Pick! ASR Theater ~~ Berkeley Rep’s Astounding, Confounding “Bulrusher”

By Barry Willis

Magical realism, a small-town soap opera, and the need for identity all combine in Eisa Davis’ Pulitzer Prize-finalist Bulrusher, at Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre through Dec. 3. Davis also composed the show’s original music.

Directed by Nicole A. Watson, Jordan Tyson stars as the show’s eponymous “Bulrusher,” a mixed-race foundling so named because she was discovered as an infant floating in the bulrushes of the Navarro River near the Northern California town of Boonville. Raised by a single male schoolteacher named Schoolch (Jamie LaVerdiere), she’s been gifted with magical clairvoyant powers. Bulrusher can see images of the future through the medium of water.

…There’s enough material in Davis’ story to supply a year’s worth of Lifetime TV episodes…

Most of the tale plays out on an elaborate two-level set by Lawrence E. Moten III, elaborated by superb projections by Katherine Freer and lighting by Sherrice Mojgani. The central locale is a brothel operated by hard-to-the-core Madame (Shyla Lefner) and patronized by Schoolch and a local handyman named Logger (Jeorge Bennett Watson).

Jeorge Bennett Watson (Logger), Shyla Lefner (Madame), Jamie LaVerdiere (Schoolch), and Rob Kellogg (Boy) in Eisa Davis’ lyrical coming-of-age story, “Bulrusher”, performing at Berkeley Rep October 27 – December 3, 2023. Photo Credit: T Charles Erickson

Another frequent visitor is a guitar-playing young man called Boy (Rob Kellogg) who relentlessly pursues Bulrusher despite her aggressive disinterest. Out front of the stage is a small but convincingly realistic stream that serves as the river,  visited often by Bulrusher as a source of solace.

The playbill states the era as 1955—those who haven’t read it would more likely have pegged the time as twenty years earlier. The residents sometimes default to a local dialect called “Boontling,” developed in the 1880s and now almost extinct. It sounds like English but doesn’t register with non-speakers: “harping the ling” means “speaking the language” in Boontling. The only clue to the timeframe is an offhand comment by Boy to Logger that he “missed the Korean draft.” Otherwise we wouldn’t know.

Cyndii Johnson (Vera), Jeorge Bennett Watson (Logger), and Jordan Tyson (Bulrusher) at work in “Bulrusher”. Photo Credit: T Charles Erickson

The home-schooled Bulrusher earns a decent living buying and selling fruit. One rainy night she encounters a lone woman on the road, gives her a ride, and a place to stay. The woman is Vera (Cyndii Johnson), broke and far from her home in Birmingham, Alabama. On orders from her mother, she’s on her way to visit her uncle Logger. Vera is the first black woman Bulrusher has ever encountered, and the two become fast friends. The development of their friendship is among the play’s many endearing subplots. Another less endearing is Madame’s constant threat to sell her property and move away. A third that continually runs in the background is the mysterious identity of Bulrusher’s parents.

Rob Kellogg (Boy) and Jordan Tyson (Bulrusher) in Eisa Davis’ “Bulrusher”, at Berkeley Rep Oct 27 – Dec 3, 2023. Photo Credit: T Charles Erickson

It’s a complicated task for the show’s all-Equity cast, but they rise to the challenge most compellingly. Tyson is especially astounding, with several long monologs that are gorgeous sustained poems. Her interactions with Johnson, LaVerdierre, and Watson are all tremendous. Her closing confrontation with Lefner as Madame unveils the unspoken secret propelling the whole story.

There’s enough material in Davis’ story to supply a year’s worth of Lifetime TV episodes. At nearly three hours, the script at times feels over-long and in need of an edit, but who would know where to start on a project of that scale? Even so, it’s a tremendous night at the theater—a heartfelt celebration of one spunky girl who finds home at last.

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ASR NorCal Executive Editor Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: barry.m.willis@gmail.com.

 

ProductionBushrunner
Written by Eisa Davis
Directed by Nicole A. Watson
Producing CompanyBerkeley Repertory Theatre
Production DatesThru Dec 3rd
Production Address2025 Addison Street, Berkeley CA 94704
Websitewww.berkeleyrep.org
Telephone(510) 847-2949
Tickets$22.50-$134
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall4.5/5
Performance4.5/5
Script4.0/5
Stagecraft4.0/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?YES!

PICK! ASR Theater ~~ “Cambodian Rock Band” a Must-See at Berkeley Rep

By Barry Willis

Human history is an appalling parade of atrocities. Warfare is among the worst recurring nightmares, but perhaps even worse are purges within one nationality or ethnicity when large swaths of the population are swept up in an insane movement to create a new society.

That’s exactly what happened in Cambodia in the mid-to-late 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge took over the country, hell-bent on eliminating the past, to such an extent that they called the date of their takeover “Year Zero.” And as always happens when zealots gain control, they rounded up Cambodian intellectuals, academics, trained professionals, artists, and musicians with the intent of eliminating them.

Inspired by the communist takeover of Indonesia in 1965 and the Chinese cultural revolution—the “Great Leap Forward”—the zealotry of the Khmer Rouge was so extreme that anyone with knowledge of a foreign language, or even wearing eyeglasses, was suspected of being a subversive and a class enemy. Approximately 25% of Cambodian’s population perished in what was called the “Super Great Leap Forward”—a genocide perpetuated by their own countrymen.

…superb actors, dancers, and musicians—a stunning assortment of stage talents…

That’s the background of Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band at Berkeley Repertory Theatre through April 2. The interlocking core stories include a musician named Chum (Joseph Ngo) held in the notorious S-21 prison—really an extermination center where of approximately 20,000 prisoners, only seven or eight survived—and his return in 2008 to see his American daughter Neary (Geena Quintos), there working with a multi-national investigative group. There are also tangential references to ethnic animosities among Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Thai people.

The depiction of life in S-21 is lengthy and grim (set by Takeshi Kata) but book-ended by upbeat rock music, much of it derived from L.A. band Dengue Fever. The show opens in the mid 1970s with Chum’s band finishing their first album in a studio in the capital city of Phnom Penh, an effort that runs so late that they can’t escape approaching Khmer Rouge troops.

The band at work in “Cambodian Rock Band” at Berkeley Rep. Photo: Berkeley Rep.

It closes with a rousing performance in the present by the same band—Ngo on guitar, Moses Villarama on bass, Jane Lui on keyboard and backing vocals, Geena Quintos on lead vocals, and Abraham Kim on drums.

They’re all superb actors, dancers, and musicians—a stunning assortment of stage talents. Prolific actor Francis Jue is outstanding as the MC, narrator, hyper-kinetic lead performer, and as the despicable head of S-21.

Francis Jue at work at Berkeley Rep. Photo: Berkeley Rep

The net effect for an audience is that Cambodian Rock Band is a sugar-coated historical horror story—the sugar coating being the opening and closing rock performances that help viewers forget their immersion in misery. Yee’s beautifully conceived and realized message is that art and music have power to transcend savagery.

We can only hope.

There’s widespread belief that Cambodian Rock Band originated at Berkeley Rep. In fact, the show has been performed many times over the past four years. Ngo and Villarama have performed in several productions. The set at the Roda Theatre was built at Berkeley Rep and will travel when the show goes on tour. However that plays out, Cambodian Rock Band is a fantastic spectacle and one of the most compelling productions so far this year.

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Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: barry.m.willis@gmail.com

 

 

ProductionCambodian Rock Band
Written by
Lauren Yee
Directed byChay Yew
Producing CompanyBerkeley Repertory Theatre
Production DatesThrough Apr 2nd, 2023
Production Address2025 Addison Street, Berkeley CA 94704
Websitewww.berkeleyrep.org
Telephone(510) 647-2900
Tickets$49 - $123
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall4/5
Performance4/5
Script4/5
Stagecraft4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?YES!

PICK! ASR Theater ~~ “Clyde’s” a Rambunctious, Enlightening Ride at Berkeley Rep

By Barry Willis

Four parolees do their best to thrive under an oppressive boss in Clyde’s, at Berkeley Rep through February 26.

Or at least, we believe they’re parolees—that bit of info is never made clear in Lynn Nottage’s brilliant scathing comedy. They’ve all done time behind bars, and they’re determined not to go back. They’re also determined to keep their low-wage jobs in the kitchen of a roadside diner, knowing how limited are employment opportunities for ex-cons.

Their boss knows that too.

A former convict herself, Clyde (April Nixon) lords it over her workers, making sure at every turn that they understand how tenuous their situation is. A voluptuous, wise-cracking beauty, Clyde appears at random at the kitchen’s pickup window or waltzes in unannounced to strike fear in the hearts of her underlings, in each scene sporting a wig more glamorous than the last and strutting her stuff in dazzling apparel. (Wigs by Megan Ellis, costumes by Karen Perry.)

…an incredibly uplifting and uproarious tale about hope…

Clyde is a malicious force of nature, the perfect blend of wicked witch and evil stepmother. Nixon clearly relishes her astounding role, one hugely appreciated by a full house at Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre during the Wednesday Jan. 25 press opener.

Louis Reyes McWilliams as Jason and April Nixon as Clyde in Lynn Nottage’s Tony Award-nominated play Clyde’s at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
Photo by Kevin Berne/Berkeley Repertory Theatre

But Nixon’s not the only astounding member of this well-balanced cast. Three of them are thirty-somethings whose characters are serious about improving their lives and staying out of trouble. We don’t learn what Raphael (Wesley Guimaraes) or Letticia (Cyndii Johnson) did to land in jail, but new worker Jason confesses that he was convicted of assault after losing a union manufacturing job to “scabs.” To Letticia’s inquiry about the gang tattoos on his arms, face, and neck, he replies “I was trying to survive.”

The fourth member of Clyde’s kitchen crew is line cook Montrellous (Harold Surratt) an older gentleman with a sadhu’s demeanor. The anchor character in this quick-moving story, he’s very much the embodiment of an Old Testament prophet, bringing wisdom and enlightenment to a younger generation, the focus being his quest to create the perfect sandwich.

April Nixon as Clyde and Harold Surratt as Montrellous in Lynn Nottage’s Tony Award-nominated play Clyde’s at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
Photo by Kevin Berne/Berkeley Repertory Theatre

The quest for the perfect sandwich, in fact, becomes both a metaphor for the kitchen workers to improve their lives and their self-esteem, and a competitive sport they undertake to impress each other and perhaps, their mean-to-the-core boss.

A subplot involves Raphael’s infatuation with Letticia, one that goes nowhere, despite his offers of flowers and chocolates and date invitations. It would be unfair to give away much of the bright (and dark) comedy in this lovely production, but a heartbreaking moment occurs when Montrellous confesses that he went to prison not for a crime he committed but for a moment of altruism. The embodiment of gravitas, Surratt is brilliant in the role.

Louis Reyes McWilliams as Jason and Cyndii Johnson as Letitia in Lynn Nottage’s Tony Award-nominated play Clyde’s at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
Photo by Kevin Berne/Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Director Taylor Reynolds gets fabulous performances from her entire cast on designer Wilson Chin’s hyper-real set.

Lynn Nottage is on her way to becoming a national treasure. She has a wonderful ear and eye for the woes of the underclass, and a fantastic ability to mine deep emotional conflicts in her characters. In her poignant Intimate Apparel, set a century ago, a young black seamstress falls in love with a Jewish fabric merchant, an attraction he feels equally but which they both know is hopeless.

There’s deep truth in this production too, but no doom in Clyde’s. In fact, it’s an incredibly uplifting and uproarious tale about hope in the face of hopelessness. As Julie Andrews put it so succinctly in Mary Poppins — a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

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Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: barry.m.willis@gmail.com

 

 

ProductionClyde's
Written by Lynn Nottage
Directed by Taylor Reynolds
Producing CompanyBerkeley Repertory Theatre
Production DatesThrough Feb 26th
Production Address2025 Addison Street, Berkeley CA 94704
Websitewww.berkeleyrep.org
Telephone(510) 847-2949
Tickets$30 - $135
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall4/5
Performance4/5
Script4/5
Stagecraft4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?YES!

PICK! ASR Theater ~~ Compelling, Controversial “Wuthering Heights” at Berkeley Rep

By George Maguire and Barry Willis

Writer/director Emma Rice has deconstructed one of the most beloved English novels of the 19th century and has remade it into a pop-rock extravaganza, delighting some critics and outraging others. Her Wuthering Heights runs at Berkeley Repertory Theatre through January 1, 2023.

Traditionalists expecting a stage production of the dark 1939 film starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier are likely to be disappointed. This frenetic, high-energy show is geared to a younger generation with a different aesthetic, but it can work equally well for those not necessarily tethered to the past. Innumerable classic stories have been reinvented for the sake of stage and screen entertainment. There’s certainly no reason why Wuthering Heights shouldn’t suffer the same fate, just as Hamlet can be reinterpreted as a modern business drama, or Romeo and Juliet reconfigured as a rock opera.

…The movement work in this show is inspiring. So is (the) mining of humor…

Controversy swirled at Berkeley Rep’s November 22 press opener. Some critics raved to their colleagues about Rice’s stunning production while others dismissed it as an abomination. ASR’s George Maguire and Barry Willis comment here:

BW: This is an amazing, dynamic production with multi-threat performers who can act, dance, do gymnastics, and in some cases, play instruments. Especially impressive are Jordan Laviniere, who plays the leader of the Yorkshire Moors, and Leah Brotherhead as Catherine. She’s also a great rock singer. TJ Holmes, who plays Dr. Kenneth, performs on cello and accordion when he’s not stage center. He’s a delightful comic actor, one of a cast of eleven, most of whom tackle multiple roles. Theatrical talent is everywhere in this show but the multi-casting can cause confusion among viewers because most of the characters are cousins with similar names.

GM: Yeah, Barry! It is a fairly faithful adaptation of Emily Bronte’s novel, and if you can stop conflating the story with her sister Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, you’re a winner. The story itself is weighted down with so many generations of relationships, and births and deaths, with eleven actors playing all the roles. It’s often highly confusing.

Leah Brotherhead as Catherine and Liam Tamne as Heathcliff in the West Coast premiere of Wise Children’s “Wuthering Heights” at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Photo by Kevin Berne.

BW: I’m no Bronte expert, but it looks to me like Emma Rice has adhered to the original plot, but uses story elements and characters to create something entirely new. I’m generally approving of prequels, sequels, and reinterpretations of classic stories — with the exception of Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma!, a real horror show.

Rice’s Wuthering Heights isn’t really the Bronte classic. I attended with my friend Marcia Tanner, an art curator with a degree in English Literature from UC Berkeley. She quipped: “It’s misleading to title this show Wuthering Heights . . . it should be Something Based on Wuthering Heights.” That’s a fair assessment.

GM: My biggest challenge was not hearing the play (technically, a musical), but frankly, it was not understanding what the cast was saying and singing.

BW: That was a problem for many in the audience, I believe. Thick Yorkshire accents were tough enough to understand during dialog, and impossible to decipher during the show’s many songs. I loved the music but couldn’t tell you what any of the songs are about. Marcia astutely observed, “They need superscripts.” The only words that appear on the large backdrop are a few lines from the novel.

GM: Etta Murfitt’s choreography is wonderful and eclectic, ranging from almost hoe-down, to Irish jig, to nonspecific elegance. A lovely and diverse musical score by Ian Ross keeps the play moving. The casting of eleven very accomplished members of the Wise Children’s troupe was a joy, as was watching them effortlessly morph into the manifold characters in the novel. Heathcliff (Liam Tamne, of multi-national background) is particularly inspired casting, making the orphan Heathcliff the dark, brooding, and very sexy creature he was — unlike anyone else in the Yorkshire moors.

BW: I was knocked out by the performers and the quick-moving stagecraft, especially the rolling doors-and-windows pieces that transformed into beds and other devices. The books-on-sticks-as-fluttering-birds bit is brilliant low-cost theatricality. So are the chalkboards that serve as erasable tombstones.

GM: The movement work in this show is inspiring. So is Rice’s mining of humor — she finds comedic potential in many of Bronte’s situations, something that to my knowledge has never been done. But this Wuthering Heights is no spoof — it’s an inspired reinterpretation.

BW: Was the love affair between Heathcliff and his adoptive sister Catherine considered scandalous when the novel was published? It might be seen as close to incest today even though the two were not biologically related. Save Dr. Kenneth and the narrator Mr. Lockwood, almost all the other characters in the production are cousins, nothing unusual in an isolated community.

Jordan Laviniere as the Leader of the Yorkshire Moors; Eleanor Sutton, Katy Ellis, Tama Phethean, Stephanie Elstob, and Ricardo Castro as The Moors in the West Coast premiere of Wise Children’s “Wuthering Heights” now showing at Berkeley Rep. Photo by Kevin Berne.

GM: A community that’s cold, damp, and dark! Rice and set designer Vicki Mortimer went over the top portraying that.

BW: I had no expectations about this show, and was delighted — especially by the incredibly dynamic first act.

My only prior exposure was reading the novel in ninth grade — required reading — and having watched the movie at some point not long after that on late-night TV. The subject matter wasn’t something that resonated for me and wasn’t anything I cared to revisit.

I have difficulty relating to the social structure and morality of the time, which makes playwrights like Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekov, and their contemporaries something of a slog for me. I never liked G. B. Shaw until I saw Major Barbara, but I hope to live a thousand years without enduring another Mrs. Warren’s Profession.

But I understand the appeal of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, especially for women. In their time, the only path to a better life was through choosing the right marriage partner. Mothers often bled to death after childbirth. Infant and childhood mortality were rampant, from conditions easily treated today. This whole pathetic milieu is background for Wuthering Heights, but Emma Rice makes it entertaining and enjoyable..

GM: In all, this Wuthering Heights is a truly nifty addition to the repertoire of Wise Children, a new theatre company founded by Ms. Rice, whose group brought The Wild Bride to life at Berkeley Rep a few years ago. Imaginative, enthralling and chillingly-thrillingly theater.

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ASR Contributing Writer George Maguire is a San Francisco-based actor-director and is Professor Emeritus of Solano College Theatre. He is a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: gmaguire1204@yahoo.com

 

ASR NorCal Executive Editor Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: barry.m.willis@gmail.com

 

ProductionWuthering Heights
Written by Emily Bronte
Adapted by Emma Rice
Directed by Emma Rice
Choreographed by Etta Murfitt
Saheem Ali (Conceiver/Director)
Producing CompanyWise Children / Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Production DatesThrough January 1, 2023
Production Address2025 Addison Street, Berkeley CA 94704
Websitewww.berkeleyrep.org
Telephone(510) 847-2949
Tickets$24 - $119
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall4/5
Performance5/5
Script4/5
Stagecraft4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?YES!

PICK! ASR Theater ~~ Waves of Racial Justice at Berkeley Rep

By George Maguire

There are theater pieces which resonate in such a profound place deep within the psyche that you are dwelling in your life’s past, contemplating the present, and hoping for the future.

Christina Anderson’s “The Ripple, The Wave That Carried Me Home” is just that for this writer. In it, segregated swimming pools become a touchstone for black families not allowed to swim in “whites only” pools. This memory play of a black woman spans the years 1956 in Kansas, to 1992 Ohio, and again Kansas, as Christina Clark’s Janice wrestles with a decision to return to Kansas to speak at a community center ceremony honoring her activist father.

…See this play and then look inside yourselves.

I’m an east coast boy, born and raised in the 1950s in Wilmington, Delaware and later Pittsburgh, PA. As a child and as a teenager, I knew no black families, and indeed at the Catholic grade school and high school I attended, there were no black students at all. Only when we moved to Pittsburgh for my final 12th grade, did I meet any black students, and even those were mostly bused to school from another area of town. Four years later, post university (where again I recall only one black student), I returned to my high school to teach. Much had changed. Black and Latino families were moving into the community, and their children became active participants in the school curriculum. Penn Hills, PA became a melting pot.

Memories of missed connections in retrospect created a post-show train of thought as I went home after the Berkeley Rep production, directed with precision and grand compassion by Jackson Gay.

This remarkable play opens with Janice (our narrator Christiana Clark) drinking a glass of water. She does so every day, reminding herself of the water of the pools which transformed her life. Her mother (a richly multi-faceted performance by Aneisa J. Hicks) taught swimming to black children at the black swimming pool in Brookside Center. Janice’s father (a swaggering and charm-filled Ronald L. Conner) eventually goes on trial for activism in promoting change.

(l to r) Aneisa J. Hicks (Helen), Brianna Buckley (Gayle), and Christiana Clark (Janice) in the world premiere production of Christina Anderson’s the ripple, the wave that carried me home. Directed by Jackson Gay. In association with Goodman Theatre.
Photo by Kevin Berne.

The “young chipper ambitious black woman,” played to absolute perfection by Brianna Buckley, wants Janice to speak at the dedication to her father of the new swim center’s pool. Circling all of this is the simultaneous Rodney King uprising and the death by drowning of three boys.

So many colossal matters of change in the lives of all Americans surround this period with pain, guilt—and eventual breath—making Tony nominee Christina Anderson’s play harrowing and heart wrenching. Change can happen, change MUST happen, and indeed, change has happened. The question is always: Is it enough, or is it never enough? No, it is not!

See this play and then look inside yourselves. The answers are always there waiting to be revealed.

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ASR Contributing Writer George Maguire is a San Francisco base actor-director and is Professor Emeritus of Solano College Theatre. He is a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: gmaguire1204@yahoo.com

 

ProductionThe Ripple, The Wave That Carried Me Home
Written by / Music & Lyrics by /
Choreography by
Christina Anderson
Directed byJackson Gay
Producing CompanyBerkeley Repertory Theatre
Production DatesThrough Oct 16th, 2022
Production Address2025 Addison Street, Berkeley CA 94704
Websitewww.berkeleyrep.org
Telephone(510) 647-2900
Tickets$24 - $70
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall4/5
Performance4/5
Script4/5
Stagecraft4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?YES!