Cinderella at Humboldt Light Opera

Cinderella is one of the world’s most popular stories, and among the oldest. It’s probably also the only one in which the climactic moment is somebody trying on a shoe.

 There are hundreds of versions from all over Asia as well as Europe (the idea that Cinderella’s beauty is proven by her small feet likely comes from China.) It’s the paradigm of the rags-to-riches tale (the “Cinderella story”), yet these variations include themes of abandonment, incest and matricide that show up in more tragic works from King Lear to Sweeney Todd.

 The best known version is the mildest: the 17th century telling by Charles Perrault, which is the one that Walt Disney adapted for his 1950 film, still the standard for several generations. Until Disney, however, the 19th century Brothers Grimm version was a close rival to Perrault’s. And it certainly is grimmer, with the stepsisters cutting off toes and heels to fit into the (non-glass) slipper, and getting blinded by birds at the end. But fairy tale experts prefer it: it has more of a fairy tale rhythm (everything happens three times), it is more complex (the stepsisters are beautiful outwardly and only ugly inside.) Cinderella is much more pro-active and she’s helped not by a fairy godmother but by nature spirits-- birds who are inspired by her devotions at her mother’s grave.

 Cinderella is also less passive in the musical version now on the Van Duzer Theatre stage at HSU, performed by the Humboldt Light Opera Company. It’s still basically the Perrault tale though, with variations that don’t alter the familiar central story.

Prince Christopher (played by James Gadd) is an uncomfortable royal, happy to be an anonymous guy at the village market, where he literally bumps into Cinderella (Katri Pitts). When the royal factotum Lionel (Larry Pitts) commands that all eligible young women attend the Prince’s ball, the intention to find him a bride embarrasses the Prince.

 But his understanding parents, the Queen (Katherine Kinley) and King (Bill Ryder,) urge him to see what happens, since his father (who also likes to hang out with the 99%) advises him that finding his one true love is mostly a matter of “dumb luck.”

 Back at home, Cinderella is bossed around by her stepmother (Tracey Barnes-Priestly) and her three stepsisters (Molly Severdia, Brandy Rose and Lily Buschmann), while imagining a better life. When she hears about the ball, she goes into action. The rest of the story you pretty much know.

The additional wrinkle is not one but three fairy godpersons: Fiona Ryder, Ellsworth Pence, and 5 year old Aurora Pitts, whose angelic presence and fully absorbed acting reminds us that children love to act out this story in play, perhaps because (as psychologist Bruno Bettleheim suggests) it reveals to them the possibilities of transformation and rescue.

 This is a big, colorful production, with a sumptuous set by Jayson Mohatt and dazzling costumes by Kevin Sharkey. Director Carol Ryder and choreographer Ciara Cheli-Colando orchestrate the graceful crowd scenes and other movement. Ryder positions the singers well and makes the most of the key moments: Cinderella entering the ball, and of course, the slipper revelation.  Makeup by Hannah Jones and Jayne Bauer especially transform the stepsisters.

 James Gadd is convincingly diffident, sincere and then ardent as the Prince, Katri Pitts is a vibrant Cinderella. Larry Pitts adds acerbic comedy as Lionel, and the three stepsisters each have a particular clownish talent. Tracey Barnes-Priestly plays the stepmother as more worried with ambition than evil, and Bill Ryder is a star even in a small role.

 The fine individual singing aside, for me the ensemble singing (Katrina Haeger and Molly Severida are musical directors) and the orchestra (conducted by Justin Sousa) provided the most musical emotion.

 At just under two hours, it’s not too much of a stretch for the natural audience of children, especially little girls (who can get a Cinderella makeover before the show-- by appointment only.)

 But there are levels of humor to keep adults involved, and spectacle for all. This musical Cinderella, with songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, began as a 90-minute television special in 1957 starring Julie Andrews. For later stage and TV versions, songs dropped from Oklahoma and South Pacific were added, along with a song from the Richard Rodgers show No Strings and from a movie, Main Street to Broadway, in which Rodgers and Hammerstein themselves perform “There’s Music In You,” the song that ends this version of Cinderella.

 The songs generally aren’t considered to be among the composers’ best (and the Disney songs are more memorable) but they’re pleasant and occasionally witty. The story HLOC tells also seems to be a hybrid of these various musical versions. The HLOC production of Cinderella runs two more weekends on Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 and Sundays at 2 p.m., closing August 18.

Is Texas Funny? The Red Velvet Cake War

The Red Velvet Cake War is the summer comic confection now on stage at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka. The Verdeen girls--Gaynelle (played by Jacqui Cain), Peaches (Denise Ryles) and Jimmie Wyvette (Gloria Montgomery)—live in the small Texas town of Sweetgum. They chafe under the domination of the family matriarch, Aunt La Merle (Toodie SueAnn Boll) whose basic attitude is “you can agree with me, or be wrong.” Family trouble, man trouble and cake trouble ensue.

 If that sounds funny to you, it is. If it doesn’t, well, it’s still pretty funny. To be sure, these are more akin to joke-transmitting caricatures than characters. They are so deeply cliched that we know Elsa Dowdall (played with panache by Janet Waddell) is a psychologist because she speaks in a German/European accent, which in the real world hasn’t been new or particularly likely for decades. And of course she’s repressed.

 But the actors bring individual touches to these stereotypes and animate them. Gloria Montgomery is particularly deft at physically embodying the tomboy cowgirl, Jimmie Wyvette. She might be the one character you want to know more about.

Arnold Waddell as the elder Verdeen delivers several of the funniest lines with a curmudgeon’s delight, and Matt Cole as the would-be hero is outstanding in a role you can pretty much see the young Tim Robbins playing. Not that the televised familiarity of these characters matters much. Because what they do—and particularly what the say—is funny.

The Red Velvet Cake War was written by the team of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope (past winner of the Texas New Playwright Award) and Jamie Wooten. Not surprisingly, they’ve all written comedy for television, including for the classic Golden Girls and shows on every cable channel from USA to Fox. As a team they specialize in stage comedies about the South, especially Texas, tailored for community theatres. According to their website, this play has been widely produced, from Plant City, Florida and Brick, New Jersey to Baraboo, Wisconsin and Blind Bay, British Columbia. It’s even spawned a sequel, Rex’s Exes.

 The dramaturgy of this play is paint-by-numbers but the playwrights know their (all white) milieu, and are admirably adept at creating humorous language without being exploitive or insulting. While the wit is even subtle at times (including some of the copious vulgarity), the physical humor is time-tested farce and slapstick.

 The plot however is an increasingly incredible and wearying mashup of reality show colliding with sitcom. The verbal humor is especially sharp and frequent in the first act, before the mayhem punctuated by exposition takes over in the second act. Catastrophes mount unbelievably and with very little at stake, and it starts to feel like you’re clicking through cable TV hell--with the comfy sitcom resolution, of course.

 So in the end there’s little to say about this show except that it’s wildly funny at times and it’s basically good-hearted fun while it’s happening.  Afterwards you might feel a little sick about indulging, like eating way too much cake.

 Director Gene Cole has apparently taken care to make sure the cast members exploit the particular music of this Texas accent while still making themselves understood. Again, this is particularly impressive in the first act, before the decibel level gets wearing. He also keeps the physical comedy pot boiling.

 The universally funny cast includes Shannan Dailey, Laurence Thorpe and David Simms. Calder Johnson designed the set and lighting, Jenneveve Hood the costumes, Michael Thomas the sound. The between-scenes music—bright Texas tunes that sound like they’re synthesized for a video game-- is especially twisted. The Red Velvet Cake War continues at North Coast Rep Fridays and Saturdays evenings through August 18, with Sunday matinees on August 5 and 12.

Two 1930s Musical Portraits: Cabaret and Woody Guthrie's American Song

Fledging American small town writer Cliff Bradshaw (played by Charlie Heinberg) comes to Berlin in 1929, and falls into a relationship with British singer Sally Bowles (Elena Tessler).  He sees her in the infamous cabaret, the Kit Kat Club, where the androgynous Emcee (Kelsey MacIlvaine) presides over a carnival of decadence.

 Meanwhile, Bradshaw’s landlady (played by Rae Robison) is courted by an equally late middle-aged fruit grocer (JM Wilkerson.) Their relationships with each other and several other characters are the principal focus of the first act of the musical Cabaret, as produced at Ferndale Repertory Theatre.

 But the realities of a country moving towards Nazi rule intrude in the much shorter Act II. Elena Tessler’s vitality, her strong and supple voice, are again evident, though the role of Sally Bowles is less prominent on stage than in the Liza Minnelli movie. MacIlvaine is energetic and magnetic, Heinberg is winsome, Robison and Wilkerson are charming and convincing. Among the capable supporting cast, Caitlin McMurtry is again incandescent. The band is especially important and especially good.

 Additional cast members are Jeremy Webb, Jessie Shieman, Linnea Hill, Julia Giardino, Zoey Berman, Dante Gelormino, Qaiel Peltier, Jeffrey Ray Kieser and Jaison Chand. The orchestra is Dianne Zuleger, Justin Ross, Tamaras Abrams, Stephanie Douglass, Michael Lewis, Gina Piazza, Amber Grimes, Monica Dekat and John Petricca.

 Director Ginger Gene, musical director Dianne Zuleger and choreographer Linda Maxwell have constructed a fluid production, while lighting by Liz Uhazy and costumes by Erica Fromdahl match the moods.

The songs are by the team of Fred Ebb and John Kander, who later wrote the songs for Chicago. The sexuality it portrayed was still scandalous when Cabaret became a Broadway sensation in 1966, and there were many who remembered the actual 1930s (in fact, the original cast included Lotte Lenya, famous for singing in Brecht and Kurt Weil productions in Berlin at the time this musical is set.)

 The original production (and the 1972 film) emphasized the grotesque elements of this Berlin with theatrical techniques new to Broadway. But today in Humboldt County, nothing much of the show’s sexuality is unfamiliar, let alone shocking. The textures of those times and that place—even as then known through media filters—are mostly remote, replaced by a few symbols and images. So this show could now be considered a cautionary tale about the peril of ignoring political dangers. Or it could be seen as sentimentalizing a complexly horrible time, while approximating a style that has lost its edge. Or you can see it as both, which is pretty much my view.

 Cabaret resumes its run at Ferndale Rep Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. July 27-28, and again on August 10-11 and 24-25, with Sunday matinees on July 29, August 12 and 26.

 In roughly the same period as Cabaret takes place, the Great Depression was taking hold in the U.S. just as an ecological disaster called the Dust Bowl was driving away thousands of already poor farmers from Oklahoma and other states, principally to California. An itinerant self-taught musician named Woody Guthrie joined their journey and wrote songs about the experience. Five of those songs, collected on Guthrie’s first commercial album, are among the 19 featured in Woody Guthrie’s American Song, the show that alternates with Cabaret on weekends this summer at Ferndale Rep.

 Woody Guthrie collected folk melodies and chronicled the 1930s and 40s, from California (as his song says) to the New York island. Some of his songs (like “This Land is Your Land”) are so ubiquitous that many listeners today probably don’t know he is their author.

Those old enough to remember the folk revival of the 60s (and the smaller 90s revival) are likely to recall songs like “Bound for Glory,” “Pastures of Plenty” and “Hard Travelin’” as done by Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary, the Kingston Trio, Pete Seeger or by Woody’s son, Arlo Guthrie, or more recently by Bruce Springsteen.

 Guthrie’s songs do reflect America but not in a generic way, and their relevance recurs in our time. Just as Cabaret may remind us that beyond the repugnant noise of politics truly dangerous forces may be on the march, Guthrie’s lyrics reveal the human costs incurred by the rich exploiting the rest, masked by the smiley face of fake patriotism.  That songs like “Union Maid” and “Deportee” (both in this show) are again topical in 2012 should be the real shock.

 Members of the ensemble performing these songs at Ferndale Rep are Devin Galdieri, Jo Kuzelka, Steve Nobles, Dianne Zuleger, Jeremy Webb, KJ Jusefczyk and Roger Vernon. Pete Zuleger, Val Leone and Larry Hudspeth are the accompanying band. Woody Guthrie’s American Song is directed by Dianne Zuleger, with lighting design and technical direction by Liz Uhazy. It plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. on July 20-21, August 3-4 and 17-18, with Sunday matinees on July 22, August 5 and 19.

This North Coast Weekend

Parents who enjoy an outdoor show with the family at the Mad River Festival but had doubts about explaining Mary Jane: The Musical to their children can confidently bring the kids to Dell Arte’s The Fish in My Head this coming weekend, July 12-14 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday July 15 at 4 p.m. in the amphitheatre out back. It’s a self-created, circus-style fantasy about “the untold stories that swim around in our dreams,” complete with music, acrobatics, physical comedy, masks and stilt-walking. There are special family-friendly admission prices, too.

The Berserker Residents, an ensemble from Philadelphia, will perform their “burlesque cabaret meets three-ring circus” production of The Jersey Devil at the Arcata Playhouse on Friday and Saturday, July 13th and 14th, at 8 p.m. There’s an opening act at 7:30, too: San Francisco clown Summer Shapiro.

Speaking of cabaret, Ferndale Repertory Theatre opens the famed musical Cabaret on Friday (July 13) at 8 p.m. Though this show set in 1930s Berlin has been revived and revised several times since its 1966 Broadway debut, many probably still know it from the 1972 film version with Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey. However, the stage play is different from the film to an even greater degree than usual.
This production is directed by Ginger Gene and stars Elena Tessler and Kelsey MacIlvaine.  It will run weekends in rotating repertory with Woody Guthrie's American Song.


Meanwhile, the contemporary comedy Show People continues at Redwood Curtain.  My review is in this week's NC Journal.


On Saturday (July 14), North Coast Repertory Theatre holds a fundraiser at the Wharfinger Building in Eureka. It’s the 2012 Pirate Ball, with music by the Delta Nationals and performance by the Ya Habibi Dance Company, among other swashbuckling features. Doors open at 7 p.m.

On Sunday, Jacqueline Dandenau hosts a social get-together for any women with stories about women in local history, in anticipation of a fall production called Women of the Pacific Northwest, which will open at the Arcata Playhouse and tour regionally.  The idea is to swap stories, particularly from "elder womenfolk as well as daughters and granddaughters with family stories from the 1940s and before."  Over snacks, of course.  It's happening at the Arcata Veteran's Hall from 1-4 p.m. (If you've got stories but can't make it this time, a separate time can be arranged.)   Contact Jackie at northwestwomen12@gmail.com or at the Playhouse at 822-1575 for more information.

Show People: Game-Playing Comedy

 In Show People, the contemporary comedy now on stage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka, the middle aged acting couple of Marnie and Jerry (played by Bonnie Halverson and Ron Halverson) begin their latest performance. But it’s not on stage, where they haven’t worked in a decade: it’s at a posh vacation home with an ocean view.

 All they know about Tom, their employer (Nathan Emmons), is that he’s a software entrepreneur currently negotiating a huge buyout by Microsoft. They’re supposed to play his parents, for the benefit of his soon-to-be fiancé, Natalie (Nanette Voss-Herlihy.)

 Any ethical questions are bypassed for the work of improvising convincing characters, as well as to the sorely needed payday. From here the plot moves quickly but in directions that it would be unfair to divulge, in deference to potential audiences. A first act revelation only complicates the possibilities, leading to a buzz of intermission wonderment. Though the second act wanders a bit, it does resolve neatly.

 Apart from clever plot twists and turns, the thinness of the play is counteracted by the characterizations and performances, with room to grow. Bonnie and Ron Halverson play the realities rather than the stereotypes of professional actors. Nanette Voss-Herlihy plays Natalie’s earnestness and vulnerability.

 But none of it would work without yet another superior performance by Nathan Emmons, who again proves he can be subtle as well as powerful. In the course of the play, we learn of Jerry and Marnie’s dappled careers as a Broadway couple who never quite achieved stardom, including an opening night Jerry believes could have taken them to the next level, but it was ruined by a backstage mishap. That night will return to haunt him one more time.

 We learn of the strong crosscurrents of their marriage, as well as Natalie’s youthful ambitions and doubts, and as the play strays into Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? territory, shards of Tom’s family background are sent flying. But the play pulls back from any real engagement, leaving us to ponder the subtext of powerful yearnings for the conventionally perfect family and perfect life.

 Though not at the level of the theatrical in-jokes of Shakespeare in Love (for instance), there is some sardonic commentary on theatrical history and contemporary practice. There is also a version of a famous Hamlet soliloquy that is a slightly exaggerated version of an all too familiar approach.

 The credibility of the plot depends on the seductive mystique of the garage-to-riches techie billionaires, and their potential position as the wealthy eccentrics of the age, especially as combined with the quiet desperation of financially as well as emotionally vulnerable actors, dependent on capricious outside forces for their sustenance and their opportunities to perform.

 The result is a mostly clever though convention-riddled diversion, conveniently packaged in a nice two hours. It would be nothing more than this except for the humanity that these actors bring to roles that reviews suggest have been interpreted much differently elsewhere.

 Playwright Paul Weitz first attracted attention as a screenwriter and director, beginning with American Pie in 1999. He followed up his successful romantic comedy film In Good Company (2004) with three stage plays, including this one in 2006. He continues to work in film, directing Little Fockers in 2010.

 Show People is very capably directed by Clint Rebik, with an attractive and functional set by Liz Uhazy, lighting by Greta Stockwell, sound by Jon Turney and costumes by Sarah McKinney. It continues at Redwood Curtain Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. through July 28, with a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee on July 22.

Mary Jane: The Next Generation (A Review)

A Sharper Focus for Dell’Arte’s Musical Extravaganja

Last summer’s Mary Jane: The Musical was a box office success that many more people wanted to see than could, so bringing it back this summer made sense—especially with recessionary blues still playing in the background. It was also an opportunity to shape a sharper evening, as well as add some new songs and more dancing. So Mary Jane, Queen of the Emerald Ball returns with most of the original cast in a show about the business and culture of cannabis in Humboldt. Mary Jane: The Musical 2012 is now onstage in the outdoor Rooney Amphitheatre at Dell’Arte in Blue Lake.

They’re back: the Humboldt Honeys, the Bollywood finale with Pratik Motwani, Tim Randles’ “Why Is Whiskey Legal and Pot Is Not” and an even sweeter, breathtaking duet by Joan Schirle and David Powell on Lila Nelson’s “Grow Inside.” There are elaborate, acrobatic new dance routines choreographed by Laura Munoz. Joan Schirle (as Mary Jane) is again a better world’s bona fide Broadway star.

But for all the energy and exuberance, the content tips towards a darker assessment. Dell’Arte’s call to the public to contribute ideas for this year’s edition resulted most specifically in a new song, “The Trimmers’ Flamenco” by Tim Randles, about the women employed to trim the outer leaves from the cannabis buds. Other comments, especially relating to Mary Jane’s song about her son, led to major new themes: the effects on children as well as legacies and responsibilities for the future.

There’s not much nostalgia this time. It was pretty much over in the pre-show song set, with Powell’s powerful singing of the John Lennon wordless vocal center of “A Day in the Life,” and its innocent ecstasy and wistful wonder as well as the pain of awe and longing, those foregone possibilities.

Mary Jane replaces reminiscence with reevaluation. While last summer she called the local situation “complicated,” she describes the year since as “one big eco disaster all around. I mean, like the price has hit the floor, the feds are pouring in, the clinics are getting squeezed...” Soon it’s all reminding her of the Gold Rush: “Folks discover something valuable that is just laying around on the ground, everybody rushes in, takes what they can, leaves a wreck behind...”  Last year she introduced old friends who bantered about their common past. This year those friends are moving on and away.

What they leave behind is the devil or the deep blue sea—the black market greed of “The Industry” or the legalized corporate greed of “This Bud’s For You” and the corporations’ intent to “corner the market/legalization’s opened up.” (both songs by Scott Menzies.) “Rasta Tea Party” by Zuzka Sabata opts for the current situation:“We need to keep the black market free/ No need to live in debt slavery.” Either way, it’s the rule of “Green Like Money” ( also by Zuzka Sabata): “I’m false like smoke/I’m empty hope.” But complete withdrawal is also disastrous, leaving nothing but a “Ghost Town”—a song by Joani Rose: “A ghost town, when the pot money stops/A ghost town, when the pot bubble pops.”

When Mary Jane’s estranged son appears and she meets her infant granddaughter, the focus moves to the effects on the next generation, as in Sabata’s new song “Officer and Child” about being taught to lie and hide. “Innocent no more”—a phrase in this song repeated in Randles’ “Nightmare”—might be this year’s subtitle.

    But the voice of experience is not hopeless, and as in many ancient and modern myths, it is the elder who guides to the future. Mary Jane rallies in an eloquent final speech: “I am tired of living in the shadows...I am tired of profit over people...My mantra is—never leave your consciousness at the door.”

The presence of Mary Jane’s son, also a grower, gives a stronger and more personal connection to “The Industry” that was simply implied last year, as the struggle of the second cannabis generation. The introduction of a son and grandchild also cries out for human interaction and emotion (especially in a musical) but I felt a lack of that in the opening night performance, as well the usual spontaneity.

  Otherwise this is a more cohesive, confident, resonant and haunting update, as well as upping the entertainment quotient. Michael Fields skillfully guided the script and staging, Daniel Spencer is scenic designer, Lydia Foreman the costume designer, Michael Foster designed lighting. Musical director Tim Randles joined by players Marla Joy, Mike LaBolle and guitarist Dan Perez comprised the ever-excellent band. Returning members of the dashing cast not yet named are Ryan Musil, Zuzka Sabata, Joyce Hough, Janessa Johnsrude and Meridith Anne Baldwin, joined by Jacob Trillo. Fred Neighbor didn’t return, and he and his character are missed.

    This is the final weekend for Mary Jane: The Musical at the Mad River Festival.

Mad River Fest: Of Rain and the Times

 In the previous 21 years of the Mad River Festival, the outdoor show was rained out only twice. But that number was equaled opening weekend with a complete rainout Friday and a move indoors Saturday for Mary Jane: The Musical. Producing director Michael Fields says he makes the decision to cancel by 6:30 p.m. and it gets posted on the Dell’Arte website. If it rains during a performance, he’ll likely end it then--because of all the electrical equipment necessary for this show it can’t be quickly moved inside (as a 2008 performance of Tartuffe was—one which Fields remembers as the best of the run). If the show is cancelled, ticketholders get a raincheck.  Since the climate it's a-changin,' this may happen a bit more frequently.

Fortunately, the show got through opening night Thursday, resulting in an article in the Los Angeles Times, datelined Saturday. (That's the photo from the Times piece--it's from the first few minutes of the show.)  It also meant I could review it for next week's NC Journal, with probably an expanded version here.

Mad River Festival 2012

In case you've been out of range of the hype, Dell'Arte opens take two of Mary Jane: The Musical on Thursday at 8 p.m. in the amphitheatre out back. There are four new songs along with the old favorites of last summer, and some new story, directed by Michael Fields and again starring Joan Schirle in fabulous mode, along with nearly all of last year's cast.  It kicks off this year's Mad River Festival and runs for three weekends, Thursdays through Sundays.

Then on Tuesday and Wednesday (June 26, 27), an evening derived from Dell'Arte School third-years Pratik Motwani and Meghan Frank's Community Based Project, Exit 101: " performance, storytelling and discussion" about how we "as a community speak to each other about...death and dying."   It features songs and stories (music by Jeff DeMark), and is produced in cooperation with the Humboldt Coalition for Compassionate Care.  It starts at the un-Dell'Arte time of 7 p.m. in the Carlo.

On Saturday (June 30) this year's Prize of Hope will be presented to the father and son theatrical duo of Geoff and Dan Hoyle. Geoff Hoyle's career will be celebrated, from the Pickle Family Circus to his latest San Francisco solo show Geezer, and including his work with Cirque de Soleil and The Lion King on Broadway, as well as his stint teaching at the Dell'Arte School.  Dan Hoyle began his solo career at Dell'Arte, which continues in solo touring shows like his current The Real Americans, along with performances with his father.  The Prize presentation is at 4 p.m. followed by drinks, dinner and of course, Mary Jane.

The annual Red Light in Blue Lake late night cabaret--this year with special guest stars Bada Bling! Burlesque of Southern Humboldt-- is Friday July 6 starting at 10:30 p.m. in the Carlo.

For families who aren't sure about taking the kids to this year's main show there's a totally family friendly romp outdoors, The Fish in My Head, featuring all the traditional physical theatre, masks, circus skills and music--and stilt-walking--for three nights, Thursday through Saturday July 12-14 at 7:30 p.m. and a Sunday show at 4 p.m., all in the outdoor Rooney Amphitheatre.  It's directed by Ronlin Foreman.

Avenue Q

Avenue Q, a much-praised 2003 musical that’s still running in Manhattan, is currently onstage at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka with a superior production. The individual singing and acting is flawless. The group singing, thanks to musical director Molly Severdia, is excellent. Kudos as well to director, costume, video and puppet designer Rae Robison, to Calder Johnson’s set, and to Jennifer Trustem and Megan Johnson for the construction of the elaborate puppets. The packed opening night house (which appeared to be younger on average than the usual audience) cheered and laughed frequently.

 The story is set on Avenue Q in New York City, a version of Sesame Street but populated largely by former college students in their early 20s who can’t find good jobs, purpose or partners. Some of them are puppets, and some of those look suspiciously like familiar Muppet characters.

 Principal roles are played by Alex Moore, Keili Simmons Marble, Luke Sikora, Tina Toomata, Clayton Cook, Evan Needham, Lindsay G. Reiss, Dmitry Tokarsky and Megan Johnson, with supporting roles played by JuanCarlos Contreras, Tyler Elwell, Shea King, Reen Kay Savage and Sara Parsons Scibetta.

 The orchestrations and arrangements by Stephen Oremus, and the orchestra of Laura Welch, Jonathan Webster, Michael Lewis, Riley McFarland and Amber Grimes supported unobtrusively and well.

 Avenue Q is a High Concept musical, and the concept is this: filthy muppets. Muppets who curse, proclaim “politically incorrect” sentiments and have sex on stage. The simple pop music and lyrics (by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx) also mimic the Sesame Street style, though more in the direction of South Park.

Despite being in their 20s, few of the good-hearted sit-comical characters seem much beyond a pre-school level of maturity. How funny you find this depends on whether it seems funny to you at all, or whether it seems funny to you for more than two hours.

 Some potential audience members might be offended by the language and the goings-on. I wasn’t. (There is a sanitized version for high schools. This isn’t it.) The insistently saccharine music and obvious lyrics did eventually threaten my sanity, but Andrew Lloyd Webber fans may find them bracing.

 The book by Jeff Whitty is a whit witty, a fast-paced mashup of the corny with almost-in-your-face aggressiveness, but without the integrity of a fable. Beyond the joke of the concept, its function is forming the story into something like “Revenge of the Sesame Street Generation.” Because apparently, adult life is not actually like Sesame Street. Who would have guessed?

 The themes that may resonate with generations of college graduates are there in the song titles: “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?” “It Sucks to Be Me,” “Purpose.” The identity crisis of a gay character in New York seems a bit historical now, but otherwise the referents remain ruefully relevant. (Portions of the previous sentence were brought to you by the letter “R.”)

 The sense of dislocation after college, of not seeing a path to a place in society commensurate with your dreams, and the resulting pain and confusion, are real, repeated and important. But there is a line between satirizing and trivializing.

 Even given the illusions we may all absorb from popular culture, you might wonder what anybody is actually learning or teaching in college if graduates are as devoid of inner resources as these characters. They muddle winsomely through romantic, identity and vocational problems, with the obligatory crisis at the first act curtain, and a quickly contrived happy ending. And a message in a final song, the wisdom of which by then may seem as cynically sentimental as much of what preceded it.

The actual irony might be that much of Sesame Street itself is funnier, smarter, more sophisticated and more musical than the raw material of this show.

 Again, the actors make these characters likeable, the puppets are cute, and the show zips along. Some—probably many--may find Avenue Q to be a delightfully ironic and insightful musical cartoon, which in its own perversely silly way is daringly realistic. Nothing wrong with that. Others may find it to be funny, charming or perceptive here and there, but so carelessly cynical and manipulative, so confidently, numbingly and soul-crushingly shallow that despite (or because of) such talent and heartfelt effort, the cumulative effect over hours is alienating and depressing. I am one—maybe the only one--of those others.

 Avenue Q plays at NCRT on Fridays and Saturdays through June 23, with Sunday matinees on June 3, 10, 17, and a Thursday evening performance on June 21. “This production contains adult language,” not to mention “adult situations” involving puppets.

Dell'Arte Thesis Projects 2012: Beyond Belief

I remember my mother standing at an ironing board in the motel room where our family was staying on a vacation trip in the summer of 1960, as we heard the radio report of what came to be called “the miracle at Niagara”: a 7 year old boy had been swept over the titanic Horseshoe Falls and survived. He was picked up at the bottom by the tourist boat, “Maid of the Mist.” We had visited the Falls just hours before it happened. It was a wonder just hearing about it.

 The first person to intentionally go over those falls and survive was Annie Edson Taylor, a down on her luck teacher who said she was 43, but was actually 63. She did it in a specially built barrel in 1901. Her story is the basis of one of the two original pieces on the Carlo Theatre stage at Dell’Arte for its second and final weekend, under the umbrella title of Beyond Belief. They are the thesis projects of third year students in the MFA program at the Dell’Arte International School.

 The story of this remarkable woman is preceded by The Most Remarkable Man of the Age, although he’s fictional. MFA candidate Myque Franz adapted a story (“The Man That Was Used Up”) and a poem (“The Conqueror Worm”) by Edgar Allen Poe, and created this piece with three former Dell’Arte students: Eric Hoffman, Zita Nyarady and Brandon J. Wilson.

 It has the satiric mood of the Poe story but owes as least as much to his macabre side, as well as perhaps to melodrama, morality tales, German Expressionism and those beloved (by some) cheap horror flicks. An Everyman named Thompson seeks the secret of the rumored immortality of the elusive figure, General Doctor John A.B.C. Smith, PhD. Thompson meets various bizarre characters (Pompeygirl, Dr. Guru Stretchmout, the Cognoscenti Twins, Sinivate the Worm etc.) before learning the secret the hard way, in a kind of Alfred Hitchcock Presents twist.

 At least that’s what happened when I saw it. The nature of these projects is that they change, especially from one weekend to the next. It was an entertaining and skillfully presented piece, with all the expected physical flourishes on, behind and even under the stage. It managed to incorporate a variation on the Actor’s Nightmare: finding yourself onstage—maybe in your underwear—with no idea of what the play is, or the words of your next line. This helped give this entire piece the quality of a nightmare.

 Heroine of Horseshoe Falls is the work of the three third-year participants: Rachel Brown, Meghan Frank and Pratik Motwani. It follows the general biography of Annie Edson Taylor, though it shapes it for affecting and artful effect. But it also adds much texture and detail. It begins with a striking theatrical image, which I won’t spoil except to say that it, like some other images, postures and dance movements reminded me of photos and films of Agnes de Mille’s early work.

 When Taylor’s husband is killed in the Civil War she is left to her own devices. After her wanderings and struggles as a teacher, she gets the idea of plunging down the Horseshoe Falls to make her fortune. The real Annie Taylor’s desperation seems softened by a delusion well-known in our time, of self-affirmation and immorality through a famous accomplishment.

 Pratik Motwani (who rocketed to local stardom in last year’s Mary Jane: The Musical—and yes, he’s back this summer!) plays her carney-eyed manager who siphons off what little money she makes. He sees Annie as a freak attraction, while she sees herself as an inspiring story.

 Meghan Frank, who is excellent as Annie throughout, is especially riveting as her elder self: the former “Queen of the Mist” selling penny postcards memorializing her exploits. Her rueful sweetness in defeat feels true. Meghan Frank is an actor with range.

 Rachel Brown plays the “inner Annie” and a half-dozen other parts with efficiency and charm. Spoken exposition got confusing at times, but some of the writing was especially evocative—the remembered scene of Annie getting the news of her husband’s death, for instance.

 There were bursts of comedy, as in the old “Niagara Falls! Slowly I turn...” bit I first saw in a Three Stooges film—barely integrated but fun. Michael Foster designed lighting and Lydia Foreman the costumes. Daniel Spencer is Technical Director and Kristin Shumaker the Production Stage Manager—all for both shows. The lighting for each was especially effective in setting the mood from the start. Beyond Belief continues this weekend at Dell’Arte in Blue Lake, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.

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.

  

Wedding Ring Tone: For Better, A Cellular Comedy at Redwood Curtain

Classic farce involves people running in and out of a lot of doors. There are multiple deceptions and discoveries, and a frantic frenzy to manage a situation that is obviously and hilariously already out of control.

 But a large chunk of today’s reality is virtual, and the opening and closing of doors often involves key strokes, touch screens and tiny buttons on cell phones that are too smart for their own good.

 That’s the brilliant theatrical insight behind the farce by playwright Eric Coble called For Better, now onstage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka. Coble ups the ante by placing his characters in the virtually virtual habitats of the new service class, for whom identical airports and cloned hotels are the ground of their physical being.

 The satire practically writes itself but Coble adds verisimilitude and poignancy to the instant portraits of these characters and their insecure connections, when “can you hear me now?” is not just a funny ad line but a momentous question, if not a plaintive cry.

 Karen Baedeker (played by Kyra Gardner) has met her true love—she thinks, maybe—at a Sheraton Buffet Breakfast during the International Food Conference (they’re both in food service) and has decided to marry him. He’s Max Aphelion, a location scout for Starbucks (Karen Baedeker, Max Aphelion of Starbucks—there’s enough in those names for a PhD thesis already.) We never meet him, but then Karen herself has only seen him three times. They talk on the phone and text a lot, though.

 First she must tell her tech-challenged father, Wally (Ken Klima) who is happy about it, and then on the phone to her sister Francine (Colleen Lacy), who is not. Francine pauses outside the marketing focus group she’s running to call her husband Michael (Anthony Mankins), who is off selling more insurance for satellite TV dishes. Francine suggests getting their friend Lizzie (Sarah McKinney) to google this Max guy, so Michael calls her.

 Free-spirited Lizzie works from home, monitoring seller ratings for E-Bay. She is also Michael’s former girlfriend. Meanwhile, their friend Stuart (Kyle Handziak) is off in Asia being the personification of the nerdy guy in the now nearly ancient commercials who goes everywhere to test cell coverage. He is devastated by the news, since he’s been carrying a crush for Karen he’s never quite acted on.

They all carry on multiple conversations at the same time, and when the wrong call-waiting door opens...

 As per the playwright’s instructions the action is spread out on nearly bare platforms, and for once the neck-challenging width of the Redwood Curtain stage has a purpose. Our gaze is as separated and fragmented as the conversations. (Despite the required bareness, Elizabeth Uhazy’s set design with the geometric color-coded lines in the floor is elegant and suggestive.)

 The actors are convincing as their characters, and even at second preview their comic timing was already sharp. Kyra Gardner has the range of Karen’s moods, her sweet self-conscious shallowness, her anxieties and her bravery. Anthony Mankin plays Michael with a frazzled dexterity, and while Colleen Lacy ably manages Francine’s relationship crises, my favorite moments in her performance were with her father-- she treats him as if he were deaf and addled as well as simply in his sixties.

 As that father, Ken Klima brings the necessary credibility and feeling to his key role. Kyle Handziak as Stuart has to work not to be the forgotten character, and he succeeds with a gentle dignity. Sarah McKinney has arguably the showiest role as Lizzie, and she runs with it, revealing great comic instincts, taste and expression in a very impressive performance.

 All this is made possible by Kristin Mack’s sure-handed and pitch-perfect direction, as well as the skill of the playwright who provided a theatrically smart structure along with funny and playable writing. It’s just right for this young cast—you’re in good hands from start to finish.

 Playwright Eric Coble is known for plays that apply different comic styles to various contemporary cultural phenomena: for example, a black comedy about competition for a child’s admission to a high-powered school, and an apocalyptic comedy about a theme park looking to restock the Native American Pavilion with a real Indian. (Coble spent much of his youth on Indian reservations.)

 It’s a treat to see a well-written play that has some thoughtful dimension. Though this play is five years old (which is about a century in cyberyears) and doesn’t tweet or like anybody, its world is ruefully recognizable. But it also quickly sketches the requisite family and relationship dynamics. As a blend of farce, satire and romantic comedy with a high quality sitcom sensibility, For Better is a fast-paced delight you can relax into as you laugh.

 The music selection and Jon Turney’s sound design seemed just right. Jessica Charles designed the evocative costumes, Michael Burkhart the appropriate lighting. For Better is on stage at Redwood Curtain Thursdays to Saturdays through May 19, with a Mother’s Day matinee on May 13. This is Redwood Curtain’s 50th production.

This North Coast Weekend

Opening on Wednesday April 25 for five performances is the 14th annual 10 Minute Play Festival at HSU. There are seven plays this year by five student playwrights. Though the plays are the usual mix of comedy, drama and fantasy, there’s a linking format. The playwrights are Keosha Chambers, Jessica Charles, Christin Hunter, Sarah McKinney and Alan La Police. All but one (directed by Liz Uhazy) are directed by this year’s coordinator John Heckel. Though this is a perennially popular show, changes in class offerings largely forced by budgets mean this is probably the last 10 Minute Play Festival on the HSU schedule. It plays Wed.-Sat. at 7:30 and Sunday at 2 in Gist Hall Theatre. 826-3928. http://HSUStage.blogspot.com.

Speaking of HSU, it’s practically an alumni and current student reunion—including participants in the 10 Minute Play Festival on the same weekend—at the Redwood Curtain play which begins previews on Thursday, April 26. For Better is a comedy by Eric Coble about a wedding and the defining roles of gadgets in contemporary life. HSU grads and students involved include director Kristin Mack, scenic designer Liz Uhazy, costume designer Jessica Charles and cast members Kyra Gardner, Ken Klima, Colleen Lacy, Sarah McKinney and Kyle Handziak. How did Anthony Mankins get in there? (Ooops--he's from HSU, too.)  Official opening night is April 28, and performances continue weekends through May 19. 443-7688.  redwoodcurtain.com.

Dell'Arte International's First Years also present one of the more popular shows on their annual calendar: their clown show.  The Clowns Are Here this weekend, Thursday to Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Carlo.  Admission is pay-what-you-will and a sellout is expected. 668-5663 ext. 20 for tickets.

This week's Tri-City Weekly features a neat piece by Pam Service, who makes use of her years of service to North Coast Rep in particular with fascinating profiles of several notable North Coast theatre figures: actors Bob and Lynn Wells; actors Nathan Emmons, Kim Haile and David Hamilton (all in NCRT's just concluded Much Ado About Nothing) and current reviewer Beti Trauth (whose review of HLOC's Damn Yankees is also in that issue.)

One of Pam Service's observations is likely to focus some comments in this space, and possibly elsewhere, in the near future, along with several other items in this post.

This North Coast Weekend

Dell’Arte School second-years present the results of their investigation into tragedy: The Night Mare, Thursday-Saturday April 19-21 at 8 p.m. in the Carlo. It’s a full-length work about a couple that relentlessly—and one assumes, tragically—pursues their dream of having children. 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

Just weeks after the 1979 hit musical Evita officially returns to Broadway, it opens at Ferndale Repertory Theatre, which is a lot closer. It begins there April 20, starring Elena Tessler as Eva Peron, Jaison Chand as Juan Peron and Steve Nobles as Che. Directed by Ferndale Rep Executive Director Ginger Gene, it’s the famous Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical about the rise of Eva Peron to become the idolized wife of the dictator of Peru, and what her ascension suggests about the interaction of celebrity and power. The cast of 35 also features Craig Waldvogel and Jessie Shieman. Dianne Zuleger is musical director and Linda Maxwell the choreographer. Dan Stockwell is scenic designer, Lydia Foreman designed costumes, Greta Stockwell the lighting. It plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. through May 13. (707) 786-5483. www.ferndale-rep.org.

Correction: Evita Peron was the wife of the dictator of Argentina, not Peru.  Which is why the song isn't, don't cry for me, Peru.  I think my general attitude about this musical has been found out.  And a note to commenters: these comments are screened and so the fact that a comment doesn't appear immediately doesn't mean it wasn't received.  

Damn Yankees at HLOC

Walking home from Little League practice I would sometimes stop at the public library to select my three-book limit—usually science fiction (the Winston series) or sports biographies (Jackie Robinson) and sports novels, mostly by Joe Archibald and John R. Tunis, with titles like Young Razzle and The Kid Comes Back. A title outside the kids section once caught my eye: The Year The Yankees Lost the Pennant. I got the title’s meaning. It was the 1950s and with players like Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford, the Yankees always won the American League and usually the World Series.

My home team—the Pittsburgh Pirates—would soon be the little guys from nowhere that toppled the mighty Yankees in the real life 1960 World Series. (Okay, maybe Milwaukee did it a few years earlier.)  But the novel was about a frustrated fan for the Washington Senators-- next to the Kansas City A’s (virtually a Yankee farm team) the most hapless American League team. That middle-aged fan named Joe Boyd makes a deal with the devil (who calls himself Mr. Applegate) to become the young home run hitter Joe Hardy, destined to elevate the Senators. His transformation (as I remember it) happened while he ran—he started with labored breath, slow, creaky and awkward, and felt himself become fleet and fluid and easy. It was my first scary lesson in the meaning of getting old.

  Richard Adler and Jerry Ross (Pajama Game) added music to the story based on Douglas Wallop‘s novel for the Broadway musical Damn Yankees, which swept the major Tony Awards in 1956. This show (rather than the 1994 revival) seems the basis for the version now being performed by the Humboldt Light Opera Company at the College of the Redwoods Forum Theater in Eureka.

Once Applegate (played with suave irony and sonorous glee by Brad Curtis) gets Joe Hardy in his clutches (James Gadd, looking the part of the innocent baseball star) he moves to control him further with the professional temptress known as Lola. This showy role made Gwen Verdon a Broadway star. Verdon was a dancer who’d never sung a role before, and coincidentally that’s also true of HLOC’s Lola, Lela Annotto-Pemberton. Dancers must make every movement mean something, and Lela seems to bring that approach to Lola’s songs, particularly the first one (“A Little Brains, A Little Talent”), honing every phrase as she belts out one of the show’s highlights. She follows that with the song that emerged from this show: “Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets.)” Quite a debut.

Also debuting on a North Coast stage but with plenty of experience in New York and nationally-touring musicals is Melissa Trauth as Gloria, a tough sports reporter who can suddenly dance up a leggy storm. Besides her flashy solo, when she and Lela/Lola do a dancing duet it’s a sparkling Broadway moment.

  The story involves Joe’s trials and his attempt to invoke his escape clause (a little Faust, a little Samson and Cinderella—this show’s got it all) but plot twists are less important than the quiet credibility brought to the central love story, which is perhaps surprisingly about the middle-aged couple. In this, Carol Escobar (as Joe’s wife Meg) is crucial, both with James Gadd and Robert Keiber as the elder Joe.

  The singing by both male and female ensembles is another highlight: the fans (Patty Andreise, Jennifer Callen, Bonnie Cyr, Katherine Matheson, Mary Severdia, Alana McConnell and Liz Souza) and the team (Gino Bloomberg, Jesse Chaves, Dylan Karl, Rigel Schmitt, Andrew Sible, Levi Simmons, led by manager Bill Ryder, with Howard Lang and Ralph Nelson.) Rookie of the year honors go to young Jake Smith for especially fine singing.

  Carol Ryder directs creatively and effectively as usual (she also designed the handsome modular set, built by technical director Peter Johnson.) Molly Severdia and piano accompanist Sharon Welton are musical directors, Melissa Trauth did choreography, Kevin Sharkey the costumes, Justin Takata the lighting. Not a big summer show or a great play but it’s fun: to miss Damn Yankees would be a damn shame. It plays weekends through April 28.

This North Coast Weekend

Humboldt Light Opera Company opens the baseball romance musical Damn Yankees on Friday (April 13) at 7:30 p.m. at the College of the Redwoods Forum Theater.  It stars James Gadd, Carol Escobar, Lela Annotto-Pemberton, Robert Keiber, Melissa Trauth, Bill Ryder, and Brad Curtis as the devil.  The show plays weekends (Sunday matinees at 2) until April 28.

At HSU, Of Time and Rhythm, this year's spring dance concert, opened Wednesday and plays Thursday-Saturday at 7:30, Sunday at 2 in the Van Duzer Theatre. (One weekend only.)  I don't know enough to write about dance so I usually don't, but I saw this show opening night and enjoyed all the dances and the music.  But I was really knocked out by one dancer.  Her name is Kara Ajetunmobi.  She first attracted my attention last year, for a typically goofy reason.  In editing publicity photos for the HSU Stage blog and to send out, I was struck by her resemblance in the photos to the British actor Freema Agyeman (TV's Bleak House, the David Tennant Doctor Who, and most recently on the UK version of Law & Order.).  I enjoyed her dancing last spring, but this year I was simply mesmerized.  Strong, graceful but economical, not a gesture wasted or less than impressive.  I noticed her especially in two dances in the second half of the program: "Follow" (and I wasn't the only one--when it finished I heard a gasp and a "wow" not coming from me) and "O'numinous." (She's first in the photo.) 

The student choregraphed dances, the big show pieces by faculty members Erin McKeever ("Constellations") and Sharon Butcher ("No Ecosystems...") were terrific, but I was anticipating Linda Maxwell's Broadway/Hollywood show dance, which I knew (and publicized) by its working title, "Slap That Bass."  That song, and another in this dance ("You Can't Take That Away From Me") are originally from the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rodgers movie, Shall We Dance, with music by George Gershwin.  I just watched it again recently on DVD, and a featurette that revealed that at one point, George Balanchine was asked to choreograph a dance for the film.  He was interested but scheduling didn't work.  He admired Fred Astaire tremendously.  Just months afterward, George Gershwin was dead at the age of 38.  But imagine what history might have been made with Gershwin, Astaire and Balanchine! 

In any case, this dance didn't use the Astaire versions of these songs.  I was unfamiliar with the shows excerpted, but it was all fun, and the dancing was like musical theatre dancing at its best--big, energetic, winsome, enthusiastic (Dani Gutierrez especially sparkled, and some great dancing guys really added to the energy.)  But it made me wonder: why don't we ever see dancing like this at HSU in an actual musical?

More Ado About Nothing

The production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing now on stage at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka is light on its feet. The action and the language move swiftly and intelligibly.

 There are basically two stories to tell: the melodramatic tale of false accusations made against a noble’s daughter that disrupts one love affair, and the more comic battle of wits of another couple, who are nevertheless destined for each other. It is the interplay of this latter couple—Beatrice and Benedick—that gives this play its enduring fame.

 The mixture of these stories makes this play unique. Both stories begin lightly, with the return of soldiers after a war. A wealthy landowner, Leonato (played by James Read), his daughter, Hero (Jennifer Trustem), niece Beatrice (Kimberly Haile) and brother Antonio (Scott Osborn) greet these soldiers, who evidently had been stationed there before: the prince Don Pedro (Bobby Bennett), the young Claudio (Evan Needham) and Benedick (Ethan Edmonds.) Lurking in the background is Don John (David Hamilton), the surly villain of the piece.

 As Beatrice and Benedick continue their “merry war” of witticisms aimed at each other, Claudio falls in love with Hero. When this match seems assured, the others set about tricking Beatrice and Benedick (in a couple of madcap scenes) into realizing they love each other.

 But both stories turn serious at the aborted wedding of Claudio and Hero, after Claudio and Don Pedro have been deceived by agents of Don John into believing Hero is unfaithful. It is to the particular credit of veteran actors Bob Service and especially James Read that this scene is credibly powerful. Evan Needham is also notably effective in this scene.

 This crisis brings Beatrice and Benedick together, and after much more ado, the play ends happily with promises of several repetitions of “I do.”

 The roles of Beatrice and Benedick (who W.H. Auden called Shakespeare’s most likeable characters) have attracted many famous actors through the centuries, most recently including Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh in what for my money is among the best movies made from a Shakespeare play, and the former Doctor Who tandem of Catherine Tate and David Tennant in a British stage version last year.

 In this production, Kimberly Haile’s performance as Beatrice is bold, quick, vivid and broad. With light movements and line readings that are natural and nuanced, Ethan Emmons is a superior Benedick. Though very different in style from his recent role in Look Back in Anger at Ferndale Rep, his performance here is again reason enough to see this show.

 Among the generally solid supporting cast, Charlie Heinberg as the drunken conspirator Borachio had an especially affecting scene. Other cast members not named so far are Katy Curtis, Wesley Fuller, Marin Griffin, Zoe Helton, Megan Johnson, Ed Munn, Alex Service, Pam Service, Keili Simmons Marble and George Szabo.

 The production is uneven, and the Benedick and Beatrice relationship didn’t seem to me to quite find its heart until very late. But apart from some lapses of taste that might spoil this soufflé for some viewers, it is inventive and enjoyable. Director Calder Johnson creates a credible world and mostly equips his actors to succeed.

 Though the period is awkwardly but not fatally changed to the 1940s, Shakespeare’s location of Sicily is retained, by which the Bard basically signals that the characters are more passionate than the English. The set by Jody Sekas suggests a Latin village timelessness, and David Kenworthy’s lighting keeps it sunny. Keili Simmons Marble choreographed the handsome dances, though the recorded music is woefully inadequate. JM Wilkerson designed sound, and costumes are by Megan Johnson, Calder Johnson and Jennifer Trustem.

 Much Ado About Nothing plays weekends at NCRT through April 21.

Additional Notes:

I found this photo labeled Peggy Ashcroft as Beatrice, John Geilgud as Benedick. That looks like it could be Peggy but probably is not John. It looks more like Anthony Quayle, in a prior production that Gielgud directed.

Much Ado About Nothing was apparently written at about the time of Shakespeare's best comedies, including my fave, As You Like It.  The play wasn't performed all that much at first, yet the characters of Beatrice and Benedick caught on immediately, and remain the major source of interest in this play.  W.H. Auden thought the play is not one of Shakespeare's best, "but Benedick and Beatrice are the most lovable, amusing, and good people--the best of combinations--he ever created.  They are the characters of Shakespeare we'd most like to sit next to at dinner."

So it's not surprising that these parts have been popular with actors for centuries.  In the mid eighteenth century, the legendary David Garrick rehearsed the part of Benedick for two months, and then performed it nearly 200 times.  Over the years, Benedick was played to great acclaim by Charles Kean, Henry Irving and John Gielgud, and Beatrice by Ellen Terry and Peggy Ashcroft.  Christopher Plummer's Benedick at Stratford, Ontario in the 50s was a liberating experience for this prominent veteran actor. He writes in his autobiography: "it was playing Benedick that freed me from all outward influence and for the first time I was able to trust in myself."

Oddly, it was not filmed in England or America until the 1993 movie directed by Kenneth Branagh in his Shakespearean cinema prime (between his Henry V and Hamlet), in which he played Benedick to Emma Thompson (his wife at the time) as Beatrice.  People are divided on this film.  Harold Bloom criticizes it for dwelling on the Italian landscape and not on the language.  Others don't like the mix of English stage actors and American film actors.

I loved this movie when it came out, and I still love it.  It is a great introduction to Shakespeare for students, I've found, because it is so clear, and the language is spoken so naturally.  It is a real movie, with one of the most joyfully cinematic openings of any movie, Shakespeare or no.  A great score for the movie and just as music (like another of my maligned favorites, Shakespeare in Love.)  The Hollywood actors were a little jarring at first, but on a recent re-viewing, I saw more clearly how much they bring to the film, especially Denzel Washington.

 Michael Keaton as the comic lawman Dogsberry is the most scorned.  Shakespeare apparently wrote Dogsberry partly from life (a character he met) and mostly as a turn for his company's clown, Will Kemp.  In doing so, he is credited with creating the comical lawman type that figures in so many comedies, including the paradigmatic Keystone Kops.  Keaton, and how he was directed, did seem over the top on my first viewing, but again, I like it much more now.  Branagh's directorial flourishes can seem excessive, but given all the energy and heart in this movie, they are easy to forgive--if even that is necessary.  As Auden (or somebody) points out, the boring parts in a Shakespeare play are essential to their overall success, and probably the same can be said of Branagh's exuberances, including some of the business that Keaton and his cohorts engage in.

I also defend the movie's excisions.  Theatre directors cut from the plays, and because so much can be told by visuals in a movie, Branagh could cut even more.  He cut a few redundant scenes--but also filmed what was offstage in one scene--and he cut lines out of speeches that mostly had obsolete references, intelligible to Shakespeare's audiences but not to us.  That requires skill and taste, and for the small portion  of the script I compared with the play, I thought he did a good job.  (He did cut one funny speech that I was happy to hear at NCRT, though.)

Branagh's Benedick is a contemporary classic portrayal, and I saw not a little of it in Ethan Emmon's reading at North Coast Rep, though Emmons has the better voice. That was very impressive when the movie came out--Branagh's way of making the lines contemporary.  But on repeated viewing, it is Emma Thompson's Beatrice I found most enchanting.  She found the perfect balance between the ways the character is usually played--either as a witty lady, or a shrewish malcontent.  She did not put on airs, but she was innately noble, both happily ironic and a little wounded.  And very lovable.

The play was performed on the London stage last year by another crossover media couple: David Tennant (who also played Hamlet a few years ago) and Catherine Tate (a stage novice but veteran TV comedienne) were paired for a wonderful year on Doctor Who, one of the most popular and iconic series in the UK.  Their lauded 2011 production transposed the action to 1980s Gibraltar, which makes more sense in the UK than it would here.  Transposing the location of any Shakespeare has been trendy for some years now, but especially this play. Reviewing a 1970s production that sets the play in India, critic Michael Billington of the Guardian mused that he'd seen this play also set in "Pancho Villa's Mexico, and even, in one experimental version, Elizabethan England."  Still, Billington liked the Tennant version.  Having seen only the YouTube preview of a much too expensive and apparently unreliable Internet download, I can't comment (except to say that Tennant and Tate clearly can make it funny).  But for me, the very thing that Harold Bloom disdains about the Branagh movie is an aspect I love about it.  The Tuscan landscape is as important a character as any other.

Now a few stray thoughts about the NCRT production.  It was an interesting choice to make the villain's henchman Borachio a drunk, since my annotated version of the play points out that the name comes from the Spanish for drunkard, and was apparently a tip-off to Shakespeare's audiences and for some time after...

The cast was generally good to excellent (at least at times), but while I know casting is a perennial community theatre problem, there was some unfortunate miscasting in this one, compounded by weak direction. The lovely and talented Kim Haile was a great choice for Beatrice, but even though the choice for the interpretation of her character can be justified, it was too broad to move me, and it was too different from Emmons more subtle rendering of Benedick to make an effective match.  But maybe that's changing as the run of the show continues.

 I wrote in my review that in the NCRT production, the Beatrice and Benedick relationship doesn't quite find its heart until near the end.  Some would retort that this is kind of the point, but...I don't really think so.  There has to be something there--some heat, some sexual tension or simply (as in the Branagh/Thompson version) some history of feeling--from the beginning, to make the swift resolution credible.  In that version, the others are clearly tricking them into admitting the attraction that everyone else sees.

 There were also some decisions in this NCRT production that seemed needlessly and unhelpfully vulgar.  I see no virtue into going into all of them, but  beyond the usual need to mime every real and imagined sexual reference in the text, I remain annoyed with the apparent decision to have Beatrice repeatedly emphasize the last syllable of Benedick.  It doesn't work with the character of Beatrice nor with the time period--vaguely the 1940s--of this production.

 As for the 1940s, I don't see what it did for the play, except create costume headaches.  John Gielgud used to judge the period for the play by whether it was credible (for example, he thought you couldn't set this one in the 19th century, given the constricted sexual mores) or--just as importantly--whether the costumes of the period helped or hindered the actors in moving as they should.  High heels etc. didn't seem to help in this one.