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.    

This North Coast Weekend

Toronto’s internationally acclaimed Faustwork Mask Theater presents The Mask Messengers, a set of comic and dramatic vignettes inspired by the assembled masks, at the Arcata Playhouse on Friday and Saturday (Apr. 6,7) at 7 p.m., and 2 p.m. also on Saturday, as part of the Playhouse Family Fun series.

The Dell’Arte Company presents a New Works Cabaret, Friday through Sunday (Apr. 6-8) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. A variety of brand new work will feature Stephanie Thompson, Joe Krienke, Lauren Wilson, Joan Schirle, Zuzka Sabata, Barney Baggett and more.

Dell'Arte School Explained

How theatre is taught and learned at Dell'Arte International School is the subject of a scholarly article in the March 2012 issue of Theatre Topics, a publication of Johns Hopkins University Press in cooperation with the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.

The article is by Claire Canavan, a lecturer in the University of Texas Theatre and Dance department, and is based partly on her experience as a student in the four-week summer intensive at Dell'Arte in 2009.  The article examines the teaching and learning styles at the school, partly from an academic perspective, and partly from the perspective of other actor training. 

Canavan writes of the group creativity of actors working together to create and perform a piece, and notes her own surprise that teachers weren't trying to direct a piece in a particular way.  She notes a "productive tension between the idea that the actor is an artist with an original point of view, and yet that artistry and point of view are developed specifically through ensemble and community."

She sees Dell'Arte as challenging "hierarchies" that insist on "individualistic models of art-making."   She appreciated the emphasis on group critique and lack of commercial consideration, while noting that some less experienced students wanted more individual feedback.  "To me, Dell'Arte represents an alternative model of education in general, and acting pedagogy in particular," she concludes.  "There are not a lot of programs that would say they do not prioritize the progress of the individual, but instead what matters is the work."  She writes that the Dell'Arte program stands out in how it "envisions the role of the actor in theatre and also the role of the actor in society."

Coincidentally, this issue of Theatre Topics also contains an article by Theresa J. May, formerly a member of the Humboldt State theatre faculty, now at the University of Oregon.  Her article is about Seattle's Theater Squad.

  

Stage Elsewhere: Daisey Chain

Issues of veracity, of the difference in dramatizing versus reporting, stage vs. journalism, are suddenly up for discussion in the affair of Mike Daisey and his monologue, The Agony and Ecstacy of Steve Jobs. It was the centerpiece of a program on NPR's "This American Life," concerning the conditions at a Foxconn factory in China that assembled Apple products, including the iphone.  Very long hours, poor working conditions for very low pay, possible chemical poisoning, underage workers, and various abuses leading to an epidemic of suicides were what Daisey talked about, within the framework of his trip to China.

But producers of the NPR show got wind of discrepancies, then confronted Daisey.  In particular they wanted to talk to his translator, named in the show as Cathy.  He told them her name really was Anna, that he'd had a cell phone number for her, but it no longer operated and he had no way to find her.  When the actual translator--a Chinese woman who used the name Cathy for western clients--was easily found, she disputed his recollection of what he had seen and what people had said to them in China.  All of this led the NPR program to take the unusual step of going on air to retract the entire program.

Responses to all this were various and are still unfolding.  The consumer watchdog organization sumofus.org for example sent out an email pointing out that the matters of fact under dispute didn't alter the basic facts, that "conditions in the factories are horrible, and in some cases illegal."  And the New York Times story that came out around the same time as the NPR broadcast affirms this.  Others point out that these factories, including Foxconn, make electronic products for other U.S. companies as well.  Meanwhile, TPM reported (in a disapproving tone) that the Public Theater was not going to cancel the remaining scheduled evenings of Daisey and his monologue.

Recently Mike Daisey went on stage at Georgetown to improvise a monologue on all of this, and it's an interesting and instructive read.  He spoke about his general process that included this monologue, but also how it was different:

"None of my other monologues are like it. They're all different. This one? This one was driven. It wanted to change things. It wanted very badly to break out of the theater and change things. It wanted very badly to see change happen in the world. It was like that Brecht quote, "Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.That's what it felt like. And I always visualized the monologue, for good or for bad, I always thought of it as a weapon. I always saw it that way. Balanced. Well built. Intended to try to get into people, to change us. To fundamentally* connect us to our circumstances."

He talks about how life has demonstrably changed in just a few years because of smartphones, and how art can respond to that change, and change things itself. "And what I'm trying to bring together in the piece is the idea that our whole story is the story of metaphor shifts. And if we can see the world in a new way, if we actually see it differently, that is what makes change happen. There is nothing else that makes change happen. It does not come from money or guns or power. It comes from the change, and when people's minds change, that's what pushes forward. And I believe that's what art can do, is affect that kind of change, create bonds of empathy between us and people on the other side of the world..."

He had been obsessed with Apple products and Steve Jobs (the primary subject of the monologue) but started reading about the factory conditions in China.  He decided to go there, and arrived just as reports of suicides were hitting the media.  But then they stopped, thanks to a crackdown by the Chinese government, and implied laxity and short attention spans of western media.  He felt compelled to talk about what no one else was talking about, and he did so for a couple of years before anyone paid much attention.

He talks about the dramatizing aspects of a work for the stage, but said that he never thought of the monologue as fictional in the sense of being made up. "Because if I wanted to make shit up, I wouldn't go to China. I would stay in my apartment in Brooklyn and make shit up. It's easier."

He kept getting interviewed, and stopped correcting the false assumptions and statements of interviewers.  He admitted that he allowed one such falsity to enter the monologue--that he had met a victim of the chemical poisoning.  He knew he had not, although the poisoning itself was otherwise documented.  But on other points that were contradicted by his translator, he says simply that his memory differs--he does remember that person, he did hear this person say that--and hints that her disapproval of his questions, her siding with China PR, may be distorting her version.

Noone--not "This American Life" nor the New York Times--says that the substance of what he was talking about was false.  The chemical poisoning may have occurred at a different plant in China, but it is documented.

In the Georgetown monologue, Daisey does say that a few of the encounters happened less dramatically than in his show, but they did happen.  (One of the more dramatic images--the guards with guns--that the translator disputes, he still says he really saw.)  All of this does speak to the expectations that the dramatic monologue creates, at least the kind that is represented as the monologist's experiences.  There is some kind of weird reverse fourth wall phenomenon.  The person on the stage who keeps saying "I"--I saw, I heard, I felt, I suddenly realized--is reaching through the fourth wall to say, this is really me and this really happened.  While we in the audience realize that to some extent, since this is being said from a stage, it is using theatrical contrivances.  It's a planned out, perhaps written out, and often performed piece with structure--with narrative but also dramatic effects (building action, misdirection, climaxes, etc.) But while breaking the fourth wall usually signals the artificiality of what's on stage--that it's a play, not reality--in this case, the acknowledgement of the audience by speaking directly to it seems to negate the artificiality of the stage, and adds to the sense that this is a real person talking about real memories and events.

I recall a very powerful autobiographical piece, mostly about childhood, performed some years ago at HSU by a visiting theatre artist from southern California.  And I recall my disappointment when he later admitted that its most dramatic scene was pretty much made up.  I don't think this invalidates it.  But I remain disappointed.  It seems like cheating artistically, though few would probably agree with me on that.  In any case I'd rather see someone make something artful out of real events.  I don't know exactly why adding to a scene seems more like cheating that leaving things out, skipping things and all the other usual elements of constructing a narrative, but it does.

There is of course the additional component of the social change intended by this theatre piece: how does that change the theatre artist's responsibilities, if at all?  I think it still comes down to what the artist signals to the audience it should believe.

In any case, most of what Daisey is criticized for is his failure to truthfully and fully answer questions for the journalists making the radio program. For his stage monologue, Daisey is essentially claiming that, for the most part, he stuck to the truth as he remembers it, and that he pretty carefully checked the facts (though he admits his numbers got inflated in performance.) It will be interesting to see how all this develops.  

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.

This North Coast Weekend

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.

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. 

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.

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.

The Language Archive

In The Language Archive by Julia Cho, now on stage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka, George (played by Craig Benson) is a linguist studying dying languages, while the language of his marriage dies unnoticed. He does catch on that his wife Mary (Terry Desch) is crying constantly (“She cries making the salad. She cries in her sleep.”) She also leaves him inscrutable notes (“Husband or throw pillow? Wife or hot-water bottle?.. Love or explaining how to use the remote control?”) and then denies she wrote them.

In the elusive safety of his language lab, George hosts the last two speakers of Elloway (Lynne and Bob Wells) who spend the entire session arguing in English, because English is the language of anger. Elloway is the flowing, singing language of love.

 Meanwhile his competent and otherwise sweetly clueless assistant Emma (Christina Jioras) is learning Esperanto (an international language assembled from other languages by L.L Zamenhoff in the late 19th century, to promote world peace) because George loves it, and she (secretly) loves George. There’s wisdom from her Esperanto teacher (Pamela Lyall) and an apparent guest appearance by Zamenhoff himself (Jerry Nusbaum) as the story takes antic and yet believably odd turns, and people change, relationships shift, and life blossoms.

 From the first scene, when George interrupts his conversation with Mary to tell the audience what he’s thinking, it’s clear that this is not a naturalistic presentation but a story that the characters are presenting about themselves. It works because thanks to the actors, these characters are fully believable.

Casting is an imperfect art at best, and the availability of actors is a particular problem on the North Coast. But the stars aligned this time: this has to be the perfect cast for this production. Every one of them creates a memorable character, appropriately funny, poignant, and even inspiring, in a play that supports them. The best I can do is repeat their names: Craig Benson, Terry Desch, Christina Jioras, Lynne Wells, Bob E. Wells, Jerry Nusbaum and Pamela Lyall.

 American playwright Julia Cho is also an actor and writer for film and television. Oregon Shakespeare Festival produced this play last year, but this is the first time I’ve seen it or any of her stage plays (she’s written four more.) It’s two and a half hours with intermission, but it needs that generosity to create its worthwhile world.

Sometimes when a play has a governing concept (like the very real disappearances of languages) it feels artificial, or half-baked. But in this play, it is fully baked. Cho has thought through many of the human dimensions of language, and celebrates them. In Esperanto, the word “esperanto” means “one who hopes.”

 Director James Floss balances the lyricism with the reality, the comedy with the emotion. Daniel C. Nyiri designed the elegantly modular set, Michael Burkhart the lighting, Lydia Foreman the costumes, Jon Turney the sound. The Language Archive plays weekends at Redwood Curtain through March 10. One bit of advice for when you go: make sure to have plenty of fresh bread at home for after the show. Tickets: 443-7688, www.redwoodcurtain.com.

Additional Notes

First, on the playwright's strategy of having the characters tell the story retrospectively, while acting it out.  It's an interesting narrative strategy, with levels of ambiguity--are we seeing what actually happened, or what the characters remember as happening, or even what they wished had happened?  But it is also a dramatically tricky strategy.  What really is the dramatic action?  Strictly speaking, it can't be the action we're seeing, because that action is being remembered and narrated.  The dramatic action is people remembering the past.  That's what is happening in the present, what's being enacted on the stage.

This also leads into la-la lands of representation and so on--the dramatic action of a play purporting to be the action we see is really actors performing, and so on.  But what's more to the point in the experiencing of it is how well does this approach work?  Contrast this play with Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor, recently at NCRT.  In a formal sense, it also is a story being told by one of the characters, who occasionally steps out of character to narrate, usually to fill in action we don't see.  In that production, due to the writing or the direction or both, it was awkward and distracting. (The play was funny, in spite of this and other deficiencies.)  It was not as well integrated as The Language Archive, where it gave that play the sense of a fable, of a kind of contemporary fairy story told by a community of people.  (And like real fairy tales, it included unfortunate events.)  For me, the occasional narration did not disturb the presentness of the action, but in Laughter, it did.

The other thing I kept thinking about is the way director James Floss and actor Craig Benson chose to play the character of George, the language archivist.  I read that in the New York production, George was played as cold and emotionless, especially towards his wife.  At Redwood Curtain, Benson plays George as confused and conflicted, but not cold.

First of all, this is a difference that recurs frequently.  Characters that New Yorkers accept--obnoxious, aggressive, cold and calculating--are usually given a different interpretation on the North Coast.  They're usually more "human" you might say, or you might just say they're "nicer," more recognizably  North Coast. 

Frankly, I think that works better most of the time, and specifically, it really works better in this play.  First of all, George being caring but confused and exasperated in his reactions to his wife Mary's strange expressions of unhappiness is funnier than it would be if he were cold and remote.  His internal struggle is part of the couple's struggle, for she is also conflicted (leading to those cryptic notes which she denies writing.)

But besides mirroring Mary in a distorted way, this also parallels the cluelessness of Emma, his lab assistant who doesn't recognize that she's in love with George for a long time after it is apparent to the audience.  All of this brings both a warmth and a shape to this play, which otherwise defies definition.

This North Coast Weekend

HSU Theatre has opened Noel Coward's comedy Blithe Spirit at the Van Duzer Theatre, playing Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. (March 1-3) and Sunday (March 4) at 2 p.m.   This comedy, involving a medium, a mystery writer, ghosts in an English country house and "astral bigamy" was the comedy that got London through the Blitz, the V-1s and V-2s.  From 1941 to after World War II was over, it played nearly 3,000 performances with not one performance cancelled.

This history seemed of little interest to the opening night student audience on Wednesday, but judging from the Talkback afterwards they saw a lot in the play that was relevant to their lives.   Directed by Jyl Hewston, it features Kyle Handziak and Colleen Lacy as Charles and Ruth Condomine. Lillian Damron is the ghostly Elvira, while Phoebe Sager is the eccentric medium, Madame Arcati. Lincoln Mitchell and Saundra Dacre are the other couple at the seance, Dr. and Mrs. Bradman, and Adrienne Ralsten is the curiously essential maid, Edith.   Tickets from HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door.  Much more information: HSU Stage and Screen.