Korbel V: The Secret

Since 1992 there have been five episodes (including an unnumbered one) in Dell’Arte’s soap opera saga of the working class Dugan family in the fictional North Coast mill town of Korbel. Korbel V: The Secret, now on stage in the outdoor Rooney Amphitheatre at Dell’Arte in Blue Lake, is intended both as a continuation and “an entirely new Korbel for the present day which would stand on its own,” according to writer and director Lauren Wilson in her program note.

 Tommy Dugan (played by Michael Fields) is back, living in a ramshackle trailer in the woods. Also returning are his estranged wife Lu Ann (this time played by Zuzka Sabata) and Tommy’s dead mother Dorothy (Joan Schirle.) The new principal characters are Tommy’s callow young companion Lowell (Anthony Arnista), and Bert (James Peck), a self-styled militia leader exiled from the UK. Yan Christian Collazo plays fledgling sheriff’s deputy Manuel, Ryan Musil is the mayor of Korbel, and Bert’s militia co-conspirators are a supermarket manager from Glendale (Andrew Eldrege) and a crafter and mom from McKinleyville (Emily Newton.)

 Korbel V begins with Manuel reciting a prologue in rhymed couplets that suggests the prologue to Shakespeare’s Henry V with an assist from Carl Sandburg. It’s the first of several echoes and quotes from Shakespeare and others.

 The deputy concludes: “Here’s Korbel, this is fog, and here is sun.” At that moment on opening evening, sunlight broke through the overcast and bathed the stage. How did they do that? (Yes, the line was scripted.)

 The action begins with Tommy in a terminal funk: 17 years unemployed, a failed marriage and a pot-grower son who won’t speak to him are bad enough, but now his doctor demands he stop drinking. After a clumsily creative suicide attempt fails, Tommy learns that the Korbel Timber mill is closing and will evict families living in company housing. Suddenly he finds purpose: to go on a hunger strike to save the mill, emulating the hero he saw on the History Channel, “Mohammed Gandhi.”

But his resolve is tested when Lu Ann shows up, promising love as well as reconciliation with his son, who has provided his mother a lavish Eureka lifestyle financed by what she calls his “firewood business.” Meanwhile Bert organizes an armed revolt against government oppression. By the end the stage is littered with a Shakespearian tragedy-load of bodies (though not all of them dead), and a certain body part familiar from Macbeth.

 There are magical moments: Fields and Schirle acting together is irresistible, and Fields delivering Tommy’s final soliloquy is memorable. The principal actors built real characters (especially Arnista as Lowell and Sabata as Lu Ann) and the supporting players were generously funny, particularly Eldrege as one of the conspirators.

 Less high-spirited than some past summer shows, this play is well crafted and directed, with the usual comic local references, physical humor, surprise effects and other treats in sight and sound, including music by Tim Gray, performed by Sabata and the band of Maria Joy, Mike La Bolle and Tim Randles.

 But I found the two overlapping storylines disappointing, with too little of Tommy’s story and too much of Bert’s (even with its perceptive twist at the end.) Bert’s paranoid rants seemed too frequent, long and unvarying, familiar from weary years of talk radio and Internet rhetoric, except for the copious instances of “wanker” and “bollocks” spewed by this incongruously English character.

 “The Secret” in the play’s title refers most obviously to the movie and book of that title about the power of positive thinking that Lu Ann praises. While some in the audience got the reference, I’m not sure why a 2006 self-help fad features so prominently.

 At the end of the play it seems the Dugan saga is over—but maybe not. One more dancing Dugan ghost has been added, but somewhere offstage is a next generation. Korbel V: The Secret runs through July 6.

 Coming Up Next at the fest: Taken Away, an acrobatic theatre event, opens June 21 for five performances. Clowns Without Borders gets the Prize of Hope on June 28 and a benefit headlined by clown Mooky Cornish on June 29 at 2 p.m. Then Cornish performs at the Blue Lake Center of the Universe party at 4:30.

 On July 2, Mad Lab consists of three works-in-progress by Dell’Arte alums: “Camel Camel,” a vaudeville review by Glitter Gizzard, Janessa Johnsrude and Meghan Frank; “Life Lessons with Pat McKensie,” a satirical comedy by Emily Newton; and “La Fenetre,” a clown comedy by Darci Fulcher and Emily Newton.

This North Coast Weekend

Opening Thursday June 19 and continuing for three weekends at Dell'Arte is    Korbel V: The Secret.  It's the outdoor show that opens the greatly expanded Mad River Festival (more about that in my last NCJ column), and the latest in Dell’Arte’s outrageously epic working class soap opera that has seen death, a wedding, a birth and a fateful accident amidst much local color and family angst over the years. This summer’s story finds the surly and unemployed Tommy Dugan living in a ramshackle trailer, eventually confronting the Korbel Timber Company as it evicts workers’ families from company housing.

 It’s written and directed by Lauren Wilson, who wrote the memorable 2010 summer show, Blue Lake: The Opera. Returning to Korbel are Michael Fields as Tommy and Joan Schirle as his mother Dorothy, who despite having died in the first play has appeared in all the sequels, plus the traditionally large cast.  Music is provided by Marla Joy, Tim Randles and Mike LaBolle.

 In a TV commercial for the festival, Fields as Tommy Dugan describes the show: “They say it’s a comedy but my life ain’t so funny to me.” That nails the mood of this series. It’s been satirical, melodramatic, over the top, but with heart and eyes open to the Humboldt of the moment. “It is pure ‘theatre of place’, Dell’Arte style,” Fields said (off-camera). “I don’t know of another theatre that follows characters over decades with keen attention to the times, looking at it all through the lens of place.” Dell’Arte is offering a festival pass to any four shows plus some extra benefits. (707) 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

Dixie Swim Club continues at Ferndale Rep and Les Miserables completes its run at North Coast Rep.

This North Coast Weekend (and Audition)

Murder By Dessert is performing another interactive mystery, and this one sounds particularly intriguing.  It's called Sherlock Holmes and the Steampunk Murder Mystery, and is described as featuring "the greatest science fiction authors of the late 1800s attempting to solve the murder of one of their own."  I don't know who that would be except H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, although it would be decades before anybody called it science fiction. But the Robert Downey Holmes movies are definitely steampunk.

  It's happening on Saturday June 14 at the Siren's Song Tavern, 325 Second St., Eureka, from 7-10 p.m. 672-5651, murderbydessert.com.  Jeremy Brett won't be appearing as Sherlock Holmes alas, but any excuse to post his photo.

If you're getting your stage information from the NCJ Calendar (print edition) you are going to be misinformed about this weekend.  (In general the Calendar, which used to be the gold standard for upcoming events, has been sliding downhill for months.)

So here's the weekend:

Thursday (June 12) at Ferndale Repertory Theatre is an Actors Benefit performance of the ongoing production, The Dixie Swim Club.  All proceeds on this night go to cast and crew. Otherwise the production continues Fridays and Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 2 through June 22.

Les Miserables continues at North Coast Rep Friday and Saturday at 8, and Sunday at 2.

North Coast Rep also announces auditions:

The North Coast Repertory Theatre announces open auditions for the musical Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, with music by Alan Menken; lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice; and book by Linda Woolverton. The production will be directed by Lauren Wieland, with musical direction by Jonathan Webster and Dianne Zuleger. There are roles for 11 men and 12 women of a wide variety of ages. No roles will be pre-cast. The first round of auditions will consist of singing only, there will be no cold readings from the script. Please come with a prepared audition piece of no more than 2 minutes in length. An accompanist will be present. Please come prepared with sheet music. A CD player will be available. Please bring a resume and headshot if available. Auditions will take place on Saturday, June 28th at 2 p.m., and Sunday, June 29th at 6 p.m. at NCRT, 300 Fifth Street in Eureka. Call-backs will be on July 6th in the evening. Production dates are November 13th thru December 13th, 2014 with rehearsals beginning mid-August. Please contact director Lauren Wieland at laurencwieland@gmail.com if you have any questions.

The Big Mad (and This North Coast Weekend)

Korbel V begins this year's Mad River Fest

For more than a generation it’s been Mad in Blue Lake in June, ever since Dell’Arte created the Mad River Festival of stage performances. The festival got pretty hefty for awhile in the 90s and in more recent years it’s been smaller. But this year it’s bigger than ever, absorbing seven weeks of the summer with much more than the usual number and variety of events. It starts June 19 and ends in August.

 There’s more music: in additional to the traditional Folk Life Festival (July 14-19) there’s also a Blue Lake Blues Festival (August 2) and the Eureka Symphony performing Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf on July 25. (Last summer’s Dell’Arte Life Achievement Award winner and Dell’Arte founder Jane Hill was recently named Eureka Symphony’s first-ever executive director.)

 A major catalyst for the festival’s expansion is a big ArtPlace America grant, which accounts for several Blue Lake-centered events, many of them free, including Trash Mash-Up community workshops July 10-13 and the “Blue Lake: The Center of the Universe Party” on June 29.

 There are additional Blue Lake venues, such as Perigot Park and the banks of the Mad River, where Laura Munoz will lead “One Multitude,” a “movement choir” of 50 participants of all ages performed at sunset on June 25.

 There’s a new performance venue as well. In addition to the Rooney Amphitheatre and Carlo Theatre, several shows appear in the new Pierson Building Center Big Hammer Tent, adding a circus big-top topography to the summer Madness. That’s particularly apt since this summer’s Prize of Hope (given by Dell’Arte in conjunction with the Danish Institute of Popular Theatre) goes to Clowns Without Borders International. The award dinner is on June 28.

 On June 29, former lead clown for Cirque de Soleil Mooky Cornish leads a benefit performance for Clowns Without Borders before entertaining at the Center of the Universe party in the big tent. Cornish also performs a solo show, The Glories of Gloria Revue, July 10 through July 13 in the Carlo.

 In addition to the annual Red Light in Blue Lake adult cabaret (July 5) and the acrobatic performance (this year called Taken Away, performed five times between June 21 and 27), there are several other stage events. Mad Lab (July 2) is an evening of works-in-progress by Dell’Arte School grads Meghan Frank, Janessa Johnrude, Emily Newton and Darci Fulcher.

 July 23-27 is the official world premiere of Elisabeth’s Book, created by performers Joan Schirle, Laura Munoz and Ruxandra Cantir and director Alain Schons, with original music by Schirle, Gina Leishman and Tim Gray.

 On July 31, Jeff DeMark brings his band The Gila Monsters (Rick Levin, Ron Sharp, Jean Browning and Paul DeMark) for an evening of music and stories about summer called Acting On A Dream (and of course, there’s a story about the title.)
Besides Jeff, storytellers include Marvin Samuels, Lizzy Moonbeam and Charlie Gilbert.

 It all starts with the big show in the amphitheatre beginning June 19 and continuing for three weekends. Korbel V: The Secret is the latest in Dell’Arte’s outrageously epic working class soap opera that has seen death, a wedding, a birth and a fateful accident amidst much local color and family angst.

 This summer’s story finds the surly and unemployed Tommy Dugan living in a ramshackle trailer, eventually confronting the Korbel Timber Company as it evicts workers’ families from company housing. It’s written and directed by Lauren Wilson, who wrote the memorable 2010 summer show, Blue Lake: The Opera.

 Returning to Korbel are Michael Fields as Tommy and Joan Schirle as his mother Dorothy, who despite having died in the first play has appeared in all the sequels. Music is provided by Marla Joy, Tim Randles and Mike LaBolle. In a TV commercial for the festival, Fields as Tommy Dugan describes the show: “They say it’s a comedy but my life ain’t so funny to me.” That nails the mood of this series. It’s been satirical, melodramatic, over the top, but with heart and eyes open to the Humboldt of the moment.

 “It is pure ‘theatre of place’, Dell’Arte style,” Fields said (off-camera). “I don’t know of another theatre that follows characters over decades with keen attention to the times, looking at it all through the lens of place.”

 Dell’Arte is offering a festival pass to any four shows plus some extra benefits. (707) 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

 Coming Up: Thursday (June 12) at Ferndale Repertory Theatre is an Actors Benefit performance of the ongoing production, The Dixie Swim Club by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Mamie Wooten. All proceeds on this night go to cast and crew. Otherwise the production continues Fridays and Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 2 through June 22. This comedy portrays four North Carolina reunions of five women who met as members of their college swim team and got together one weekend a year for 33 years. Directed by Leira V. Satlof, it features Marilyn McCormick, Marilyn Foote, Rae Robison, Dana Zurasky and Natasha White. Scenic design is by Ray Gutierrez, with costumes by Lynnie Horrigan. 786-5483, www.ferndalerep.org.

This North Coast Weekend

Members of Dell’Arte International School’s graduating class of 2014 present The Finals: an evening of ten minute plays as their final projects, Thursday through Saturday (May 29-31) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. Audience members are asked to make comments and give grades. (707) 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

The musical Les Miserables continues at North Coast Rep.  My review is in this week's North Coast Journal. 442-6278, www.ncrt.net.

Baritiones on the Barricades: Les Miz at NCRT

Note: This is my review that has not previously appeared here at Stage Matters.  I've inserted it where it would have gone at the time.

Les Miserables, the musical now on stage at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka, opened on Broadway with expensive grandeur. In his 1987 review New York Times critic Frank Rich noted the revolving stage and the prodigious lighting and stage effects that included tilting towers and a floor that peeled back “to create the illusion of a sprawling, multilayered Paris on the brink of upheaval.”

This is the show that dazzled audiences for more than 6,000 performances and led to the sumptuous 2012 Hollywood film version. North Coast Rep performs it on a stationary stage with a single abstract set. No props much bigger than tables and chairs get moved around to set the scenes. Yet this production is impressive and effective, as its focus rests almost entirely on performing the music and the story.

 The story is set in the early 19th century, based on the enormous novel by Victor Hugo, who was something of a French Charles Dickens. Hugo dramatized the lives of the poor and the effects of society’s injustice. He also reached a popular audience as Dickens did, with extreme and memorable characters, rich historical context, occasional horror and forthright sentimentality. These themes and qualities, if not all of the plot twists, are in the musical as well.

The NCRT production assembled a stellar cast. In a rare local stage appearance, Danny Stockwell exhibits a notable vocal range as Jean Valjean, the central character. Craig Benson is commanding as his antagonist, Inspector Javert. Greta Stockwell is a sympathetic Fantine, Nanette Voss-Herlihy a sparkling Cosette.
 As Cosette’s lover, Jordan Dobbins deftly manages his transformation from a love-struck student to a wiser and stronger young man.

 Perhaps accentuated by the lack of stage artifice, the central figures don’t dominate dramatically—the secondary characters have equally important moments. As the nefarious Thenardiers, Andrea Zvaleko and Tiggerbouncer Custudio provide darkly comic shenanigans. Luke Sikora has perhaps the most operatic singing part as the revolutionary leader Enjolras, which he performs with stirring effect. Some of the most thrilling vocal moments came from Jo Kuzelka as Eponine.

 They are only a few members of this skilled ensemble, with at least a half dozen actors and singers who’ve had principal roles in other local shows. A couple of relative newcomers exhibited precocious talent and the stage presence that can’t be taught: Sylvie Benson as young Cossette and Aiden Vergen as a confident, capering Gavroche.

 The efficiency of the production alone inspires admiration and the audience’s confidence. In three hours of almost non-stop music, the coordination between the unseen 10-piece orchestra backstage and the action and singers on stage was virtually flawless. The orchestra itself was excellent. Angela Galioto-Marquez on violin and Kira Weiss on cello in particular produced heightened moments as singular as any of the singers.  Under the direction of Elisabeth Harrington, the other players were Jonathan Webster, Levi Walls, Yuriah Lydon, Nicholas Durant, Leon Hamilton, Rebeca Ramos, Phil Sams, Melissa Gussin and Cody Forbes.

 The efficiency is also to the credit of director and stage designer Calder Johnson, and the quality of musical performance to music directors Harrington and Voss-Herlihy. With crisp diction, the singers made themselves understood.

 For the uninitiated, the music (by Claude-Michel Shonberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer) blends classical and modern influences (Bizet, Kurt Weill) with pop. I’ve heard it described as “cheesy in a good way.” Better than most 80s musicals, it has striking moments, and at worst it’s transparent and inoffensive.

 Stage limitations did have consequences. With few specific visual cues, it took awhile to figure out where some scenes were set. Relatively colorless costuming that made a meaningful point in the lavish original production contributed to making characters hard to identify from time to time in this one, especially as some actors played several roles. Without effects it lost some dramatic power, and the singing alone couldn’t always maintain the illusion—at times the battle scene seemed more like boys playing cowboys in the backyard.

 The lack of visual interest might also make the show seem longer. Serious devotees of this musical may notice that a few characters seem to have been cut or combined. But perhaps these necessities return the show to its roots. It began as a concept album and a concert presentation in France, before producer Cameron Mackintosh (Cats, Phantom of the Opera) and the Royal Shakespeare Company turned it into a London-to-Broadway extravaganza.

 The NCRT production brings this Les Miserables back to its essence and its origins, to the singers and the music. North Coast audiences may well be pleased, and proud. Rae Robison designed costumes, Telfer Reynolds the lighting, Elizabeth Holverson the make-up, Laura Rhinehart the properties. Keili Simmons Marble is assistant director, and Kira Gallaway the stage manager, with Tyler Elwell backstage.

This North Coast Weekend

The musical Les Miserables opens Thursday (May 22) at North Coast Repertory Theatre. Directed by Calder Johnson, with musical direction by Elisabeth Harrington and Nanette Voss-Herlihy, it features Dan Stockwell, Craig Benson, Jo Kuzelka, Greta Stockwell and Voss-Herlihy. 442-6278, www.ncrt.net.

 Aria da Capo by Edna St. Vincent Millay is performed by 12 Northcoast Preparatory Academy students directed by Jean Bazemore at the Arcata Playhouse on Monday May 26 at 8 p.m. It is a benefit for developing a theatre exchange program with a school in Japan where these students recently performed this play, on a trip to study Japanese theater in Kyoto and Tokyo. A $10 donation is suggested but not required.

The 2014 Dell'Arte International School Thesis Festival continues for its final week, Thursday through Saturday (May 22-24) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre at Dell’Arte in Blue Lake.  My review is in this week's NC Journal.  Appropriate for ages seven and up. 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

Thesis Festival: Lucy at Dell'Arte with Rope and Soup Bowl

Towards the end of their final year, Dell’Arte International School MFA candidates are asked, “what are you compelled by?” For 10 weeks they work in groups to create the pieces that answer that question, according to the school’s director Ronlin Foreman. Then they begin the process of developing these pieces in front of audiences in the yearly Thesis Festival, which is on the Carlo Theatre stage for its second and final weekend beginning Thursday May 22 [2014].

 There are three pieces in this year’s festival, but because of this ongoing process they may be markedly different this weekend than they were in the performances I saw on opening night.

 The stage was a billowing expanse of white fabric with what looks like a much-enlarged bowl from a genteel set of dinnerware in the center. In the bowl were three figures: Declan (Andrew Eldridge), Samantha (Allie Menzimer) and Frank (Emily Newton), the characters and cast of That Sinking Sensation: A Tragicomedy.

 Frank wears a dress but sounds like a man (so he needs lipstick to match his five o’clock shadow, Samantha suggests) and he tells jokes like a cigar-chomping vaudeville comedian. He opened with a nightmare about being inundated in tomato soup. Samantha is a Southern Gothic character whose monologues concerned sickness and death. Declan, outfitted as a bellhop or a classic hotel elevator operator, was silently in charge of the sight gags.

 These three characters “in the soup” combine physical comedy/vaudeville bits with the struggle to cope with existential confinement found in Samuel Beckett plays, or the work of the absurdist playwright Samantha named but dubiously identified as postmodern: Ionesco.

 Through the Seams by Jerome Yorke, Darci Fulcher and Billy Higgins, includes Dell’Arte alums Ruxy Cantir and Grace Booth in the cast. It presented some striking imagery (characters pulling or being pulled by long ropes) in an ambience of darkness and pain, but any narrative intent escaped me completely. Mood, makeup and movement were the abiding impressions.

 Apart from demonstrating physical theatre skills, these two pieces had the virtues of the experimental, confounding expectations while combining the allusive and the elusive. That Sinking Sensation had the additional advantage of being funny, so the narrative ambiguity was less imposing. They were works-in-progress, seeking definition as well as successful moments with that indelible edge of surprise.

 But between these two pieces on the program was ‘Night Mother: A Comedy, created by and featuring Ariel Lauryn and Lucy Shelby. It had the clear unfolding narrative of a play—and a hit play at that.

 Shelby plays Blanche, an actress apparently still living in her hometown whose major triumph is starring in commercials for a car insurance company. Lauryn is Stella, her friend from grade school who is a more conventionally successful actress in New York.

 Stella believes she’s been invited to Blanche’s apartment for a catching-up drink, but arrives to find that Blanche has organized a reading of Marsha Norman’s two-character drama, ‘night, Mother as a kind of audition.  In the audience are Stella’s producer and just about everyone they know in common from school days and beyond.  Their relationship, as flavored by their past involvement with these audience members, fuels a hilarious verbal and physical romp.

 Lucy Shelby is well-named—she has the comic energy of the 1950s TV Lucy, Lucille Ball. Her blond hair flying, she is the engine that pushes events further and further into madness and revelation. But her comedy also serves to create character and drive a story. Trembling with anticipation and her need to enact a fantasy of self-fulfillment, her cheerful frenzy reveals resentments and insecurities. Her attempts to escape the truths of her tangled past only result in her becoming tangled up in a costume on the floor.

 Stella is the reactive force, but Ariel Lauryn uses the subtleties of the straight man as well as understated acting skills to create a dimensional character. Her brittle calm and facade of charmed compliance turn more acerbic and then aggressive under pressure. As the outrageous and yet believable revelations mount up, the two reveal how intertwined their lives remain. That recognition resulted in an ending that, if not entirely happy, was at least ruefully exuberant.

 The 2014 Thesis Festival is performed Thursday through Saturday (May 22-24) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre at Dell’Arte in Blue Lake. Appropriate for ages seven and up. 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

This North Coast Weekend

Nothing new this weekend, but I Love You Because continues at Redwood Curtain, a co-production with Humboldt Light Opera Company.

A Happy Birthday to Michael Fields of Dell'Arte!

This North Coast Weekend

Dell'Arte School first-years present their original clown show, titled clownishly enough, Clown! Thursday through Saturday (May 1-3) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo.  This year's students come from Sweden, Greece, Zimbabwe, Iran, Georgia, Spain, Brazil, exotic Canada and the U.S. (707) 66-5663, www.dellarte.com.

It's the final weekend for the HSU Theatre, Film & Dance production of Playhouse Creatures , reviewed in the Mad River Union by Beti Trauth.  Last shows are Thursday-Saturday (May 1-3) at 7:30 p.m. with a matinee Sunday at 2, in Gist Hall Theatre. 826-3928, HSU Stage & Screen.

Continuing: the musical  I Love You Because at Redwood Curtain in a co-production with Humboldt Light Opera Company.  Busy Beti Trauth gives it a rave at Tri-City Weekly.   www.redwoodcurtain.com.

This North Coast Weekend

Ophelia, Lady Macbeth and all female characters in Shakespeare and English drama were played by males before King Charles II decreed in 1660 that henceforth they must be portrayed by actual women. Playhouse Creatures by contemporary British playwright April DeAngelis is about those first actresses, backstage as well as on stage.  Its Old Vic production was billed as a “tragic-comic burlesque.”

 An HSU production opens on Thursday (April 24) for a two-weekend run. Directed by Mark Swetz, it features Queena DeLany, Anna Duchi, Michelle Purnell, Ambar Cuevas, Vanessa Fragoso, Adrienne Ralsten, Giovanni Alva and Kyle Rispoli. Scenic and prop design are by Derek Lane, costumes by Kaden O’Keefe and lighting by James McHugh. Shows start at 7:30 p.m. in Gist Hall Theatre Thursdays through Saturdays, with a matinee on Sunday May 4 at 2 p.m. 826-3928, HSUStage.blogspot.com.

 The Dell’Arte School MFA Class of 2015 presents I Will Show You Fear in a Handful of Dust, their self-created exploration of tragedy, Thursday through Sunday (Apr. 24-27) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. Creator-performers are Hannah Gaff, Alyssa Hughlett, Christopher Kehoe, Sarah McKinney, Moses Norton, Kaitlen Osburn, Drew Pannebecker and Cooper Lee Smith. 707-668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

At the Arcata Playhouse on Saturday (Apr 26) Cirque du Shwazee presents a family-friendly comedy cabaret, in a benefit for the Arcata Playhouse Summer Youth Programs.  It all begins at 6:30 p.m. with local band Bandamonium and a circus midway for kids that includes face painting and a puppet show.  The main performance begins at 7:30, with aerialists, clowns and circus theatre acts, featuring Amy Tetzlaff as the giant rabbit, Guapo the Handsome One, and Cirque du Soleil clown Mooky Cornish.  822-1575, www.arcataplayhouse.org.

While strictly speaking not a stage event, Ferndale Rep opens its two weekend event Music From the Hart on Thursday.  The night-by-night lineup is here at Brown Paper Tickets.  If you asked me I would guess that, despite the success of Spamalot, this is the direction the Rep Board is taking, if indeed there is a direction.

I Love You Because, the HLOC musical at Redwood Curtain, continues Thursday through Saturday (until May 17).  See review directly below.

Imperfect Love

My review of I Love You Because at Redwood Curtain runs in this week's NC Journal with changes that I didn't see in time to respond to, and still don't agree with.  In particular, I didn't write the subhead, which lifts a line I wrote about the music and applies it to the show as a whole.  The other changes mostly shifted shades of meaning to other shades, or were less than precise.

So I'm posting the review here as I wrote it, without any of these changes(including the ones that improved it.)  I had a particularly hard time finding the words for one overall impression.  Though I think I finally came up with a decent way to say it, I'll take this opportunity to make it a critique note.  At the performance I attended (Friday preview) I never got the feeling that the appropriate characters were attracted to each other, sexually and otherwise (though of course they said so and sang so.)  The closest moment was the very last, in Sarah Mullen's eyes.  This is something that might have been peculiar to the energy of that performance (the night before opening night), or if it is true, there is plenty of time in the run to figure out if it is true (or just my delusion) and see if anything can be done about it.  Because it is something that on stage as in life can make a lot credible that otherwise isn't.

Imperfect Love
Twentysomething Musical at Redwood Curtain

Humboldt Light Opera Company typically mounts a big production in late summer and a smaller musical in spring, often staged at CR with accompaniment by a single pianist. Meanwhile Redwood Curtain, which tends to specialize in contemporary “relationship” comedies, occasionally does a small musical with that theme. A few years ago the two groups actually did the same show within months of each other (The Last Five Years.)

 So a partnership of sorts seemed natural, resulting in I Love You Because, the small musical about “relationships” now on stage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka. Directed by HLOC’s Carol Ryder and featuring a HLOC cast, it benefits from the intimacy of the small house, where it is possible to be practically sitting in the pianist’s lap.

 As to be expected from a HLOC production, the singing was strong and the direction was fluid and inventive. The comic acting met the high standards of both HLOC and Redwood Curtain. And then there’s the play.

 I Love You Because is a contemporary musical comedy about twentysomethings in New York City. Austin, a conservative greeting card writer (played by Craig Waldvogal) and Marcy, a free-spirited photographer (Sarah Mullen) are each facing the end of a “relationship.” Marcy’s mathematically inclined friend Diana (Amy Chalfant) counsels her on the correct number of months she should allow before getting serious about someone else. Austin’s buffoonish brother Jeff advises him to play the field. Shaelan Salas-Rich and Carl McGahan play the chorus of barkeep, waitress and barista.

 Austin and Marcy, Diana and Jeff meet cute, then wobble into sexual liasons until the end of the first act when all of them are breaking up and desolate. Guess what happens in the second act.

I Love You Because was written by Ryan Cunningham (book and lyrics) and Joshua Salzman (music), at least partly while they were students in New York University’s musical theatre graduate program. The play has the seams-showing quality of a thesis, layered with a lot of what’s euphemistically called “language.”

 The mostly upbeat music is dominated by the kind of wordy, wandering pop that’s become standard since early Alanis Morissette. It can express contemporary self-consciousness and emotion, while also exposing banalities. The lyrics like the script vary alarmingly from the witty to the moronic.

 Still, the score is mostly pleasant and has some variation, from do-wop to a couple of second act songs that might fit nicely into a 40s or 50s musical. And it has the proper mixture of solos, duets, quartets etc. likely learned from the NYU curriculum, that with this cast yield some transcendent musical moments.

There are funny bits in a formulaic script. The original producers billed it as a gender-switched version of Pride and Prejudice, but except for a few Austen puns and distant, incoherent echoes, the claim is so disingenuous as to be counterproductive. People who don’t really know Pride and Prejudice won’t care, while Austen devotees may be so offended that any chance of appreciating the evening on its merits is lost. If Jane herself got wind of this claim she’d likely be throwing up in her grave.

 The competitive and superficial frenzy of New York may well have spread among twentysomethings with the speed of Instagram. This potential audience, dealing with real emotion in their lives, may appreciate the musical’s observations and messages, especially about accepting imperfection. But a better script and more of a sense that the appropriate characters are actually attracted to each other might make this a convincing experience: more of a show than a tell.

 During scene changes, this production played vivid taped testimonies written by North Coast people about their actual love lives.

 Laura Welch is musical director and accompanist, Jayson Mohatt is scenic and lighting designer. I Love You Because is on stage at Redwood Curtain through May 17. This unusually long run is meant to compensate for the small number of seats, so reservations are highly recommended by management. 443-7688, www.redwoodcurtain.com.

This North Coast Weekend

Redwood Curtain and Humboldt Light Opera Company team up to produce the musical I Love You Because, with book and lyrics by Ryan Cunningham and music by Joshua Salzman.  It's directed by Carol Ryder and features Gino Bloomberg, Amy Chalfant, Carl McGahan, Hannah Mullen, Shaelan Salas Rich and Craig Waldvogel.  Previews are Thursday and Friday (April 17, 18) with official opening night on Saturday.  It's scheduled for a five week run but it's in the relatively tiny Redwood Curtain theatre, so reservations are highly recommended. www.redwoodcurtain.com, 443-7688.

At North Coast Rep, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Revised) [Abridged] concludes its run with shows on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

This North Coast Weekend

Closing out its Family Fun series, Arcata Playhouse hosts Santa Barbara's Boxtale Theatre Company with its production of The Odyssey Friday and Saturday  (April 12-13) at 7 p.m. plus a 2 p.m. show on Saturday.  Using physical theatre, masks, stilts, shadow puppets and live music, the show dramatizes the homeward voyage of Odysseus and his encounters with Poseidon, Athena, Zeus, the Cyclops, the Sirens, etc.  This is of course a family-friendly event (school classes will see it in addition to these public performances.)  (707) 822-1575, arcataplayhouse.org.

Dell’Arte presents a work-in-progress, Elisabeth’s Book, Friday and Saturday (April 12-13) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre.  (There will be no Thursday show for the public, as previously announced.)  This original piece uses movement, music and images to tell the story of three women who survive concentration camps and further trials after World War II. Based on a true story and conceived by Joan Schirle, it is a collaboration among performers Schirle, Laura Munoz and Ruxy Cantir, and director Alain Schons (a French designer/director and former director of the Dell’Arte School.) Audiences for this in-progress version will help shape Elisabeth’s Book for its official premiere at Dell’Arte in July. Tickets are pay-what-you-can. It is deemed not suitable for young children. (707) 668-5663 ext. 20. www.dellarte.com.

After the weekend, Dell'Arte also presents a one night reprise of Three Trees, the anti-militarist clown show created and performed by Lauren Wilson, Stephanie Thompson and Joe Krienke, on Tuesday April 15 at 8 p.m. in the Carlo.  It's a warm-up for a subsequent tour.  The Dell'Arte publicity quotes the North Coast Journal as describing it as "Alice in Wonderland meets Mother Courage."  I guess that was me.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] continues at North Coast Rep Friday and Saturday at 8 . Then on Sunday at 7 p.m., another film in "NCRT's Night at the Movies" series is screened: the classic 1950 Cyrano de Bergerac, with Jose Ferrer, directed by Michael Gordon.  It's free to season ticket holders and five bucks for everybody else.

Physical Reality, the HSU Dance Concert, completes its run Thursday-Saturday at 7:30 in the Van Duzer, with a matinee on Sunday at 2 p.m. Maia Cheli-Colando reviews it in this week's NCJ.  HSU Stage & Screen.  Tickets: 826-3928.

This North Coast Weekend

The annual HSU Dance show, this year entitled Physical Reality, opens tonight (April 3) at 7:30 in the Van Duzer Theatre.  It continues Friday and Saturday evenings, Thursday-Saturday next weekend, with a matinee on Sunday April 13 at 2 p.m.  Tickets: 826-3928.  Information: HSU Stage and Screen.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] continues at North Coast Rep.  My NCJ review includes the following sentences--see if you can spot the multiple puns. (Yeah, well I've got to have some fun.)

So the authors of this more recent revision had the benefit of hundreds of audiences to fine-tune a perfect laugh machine. If the highly lubricated opening night audience at North Coast Rep is any proof, it works.

Bardiculous

Each spring North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka produces a Shakespeare play. This spring it is producing all of them.

 That’s the premise of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised], now on stage at North Coast Rep: 37 Shakespeare plays reduced to a single show.

 That description suggests that there’s nothing but Shakespeare for its entire 90-plus minutes. But there’s so much else going on—including copious audience participation—that comic reductions of the plays are only part of the evening.

 There are three characters on stage, though they are given the names of the actors playing them. “Victor” (Victor Howard) is a phony Shakespeare expert (his certificate from Pre-Eminent Shakespeare Expert.com is Photoshopped.) “Anders” (Anders Carlson) is a loose cannon whose idea of drama is vomiting on the audience. “Gavin” (Gavin Lyall) is sort of the host and peacemaker, who just before intermission finds himself alone telling jokes while Victor chases after the rebellious Anders at the airport.

 They do get around to parodies of the plays, which depend more on performance than content: Romeo and Juliet, Titus Andronicus as a cooking show, Macbeth on the golf course and Othello as a rap (not the script’s best moment.) The histories become a football game, and due to their similarities, the comedies all become one play (“Four Weddings and a Transvestite.”)

The second act is devoted to Hamlet with elaborate audience involvement. Even with the required irreverence, the tone is generally more playful than disdainful.

 This show was first developed 27 years ago by Andrew Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield as the Reduced Shakespeare Company. That production alone ran in London for 9 years and there have been many productions since. So the authors of this more recent revision had the benefit of hundreds of audiences to fine-tune a perfect laugh machine.

If the highly lubricated opening night audience at North Coast Rep is any proof, it works. It requires that the cast be engaging, versatile and quick on their feet. Howard, Carlson and Lyall have that winning combination. There’s verbal humor but the show doesn’t focus on Shakespeare’s language—much of the fun is physical. With David Hamilton’s resourceful direction, this trio capers across Calder Johnson’s functional if indeterminate set (a theater backstage crossed with a child’s playroom perhaps), with forays into the audience.

 The idea of reducing Shakespeare for comic effect goes back even further than the first version of this play, especially in the UK. This show’s Hamlet is not far from Tom Stoppard’s 15-minute Hamlet in the early 1970s (except of course for the audience portraying Ophelia’s brain). Beyond the Fringe played with the language (“O saucy Worcester!”), as did later Peter Cook and Dudley Moore parodies, while Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie and once again Tom Stoppard (in Shakespeare in Love) applied aspects of contemporary show biz to the Bard’s plays for comic effect.

 It is true that, as advertised, audiences don’t need to know Shakespeare’s plays in detail to enjoy this show, while the experienced are given a few inside jokes. I especially enjoyed the parodies of acting out the lines with elaborate gestures that has become virulent in Shakespeare performances.

 But does this play make the Bard more accessible, also as advertised? Maybe, in at least one sense. The show seems to get its comic energy less from Shakespeare parody than Shakespeare anxiety—the sense that the Bard is remote and snooty. Release from expected solemnity and inferiority feelings may allow a more relaxed openness to the plays. (Yet it’s interesting that one of the evening’s memorable moments is Carlson reciting a classic Shakespeare speech straight.)

 The truth is that nobody understands or appreciates every line of every Shakespeare play. Revelations and bright moments of enjoyment are personal, though sometimes greatly helped by a remarkable performance or production. That’s one reason people keep producing these same plays and audiences keep going. Shakespeare’s plays are more popular now than ever. Although there won’t be one at NCRT this year.

 Megan Johnson designed the costumes, Calder Johnson the lighting, Pam Service organized the properties, and Howard Lang provided original music. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] continues weekends at NCRT through April 19. There is some bawdiness (though less than in many Shakespeare productions.) Junior high and older students should enjoy it, along with adults. 442-6278. www.ncrt.net.

This North Coast Weekend

Dell’Arte School first-years present 10 short melodramas of their own devising in An Evening of Melodrama, Thursday-Saturday March 20-22 at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. The 27 students involved come from 12 countries, including Iran, Georgia, Brazil, Greece, Puerto Rico, Zimbabwe, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Canada and Spain.  (Photo above is from a 2007 melodrama performance.)  707-668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

The Random People's Theater Project presents a community-based project, Night At The General: 10 vignettes set in a hospital.  It's performed at the Mateel Community Center Friday through Sunday (March 21-23) at 8 p.m. with an additional 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Monty Python's Spamalot continues at Ferndale Rep.  My review (with an update on Ferndale's future) is in this week's North Coast Papa Murphy's Pizza Journal.

The Love List continues at Redbud Theatre in Willow Creek Friday and Saturday .

Spamalot and Ferndale Update: It's the Brighter Side of Life

Typical Humboldt Theatergoer Ricky Plantagenet fondly recalls that as a young sprout helping Aunt Mary and Uncle John with the harvest, he and his buds amused themselves in the fields by reciting Monty Python and the Holy Grail word for word. Now semi-retired from selling plague insurance in Fortuna, Ricky has just seen the musical Monty Python’s Spamalot, currently on stage at Ferndale Repertory Theatre. “They got some bits from the movie exactly right,” he said, “but on other bits the director violated canon. She should be fired.” (He apparently meant the director, not the cannon.)

 However, Ricky’s wife Errata-Mae, who has never seen the movie but has heard of Broadway, said she loved the singing and dancing. They both reported laughing a lot.

 The musical does enact the movie’s most famous scenes though sometimes differently and out of order (the Black Knight doesn’t show up until the second act.) But that’s not the director’s fault—it’s the writer’s, Sir Eric of Idle (who appears to banter with King Arthur in this production.)

 Apart from its basic task of dismembering the legend of King Arthur and the Round Table, the play is true to the Pythonic spirit in seizing every opportunity to mock everything, including itself.

 Much of the musical (especially Act II) is a broad parody of Broadway musicals, from the classics like, well, Camelot, to the bombast of Phantom of the Opera. There’s the rude jokes and edgy satire of the Python troupe, as well as the wordplay inherited from earlier Oxford and Cambridge wits like the Beyond the Fringe boys (so the Lady of the Lake is accompanied by the Laker Girls.)

But even parodies of Broadway can deliver buoyant singing and dancing, and this production does. You can eat your satire and have the brighter side of life as well. There’s even a cute ending.

 A successful ensemble production requires the complete engagement of everyone on stage at every moment, and that commitment was evident at Ferndale even in a matinee performed hours after the show’s premiere. Let the irrepressible Brandi Lacy (Lady of the Lake) represent the singers and the electric Danielle Chicon symbolize the dancers (Did I hear a symbol crash?)

 Everyone has shining moments, notably Edward Olson (Arthur), Bobby Amirkhanian (Patsy), Anthony Mankins (Galahad), Tyler Egerer (Robin), and Dimitry Tokarsky and Brandon Day in various parts. To name but a few.

 The comic timing and expression are so universally fine that apart from individual talent, this must be among director Carol Esobar’s many accomplishments in this production. She makes full use of the big stage without it ever seeming too crowded, thanks also to the efficient set designed by Daniel Nyiri and Brittany Haynes. Beyond fully serving the show, Dianne Zuleger’s orchestra and Jenneveve Hood’s costumes are superior. The actors and special effects designer Daniel Lawrence pull off some very funny stage magic. Danielle Chichon’s choreography, Telfer Reynolds’ lighting, Howard Lang’s sound, and an army of others contributed to this impressively accomplished and high-spirited production.

 Monty Python’s Spamalot is onstage at Ferndale Rep weekends through April 6. Evening shows start at the earlier time of 7:30.

 And Now For Something Completely Different:  As for the future at Ferndale, new Ferndale Rep board president (and Spamalot producer) Greta Stockwell tells me that the rest of this season is set, and next season should be announced at the end of April.

 Beginning April 25, Ferndale Rep will host a performing arts festival for two weekends, called “Music From the Hart.” (Hart being the name of the Rep’s building.) Then opening on June 6 is the small-cast comedy The Dixie Swim Club, directed by Leira Satlof. The musical The Wedding Singer, directed by Brandi Lacy, opens July 25.

 In general, Stockwell says, the Rep wants their seasons to consist of three or four musicals and one or two straight plays. The board is running the organization at the moment, but will soon advertise for several permanent positions, including artistic director, technical director, office and house manager, and bookkeeper.

 “We have a tremendous group of volunteers who have been working tireless hours to keep our doors open in spite of the negativity that has surrounded the Rep as of late,” Stockwell said in an email. “We will continue to aim for theater that entices the community, engages artists and creates high production values. I, personally, want the Rep to be a fun and safe place for artists to work and play. And, of course, financial solvency is completely necessary. It has been a rough road, but I appreciate those that have stood by the theater in our recent times of trouble.”

 Coming Up: Dell’Arte School first-years present 10 short melodramas of their own devising in An Evening of Melodrama, Thursday-Saturday March 20-22 at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. 707-5663, www.dellarte.com.

 On Thurs. March 27 North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka opens The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield. Three actors perform drastically shortened and parodied versions of 37 Shakespeare plays. 442-6278, www.ncrt.net.

This North Coast Weekend

The HSU production of Spinning Into Butter ends its two-weekend run in Gist Hall Theatre Thursday (March 6) through Saturday at 7:30, with the final performance at 2 p.m. on Sunday.  It's been a long time since an HSU show has been reviewed, but there are two for this one: Beti Trauth in the Mad River Union  (a rave) and Kate Haley on the A&E blog of the North Coast Journal online.  After the Thursday performance there will be an audience discussion led by Ramona Bell from the HSU Department of Critical Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies.  826-3928, HSU Stage & Screen.

Also concluding its run this weekend is Making God Laugh at Redwood Curtain.  www.RedwoodCurtain.com.

Eureka High opens Little Shop of Horrors at 7:30 Thursday-Saturday.  441-1735, www.ehplayers.com.

The Redbud Theater in Willow Creek opens the Norm Foster comedy The Love List with a dinner show on Saturday March 8 (dinner at 6:45, play at 7:30.)  Performances continue the next two weekends, March 14-15, 21-22 at 7:30 p., with a Sunday matinee on March 16 at 2:30 p.m.  Tickets are available from Dream Quest.  The Love List, directed by Rick Stewart, features John Pinto, Richard Junkin and Libby Pinto.

Blanche and Blanchett

The Oscar for best performance by an actress was awarded to Kate Blanchett for her role in Blue Jasmine.  In her acceptance speech she thanked the theatre company she has been working with in Australia, and noted (here and elsewhere) that her stage training was essential for playing this role.

There's more than one reason for that.  While some critics mention its debt to A Streetcar Named Desire, the classic play by Tennessee Williams, they generally go on to quickly discuss the contemporary resonance after the high profile real estate swindles.  But this movie is almost scene for scene a reinterpretation of Streetcar, and Blanchett is very much Blanche Dubois.  It has been noted that Blanchett played that role on stage in Australia in 2008.

Blanchett as Blanche

The point of mentioning this is not to accuse anyone of anything untoward, but to note both the movie's debt to Williams' play and the fact that this cements the play's place as an authentic American myth.  I can think of only one other American play that has this mythic weight: Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. (They were first produced in New York within two years of each other.)  Miller's play has demonstrated its mythic status through a series of successful New York stage revivals and films, as well as productions in many other countries.  Now Williams' play has proven its mythic power by being powerfully adapted to different times and a different situation.

This North Coast Weekend

On Thursday at 7:30 in the Gist Hall Theatre, HSU opens Spinning Into Butter by Rebecca Gilman, directed by Cassandra Hesseltine.  Of Gilman, British drama critic Michael Billington wrote, “It is rare to find an American playwright dealing with ideas as well as emotions.” Gilman’s latest play, about a social worker deciding who gets custody of a drug addict’s baby, is currently in its premiere production at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. But Spinning Into Butter is the play that first made Gilman’s reputation.

At first with humor but then very directly, it tackles the twin themes of unconscious racial bias and political correctness on a college campus. After a highly successful premiere in 1999, it became the third most produced play across the U.S. through the following year. How pertinent it is today will probably be a subject of the discussion held after the play next Thursday (March 6.) led by Ramona Bell from the HSU Department of Critical Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Director Cassandra Hesseltine (actor, teacher, director for North Coast theatre and elsewhere) is currently Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commissioner. “Being half Mexican has given me certain experiences while being half white has given me others,” Hesseltine said. “I’ve drawn on both for this play.”

 The actors are Mary May, Giovanni Alva, Cody Miranda, Nadia Adame, Keith Brown, Galen Poulton and Indiana Steinkamp. Scenic design is by Jared Sorensen, lighting by Andrew Buderi, sound by Christopher Joe, makeup by Anna Duchi and Erin Henry. Spinning Into Butter is performed at HSU for two weekends: Thursdays-Saturdays Feb. 27-March 1, March 6-8 at 7:30 p.m., with a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. on March 9. 826-3928, HSUStage.blogspot.com.

At Dell’Arte, Ronlin Foreman brings back his acclaimed solo comedy Pigeon Show (A Play of Fools), February 27-March 1 at 8 p.m. in the Carlo.  Ronlin, a teacher at the Dell’Arte School, portrays five characters in a physical theatre presentation that’s been called amusing and disturbing.

“Foreman has brilliantly conceived and masterfully portrays five characters who play (some tragically) with themes of fear, anguish, and the uncertainties of being hysterical,” says Dell’Arte Founding Artistic Director Joan Schirle. “He’s been called an ‘Infectious Fool’, and ‘Inspired Lunatic’, and a ‘Clown Extraordinaire.’ This original piece of theatre by one of the most gifted performers of the generation of Movement Artists should not be missed.” Appropriate for all ages, but most suitable for adult audiences. (707) 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

The comedy Making God Laugh continues at Redwood Curtain.  Beti Trauth reviews it at Tri-City Weekly.

This North Coast Weekend

Dell’Arte School second years present their adaptation of Italo Calvino’s wonder tale, The Distance of the Moon Friday-Sunday, February 20-23 at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. “Appropriate for all ages, but most suitable for adult audiences.” This tale of a time when the earth and the moon were much closer is probably the most popular piece in Calvino’s Cosmicomics, a set of stories that form a sweetly fantastical alternative history of the universe. (707) 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

Making God Laugh continues at Redwood Curtain (see review and discussion below.)

Making God Laugh

My review of Redwood Curtain's current show, Making God Laugh, is in this week's North Coast Papa Murphy's Pizza Journal.  I wanted to get beyond the review headlines here, but first let's review the review, or actually, repeat it:

The structure of Making God Laugh, now onstage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka, is straightforward. A nuclear family of five is presented in four scenes: Thanksgiving 1980, Christmas 1990, New Year’s Eve becoming New Year’s 2000, and Easter 2010. It’s like Same Time Next Year, the family edition.

 With a crucifix on the wall, the Ten Commandments above the door and a statue of the Virgin Mary, it’s a very Catholic household. This adds some edge to the saying that one of the characters quotes, the title references, and the play illustrates: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” Variously attributed to Woody Allen and “Old Proverb,” it’s quoted in a number of sermons on the Internet counseling humility rather than questioning divine benevolence.

 In 1980 the three grown children have left the nest and are returning for the holiday. Maddie (Sasha Shay) is the misunderstood daughter, an aspiring actor continually belittled by her mother for not being thin enough to capture a husband. Richard (Rigel Schmitt) is the troubled son, the former high school football star, now tending bar, bathed in Brut and hair spray. Thomas (Luke Sikora) is the good son, studying for the priesthood but not taking himself too seriously.

 Ruthie (Teresa L. Desch) is the mother who wants everything about the holiday to be perfect (as she tells us repeatedly), and pushes her children to be her idea of perfect. Bill (Randy Wayne) is the quiet and affectionate dad, the peacemaker.

 Written by regional theatre journeyman playwright and actor Sean Grennan, the play often seems assembled from a “heartwarming comedy” kit, with predictable character twists and payoffs to every repeated theme. Both despite and because of that, it is frequently funny and delivers emotional moments, especially in the final scene. The humor is mostly gentle, especially in resurrecting illusions of the past (remember Y2K?) Though this comedy skates quickly over the surface of many contemporary issues, some profound and even tragic implications may linger. Still, if this were dinner theatre you probably wouldn’t need dessert.

 Desch and Wayne are solid and subtle as the parents, though I felt I’d seen them play these characters before. Redwood Curtain first-timers Schmitt, Shay and Sikora are appealing and mostly convincing, and they all handled their set-piece moments well. It’s efficiently directed by Kristen Mack, with a handsome set by Daniel C. Nyiri, lighting by Liz Uhazy, costumes by Marissa Menezes, sound by Mack and Tim Ward. Making God Laugh is onstage at Redwood Curtain weekends through March 8.

 Okay.  What more is there to say?  (And as odd as it seems to have to say this while reviewing a play, the following contains "spoilers.")

I saw this at first preview and the acting was a bit tentative.  I couldn't tell if some of the repetitions were in the play or blown lines.  However I extrapolated the next more polished performance.  Usually I go to the second preview of an RC show, but this time it was February 14, and nobody wants to see a critic on Valentines Day.

I hope I communicated my twin feelings about the play--that it is without much in the way of surprise or depth of treatment, yet it is admirable in what it does.  The structure is simple but beyond the surface, it's also pretty clever.

In this production at least, it's not really a realistic play.  Although it takes place over 30 years, only the five principals ever appear on stage.  By the end, two of the children have life partners, but they're not included.  No friends of anyone ever appear for the holidays.  Even more telling, the house--that is, the set--never changes in those 30 years.  The living room looks exactly the same, right down to the same books on the coffee table.  Symbolic certainly, but realistic, not very.

An additional tip-off might be the set's double front door.  It looks like the entrance to a church.  I don't think I've ever seen anything like that as the front door of a suburban house, at least before they started being the size of small cathedrals.

There's also the family itself.  The program calls this "a suburban living room in the United States."  So is this Every Family?  No, it's a Catholic family, and from repeated references to da Bears, it's probably in a Chicago suburb.  There are highly Catholic suburbs of Chicago, but they are also ethnically specific. That ethnicity makes a difference in how Catholicism is expressed.  But the ethnic dimension is ignored.

What about class? We learn that Bill (the father) works for the Post Office.  Without much more direct evidence, this seems a lower middle class household that depends on one steady salary and a probably decent union pension. (This as well as other features makes this seem more of a 1950s family, though the ages of the children suggest the oldest was born in the late 50s.)  But money is never discussed except in terms of one of the son's comically bad investments (which allow the audience to laugh because they know how those investments must have turned out.)

Even the device of a different holiday every ten years is artificial, sort of.  Why would they choose Thanksgiving one year, and Christmas another?  Maybe everybody is close enough geographically in 1980 to be there for both, and later it's the Christmas biggie that draws them?

New Years 2000 is inspired however, and not necessarily a reach.  The audience can laugh at the wonder over 8-track tapes, the choice of Enron stock over Google, etc.  But  many of us must know someone who was in panic over Y2K.  At this point it may be impolite to remind them.  This scene contributes some physical comedy as well, though it seemed a bit over the top in preview.  Maybe a bigger and more laughing audience helps it.

The play deals overtly and specifically with time, but at least in this production, only the mother and father visibly age.  Again, a kind of abstraction.

As for the plot, doesn't everybody guess from the beginning that the priest is not going to be a priest by the end, and that somebody is going to come out ? The only thing in this play I hadn't seen in another play is the portrayal of "happy dementia," although I read an account of it--by a playwright actually (Alan Bennett, in his autobiographical book about his mother,  A Life Like Other People's.)

 The mother's sweet present-centeredness in this scene is the device by which all the plot points and themes are resolved "in a sleep," though the appropriate speech from The Tempest is maybe too much.   Sasha Shay was so present and expressive in her role throughout,  but I'm not sure the direction served her well in this recitation.  It looked too contrived.

This scene takes place on Easter, the Catholic feast of the Resurrection, but it's not really Easter, so it's a false resurrection?  In any case it's spring, the season of hope, yet it's the ending.  If the playwright meant all that, this is possibly more profound than it seems.

So on the surface, the play is a long illustration of the quote, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans," and of this insubstantial pageant (though not really the seven ages.)  But within it, never really explored, are potential tragedies. Though I was never quite convinced that the mother was really a lesbian and simply repressed it, this could be a tragic fate.  The daughter's failure to have an acting career, one son's near-continuous failures in life.  The particular balances involved in figuring out whether these constitute tragic fates or just the vagaries of life are outside this play, but the fact that people may think about them, according to some, would make this a successful night of theatre.

This North Coast Weekend

Redwood Curtain opens Making God Laugh, a comedy by Sean Grennan this weekend.  Directed by Kristen Mack, it features Teresa Desch, Randy Wayne, Rigel Schmitt, Sasha Shay and Luke Sikora.  Previews are Thursday and Friday, with official opening and reception on Saturday February 15 at 8 p.m.

This is the final weekend for Oedipus the King and Women in Congress at North Coast Rep.  Last performance is Saturday.

This past week we lost two legendary performers.  Sid Caesar transformed vaudeville comedy for television in the 1950s, linking past and the future he helped to create.  He nurtured an equally influential set of writers, including Neil Simon, whose play about the Caesar team, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, was produced at North Coast Rep in 2012.   Here's the background on Sid Caesar I wrote at the time of that production.

Shirley Temple's reign as the shining child star of the Depression years is known today mostly by reputation, though the boomer generation will remember some of those movies on TV.  Some of her tap-dancing routines with the great Bill Robinson are preserved in video compilations like That's Dancing.  In her autobiography, she noted that when she held his hand after one of their dances, it was the first time a white female and a black male had touched on the silver screen.

As an adult, Shirley Temple produced a series of fairy tale films for television, including Babes in Toyland.  That production influenced the version that Dell'Arte performed this past Christmas.  As I noted, in her introduction to this show she seemed almost a parody of the sweet child she had worked hard to portray.  But in the show itself she was almost unrecognizable in her marvelous performance as a wicked witch.  There was more to Shirley Temple than the image.

May they rest in peace.  Their work lives on.

Contact Information

Those of you in the North Coast theatre community who want to email me about coming events or anything else concerning this blog or my North Coast Journal Stage Matters column, please use the following address: stage matters at sbc global dot net.  Don't use the stage matters at the NCJ address, as apparently emails addressed to me there are considered public property.

To clarify further: send your calendar announcements and press releases to the appropriate addresses at the Journal, and copy me at the address above.  For actual communication between you and me, use only that address.  I realize that it is a reasonable assumption that because I write the Stage Matters column published in the Journal, that I work there.  I don't.  In fact I've never actually been to their Eureka offices.

This North Coast Weekend

Dell’Arte School first years present Charivari!, a bawdy and boisterous commedia dell’arte show on Thursday Feb. 6 through Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. May not be suitable for children. Tickets are pay-what-you-can. 707 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

Oedipus and Women in Congress continue at North Coast Rep.

Speaking of Dell'Arte, congrats on receiving a grant from the Theatre Communications Group to further an international collaboration with French designer/director Alain Schons.  The grant will support development of Elisabeth's Book, a new work by Joan Schirle in collaboration with Laura Munoz and Schons.  It's about three Hungarian women enslaved in a German munitions factory in 1944.  After some work-in-progress showings in April, the work will premiere at the Mad River Festival in July.  Schons was a North Coast resident in the late 70s and early 80s and served as director of the Dell'Arte School.  He will direct Elisabeth's Book.

In other North Coast stage news, Beti Trauth reports that Greta Stockwell has been elected president of the Ferndale Rep Board of Directors.

On the auditions front, this from Humboldt Light Opera Company:

"Auditions for HLOC's Thoroughly Modern Millie will be held on Saturday, February 15 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the sanctuary of the Arcata United Methodist Church (1761 11th Street). Auditionees should prepare a song, and bring sheet music for the accompanist. Visit hloc.org to register for an audition slot, and for detailed information on available parts. Thoroughly Modern Millie is based on the film of the same name, and features music by Shrek composer Jeanine Tesori. The show will be held for three weekends, August 1-16, at the HSU Van Duzer Theatre. Questions? Email info@hloc.org."