short plays as their individual thesis projects. The first set is this weekend, Thursday through Saturday and the second May 21-24, at 8 p.m. in the Carlo.

Jeff DeMark performs a selection of his stories together with music by UKExperience at the Westhaven Center for the Arts on Saturday night.

At the Arcata Playhouse, this is the final weekend for Third Base, a comic presentation by Nick Trotter and Jerry Lee Wallace Thursday May 14 through Sunday at 8.

This North Coast Weekend

Jeff DeMark does his 200th North Coast solo performance Friday night (May 8) at Muddy's Hot Cup in Arcata. He's presenting his Writing My Way Out of Adolescence for the first time in two years--and the Great Recession price is right: just $3.89.

The Humboldt Light Opera and College of the Redwoods opens the musical version of the classic Little Women on Friday (through May 23) at 8 in the CR Forum Theatre.

Third Base, the Jerry Lee Wallace and Nick Trotter clown show, is at the Arcata Playhouse Thursday through Sunday at 8, and again next weekend.

The HSU Ten Minute Play Festival concludes this weekend, Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 in the Gist Hall Theatre.

The Misunderstood Badger

The mascot of the University of Wisconsin’s Big Ten football team is (like the state of Wisconsin’s) the badger. There’s a costumed Bucky Badger on the sideline, and thousands of screaming fans identifying themselves as badgers. But Professor Harold Burroughs of that university takes this badger thing even further.

 As portrayed by David Ferney in this solo show The Misunderstood Badger currently at the Arcata Playhouse, the fictional professor is obsessed by this “noble but misunderstood” animal, and begins to identify with it.

 We see the professor act out scenes in the wild (some in photo projections), recount the childhood origins of his fixation and a dream encounter with a giant badger who has a taste for Scotch and cigars. We hear portions of his badger research lectures, delivered in a faintly Southern, faintly 1930’s accent that reminded me at times of actor Charles Ruggles, the fussy big game hunter in the Cary Grant-Katherine Hepburn comedy, Bringing Up Baby.

 But in this piece the humor flashes with surreal discovery, and hints of dread. Burroughs digs out some badger lore, like early American badger-baiting (sending dogs to harass badgers for entertainment), from which comes the verb “to badger,” describing human behavior towards the animal, not the other way around. Human-badger transference is a theme played in various ways, including Burrough’s elaborate attempt to learn one badger’s true name.

 David Ferney’s wrote this solo show with fellow Four on the Floor member Nick Trotter. Trotter also contributes slide guitar interludes, Greg Lojko handles sound and lights, and Bruce Marrs did the painting and construction of the evocative badger hat-mask, which Ferney deploys with comic magic.

 In its first official performance of what I presume is still a work in progress, Ferney brought his considerable physical and vocal skills to this character. I experienced the show as entertaining but uncertain. I was intrigued, but never sure where it wanted to go. For example, the program quotes from Jack London’s Call of the Wild, and it’s clear enough that Burroughs feels that call. If this show’s intent was only to portray a befuddled professor gripped by badgermania, then it could be clearer.

 Tone determines our attitude. The mad scholar is a comic type that must go back before the Romans, and was in the repertoire of vaudeville-trained comedians, so it’s familiar from movies. Even though this piece seemed to at least nod in that direction (as with the professor’s name of Burroughs, you know, the badger burrows…you dig?) Ferney wasn’t broad or frenetic enough to push this into madcap sketch territory.

 Instead, his more deliberate pace suggested the intent to offer a dimensional character, and certainly the professor’s clueless projection and identification with the badger had autobiographical back story, as well as those surreal but also obvious dreams. But that went only so far. For example, apart from his clichéd professor appearance, we don’t learn much about any contrast between his wild yearnings and any academic and civilized life. And why of all animals the badger? Is it accidental, so essentially his obsession could be any geeky frenzy?

 There’s a mother lode of connections between the badger as a digger and the scholar who digs for facts, (Wisconsin is reputedly the Badger State not because of the animal, but because of its miners who dig like badgers) but while this possibility is mimed, it seems otherwise unmined.

Digging into the unconscious is another theme that seemed partially realized. There were hints of a mythic realm, of Native American stories in which animals and humans transform into each other, but this also came and went. Maybe the intent was to remain ambiguous in that ol’ postmodern portmanteau way. In any case, it’s got a lot of absorbing and entertaining moments. I guess we can identify with an awkward guy possessed of a helpless obsession and no self-awareness. But I left wanting more meat on this badger’s bones. The Misunderstood Badger continues at the Arcata Playhouse this Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 7.

 Coming Up:  There’s a new Great Recession pricing policy for all the Dell’Arte School shows in May: pay what you will. You can still make reservations, then name your admission price when you arrive. That goes for the Clown show this weekend (Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Carlo) and also the Thesis Festival and the Finals on the remaining May weekends.

 The annual HSU Ten Minute Play Festival begins Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in the Gist Hall Theatre, playing this weekend and next, Thursdays through Saturdays.

 Next weekend, Humboldt Light Opera and College of the Redwoods open a musical version of Little Women, beginning Friday, May 8 in the CR Forum Theatre at 7:30.

Opening Thursday for this weekend only at the Arcata Playhouse, Crawdaddy’s Odditorium, a new and reconceived production of the show seen here as an ongoing experiment last spring, co-produced by Four on the Floor Productions, CAOS and Dell'Arte. A big opening night Thursday at 8, and performances on Friday and Saturday. Reservations are recommended: 822-1575.

Dell'Arte is combining a fundraiser with Humboldt's own Inaugural Ball on Inauguration Night (next Tuesday). Food, drink, foolery and a reprise of President (yes!) Obama's Inaugural Address on big screen TV. For tickets and information call 668-5663 ext. 5.

Auditions for Ferndale Repertory Theatre’s production of The Secret Garden: Director, Ginger Gene, Music Director, Dianne Zuleger, Choreographer, Linda Maxwell. All auditions will be held at the Carson Block Building, 341 “F” Street, Eureka. Be prepared to sing a song that best represents your voice. Piano accompanist will be provided. Casting roles: Mary Lennox a 10-year old girl (casting 10-14, maybe?) Strong singer needed. Colin Craven - Archie’s 10-year-old son.(10-14) Thin and bedridden. Treble, high voice needed. Ensemble/Chorus roles, some with lines. Children (10 – 18 years of age) Audition Times:Jan 17th at 2:00pm – Open Auditions;Jan 18th at 2:00pm – Call Backs. For more information please visit http://www.ferndale-rep.org/.

The CR Drama Production Class will have auditions for the Spring 2009 presentation of Moliere’s classic comedy “The Misanthrope” from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., Wednesday, January 21, and Thursday, January 22 in the CR Forum Theatre (FM 103). Now in its 6th season, the critically acclaimed Drama Production class offers 2 units of credit for all participants, but acting roles are offered only by audition. For further information, contact the Director, Kjeld Lyth at (707) 441-1592.

Sanctuary Stage announces that it will host a V-Day benefit production of the Vagina Monologues "to raise money and awareness for local organizations that work to stop violence against women and girls. We will be donating all profits from our event to our own local organizations - North Coast Rape Crisis Center, W.I.S.H., and the Wiyot Domestic Violence Program "Vachurr Wimouthwilh".

The Year Not in Reviews: Exploring the Ecology of North Coast Theatre

[An extended version of my Journal column last week, without the part I already cannibalized for the previous post...]

By way of a year-end summing up, this column is about what doesn’t normally get into reviews.

The plays we see may have several purposes. Many—including productions by Humboldt State, CR, Dell’Arte International School, local high schools and organizations like the Laurel Tree Learning Center—are part of the participants’ education. Community theatres like North Coast Rep and Ferndale Rep provide talented community members opportunities to participate in making as well as seeing theatre. Both provide opportunities that participants wouldn't otherwise have to strut their stuff, and since there are many more talented people than ever get to work in theatre as a career, audiences benefit as well.

I seldom mention this in reviews, because what these and other theatres have in common is that they charge audiences money to see them, and I review their shows from that standpoint. But I do take their other missions into account, and I expect audiences do, too.

Something else I don’t mention in reviews but which productions have in common is the achievement: of a group of people preparing and then presenting a play from beginning to end for two or three hours, and then doing it again, over and over. This is an accomplishment by any definition. It’s also one of the great benefits to participants: to commit their energies from the beginning of the process, weeks or months before opening, to the end of it. For some, simply sticking with it from first to last actually changes their lives. When audiences applaud, it seems to me it’s partly for the accomplishment, regardless of the outcome.

We don’t have professional theatre hereabouts in the same sense as in San Francisco or Ashland, but audiences here benefit from our particular theatrical ecosystem in ways they might not realize. For example, both educational and community theatres emphasize participation, which often means large casts. Elsewhere there is tremendous financial pressure on commercial theatres to do nothing but small cast shows.

But we have these community and school theatres doing large cast shows, together with the small cast or one-person shows produced or imported by the Arcata Playhouse, Sanctuary Stage and Redwood Curtain (for instance), as well as Jeff DeMark’s unique solo work. So we have a pretty rich variety.

Another way our North Coast theatrical ecology is unusual is the predominance of a theatrical style that is relatively obscure in most other places: commedia dell’arte. This is due mostly of course to the Dell’Arte theatre and school, and those associated with Dell’Arte who remain or return here to form other theatrical enterprises. Jacky Dandeneau and David Ferney, impresarios of the Arcata Playhouse, are good examples. But there’s also Dan Stone, co-founder of Sanctuary Stage, who has brought commedia from entirely different sources.

The commedia emphasis on improvisational satires, often on standard themes, with acrobatics and clowning, may be a pronounced local characteristic, but a healthy theatrical ecosystem requires other approaches, too.

So other theatres here (including the companies that wax and wane) bring the balance of classic and newer plays; musicals (including the sterling work of the Humboldt Light Opera), drama and other kinds of comedy. We have theatre for (and by) children, for (and by) adolescents, and for (and by) elders. We need them all, and as fortunate as we are to have this much theatre, there are gaps in the ecosystem, too. Other things being equal (which they never are), we could use more.

Because of my very part-time job doing press for HSU plays, I don’t write about those productions in my part-time piecework columns here. But I’m dismayed that HSU productions aren’t covered much elsewhere in the Journal either. There was more copy in one recent issue about Dell’Arte (including in my column) than there has been cumulatively concerning HSU theatre for the past couple of years, at least. So in this context let me speak up for the role of HSU theatre in the local ecosystem, particularly when the university is taking a hard look at its priorities, and from time to time there have been rumors of threats to HSU theatre’s existence.

Besides benefiting the university as a much-needed public interface with the community, HSU theatre brings particular strengths and important contributions in the kinds of plays it does and how it does them. Its recent commitment to doing new plays, often by North Coast playwrights, is pretty much unique here right now. In general, HSU provides training and people essential to North Coast stages, with participation both by students who enliven local theatre while here, and by faculty and former students who remain active in the community. Just how much theatre would survive here without HSU is a real question.

Lastly, this fall was unusual for offering three productions of Shakespeare. That this theatrical community was able to mount two large cast productions pretty much simultaneously (The Merry Wives of Windsor at NCRT and The Winter’s Tale at HSU), while overlapping with the large cast of Noises Off at Ferndale Rep, is astonishing. That's one indication that there's a lot of interest in theatre here, with lots of participants and audiences.

This North Coast Weekend

The musical Hair continues this weekend at Ferndale Rep, and La Bete in the Forum Theatre at the College of the Redwoods. My preview of them in the Journal is here. Betti Trauth reviews Hair and La Bete in the T-S.

Concluding its two week run at the Arcata Playhouse is the experimental CRAWDADDY: A Freak Tragedy. My Journal review is here, and Barry Blake reviews it in the T-S. I guess what I'd add to my review is that some of it is strange to the point of being surreal. The bit I liked best was the story of the puppet's father who, as a cartoon character, tested the ringers in ringer washing machines by being rung through them until he was flat as a pancake. Anyway, I assume that bit is still in the show! I wonder if they kept the castrati wolf man--I'll bet there were questions about that in the talkbacks. It concludes this run Thursday through Saturday at 8 PM.

And since I'm linking to my own stuff, here's one to my Journal review of the Canadian TV series "Slings and Arrows," which I've also written about here. Oddly, Michael Fields of Dell'Arte mentioned he was watching it (he's on season 2) and asked me if I knew of it-- before he'd seen my review in the Journal published that very day.

In that column about Hair and La Bete (with a tiny mention of Helen) I also repeated my rationale for objecting to the "trailer trash" term that first appeared here. (Specifically, here.) I've had very good response to it, notably from parents (including theatre artists) and a teacher.