San Francisco Playhouse brings the house down — literally and figuratively — with the hilarious comedy The Play That Goes Wrong.
Henry Lewis, Henry Shields, and Jonathan Sayer wrote this award-winning farce for the London stage before transferring to Broadway. Kudos to Director Susi Damilano for lending her sharp talents for comedy to this fast-paced farce.
Actors (l to r: Joe Ayers, Phil Wong, Renee Rogoff, Patrick Russell) try to keep the show on track in “The Play That Goes Wrong.” Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
The Play That Goes Wrong cleverly starts even before the lights go up with pre-show hijinks of an usher handing out incorrect programs to the audience. Offstage, the sound and tech guy (Tasi Alabastro) forgets to turn off his mike, and the stage manager (Renee Rogoff) tries to remedy faulty scenery before the curtain goes up. No such luck.
“ … Don’t miss this three-ring circus of comedic chaos …”
When the show-within-a-show actually begins, it’s an impressive setting for The Murder at the Haversham Manor, produced by a dedicated theatre troupe. The laughs tumble over one another when doors don’t open, props are misplaced, something falls off a wall, and a corpse can’t lie still when his hand is accidentally stepped on. Still, the amateur actors bravely soldier on, hoping to fulfill their roles and pull off a successful performance.
Jonathan (Adam Griffith) watches as Robert (Patrick Russell) and Chris (Phil Wong) lose footing in “The Play That Goes Wrong,” presented by SF Playhouse thru Nov 9th. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
This troupe’s “Who done it?” mystery has the requisite characters: a murdered fiancé (Adam Griffith), his grandstanding brother (Joe Ayers), a drama queen fiancée (Erin Rose Solorio), her take-charge brother (Patrick Russell) and of course, the obsequious butler (Greg Ayers.) The final arrival is the hapless inspector (Phil Wong), who tries to put it all together. Each actor is so good at their roles that they make it easy to appear inept amidst the frantic antics.
The cast (l to r: Greg Ayers, Erin Rose Solorio, Adam Griffith, Renee Rogoff) devolves into chaos in “The Play That Goes Wrong,” in The City thru Nov. 9th. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
Comedy is a highly skilled talent, and in The Play That Goes Wrong, everything goes absolutely right for the laughs. Don’t miss this three-ring circus of chaos, playing Tuesdays through Sundays through November 9, 2024. If this production has a credo, it should be “The show must go on!”
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ASR Writer & Editor Cari Lynn Pace is a voting member of SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and writes theatre and lifestyle reviews for the Marinscope Community Newspapers throughout Marin County. Contact: pace-koch@comcast.net
San Francisco Playhouse has a tradition of selecting and producing one classic musical blockbuster and running it all summer long. It’s a great gambit that takes advantage of tourist traffic in the Union Square neighborhood — and is a strategy other theaters might follow to their advantage.
This year’s offering is the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice phenomenon Evita, running at 450 Post Street through September 7th. Several ASR contributors were at the July 3 opener. We’ve collected their comments here to offer diverse viewpoints rather than running a singular review. Enjoy!
“… It should enjoy a successful run …”
The production overall: Cari Lynn Pace: Evita begins with her funeral and ends with her casket surrounded by wailing mourners. In between, an homage to an ambitious woman driven by her unquenching thirst for power and adoration.
Susan Dunn: A difficult musical to fully embrace, but delivered with style, talent, and pizzazz for an exciting and compelling evening.
Barry Willis: First things first: the show is beautifully produced, no question about that. And its historical aspect is really intriguing.
But, the music (well performed by Dave Dobrusky’s backstage orchestra) is bombastic, repetitive, and atonal. Evita was the precursor to other atonal musicals, such as Next to Normal. Other than “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina,” one has, in this reviewer’s opinion, to search for another memorable song in the entire show. It didn’t make me want to rush out and buy the soundtrack recording.
Jeff Dunn: It’s very engaging, especially because of the pacing, artistic commitment, and Nicole Helfer’s choreography.
Staging and set design: SD: Clever use of lights, movable sets, rotating floor, and projections transform a black box into the saga of an iconic figure. A critical moment occurs with all lights down when we just hear the roar and surge of the crowds reacting to their icon.
BW: SF Playhouse has long leveraged its big turntable stage for dramatic effects, especially with huge imposing sets by Nina Ball or Bill English. In this one, set designer Heather Kenyon opts for a more austere presentation, with roll-around scaffolds serving as set pieces, backed by black-and-white projections that give the show an early-1950s feel. It works very well with the mid-century costumes.
JD: Minimalist staging goes with the abstract nature of much of the show, and allows for quick changes.
CLP: Clever use of minimal stage settings allows the narrator Che to pop in and out, propelling the story line. The onstage news photographer lends credibility to the action, especially as Evita’s casket begins its mysterious 17-year disappearance.
Sophia Alawai as “Evita” at SF playhouse. Photo: Jessica Palopoli
Performance: SD: Alex Rodriguez as Che and Sophia Alawai as Evita deliver non-stop power, superb vocals and sympathetic portrayals. The ensemble mutates appropriately from peasantry to Argentinean high society. Nicole Helfer’s choreography shows variety and polish.
JD: Alex Rodriguez is outstanding as narrator Che. Sophia Alawi, a superbly sweet Maria in Hillbarn’s Sound of Music last year, seemed to this reviewer to perhaps be a bit light for Evita. She’s wonderfully expressive, but has trouble with many of the high notes that Mr. Webber forces on the character. Ensemble is excellent. The orchestra is energetic but, perhaps, a bit unsubtle.
CLP: Voices are clear and enable most of the complex lyrics to be understandable, always a challenge in a Lloyd Webber musical. Sophia Alawi as Evita channels her calculating and controversial figure. Alex Rodriguez pours explosive energy into his role as Che. Chanel Tilghman has a haunting role and voice as Peron’s cast-off mistress.
The cast of San Francisco Playhouse’s “Evita,” performing June 27 – September 7, 2024. Photo: Jessica Palopoli
BW: The show is well performed, even to the point of this reviewer believing that some of the leads were somewhat outclassed by some of the supporting cast. Malia Abayon and Jura Davis are especially compelling. Peter Gregus as Juan Peron embodies the style and look of an autocrat but his recitativo vocalizing left this reviewer wishing for a bit more… Helfer’s athletic choreography is superb — as always.
Script and storyline: BW:Evita is a tale of celebrity worship driven to the realm of religiosity. Many of Eva’s fans called her “Santa Evita” and even asked for her blessings. But — it’s also a cautionary tale about grift on a massive scale. Argentina once had one of the world’s strongest economies. In the post-Peron era, the nation has regularly been on shaky financial ground. This is depicted effectively in a scene where soldiers are passing packets of cash hand-to-hand across the stage, symbolic of the Peron policy of taking national assets private.
SD: In this reviewer’s opinion, one weakness in Evita is the essentially narrated storyline which often prevents events from fully coming to life. The complex and fascinating historical details come to us through Che, whose narration is a bit like getting historical postcards instead of really being there. The ensemble does help to fill out social divisions, which become stepping stones for the ascension of Eva Peron.
The crowd cheers for Eva & Juan Perón in San Francisco Playhouse’s “Evita,” performing June 27 – September 7, 2024. Photo: Jessica Palopoli
JD: This reviewer found this production to be a bit hard to follow if you’re not familiar with the narrative. Almost all the words are sung, making this really a rock opera. The sound design seems perhaps to obscure some of the text. Tip: for newcomers, it would improve the play going experience to gain some familiarity with the show in advance.
CLP: Evita Duarte Peron will always remain a controversial figure. Beloved for her selective charities and adored by the shirtless as a glamorous leader, “Santa Evita” started Argentina on the path towards bankruptcy, a politically muzzled press, and chronic food shortages. In this production, she expresses love for all her people, proclaiming “Every word that I say is true.”
Aisle Seat Takeaway:
Evita might be considered an atypical undertaking for SF Playhouse, but this production — wins our recommendation. It should enjoy a successful run!
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For this review,Team ASR’s members consists of: Cari Lynn Pace, Susan Dunn, Jeff Dunn, and Barry Willis — all voting members of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.
San Francisco Playhouse has launched an ambitious new production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, which will run through June 15.
Set in a shabby apartment in St. Louis in the spring of 1939, on the verge of World War II, the classic mid-century family drama gets an unusual treatment by director Jeffrey Lo. Instead of an intimate or nearly claustrophobic setting, the Wingfield family residence is on a high open platform atop SFP’s famous turntable stage, a feature that worked supremely well in Guys and Dolls and Nollywood Dreams.
“… Susi Damilano … anchors this Glass Menagerie …”
Whether a rotating stage is appropriate for this production is a matter of personal opinion. Lo also has his actors sit stage-left and stage-right when they are not in a scene, like basketball players on the sidelines waiting to return to the game.
Tom (Jomar Tagatac), Jim (William Thomas Hodgson) and Amanda (Susi Damilano) toast to their meal in San Francisco Playhouse’s “The Glass Menagerie,” performing May 2 – June 15. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
The Wingfields—matriarch Amanda (Susi Damilano), asocial daughter Laura (Nicole Javier), and disaffected son Tom (Jomar Tagatac)—struggle to survive in the wake of a long-ago departure by an unnamed father and husband, whose vandalized portrait presides over everything in the household. Behind it is a huge neon sign for the Paradise, a music club across the alley from the Wingfield apartment. The sign is beautiful, beckoning, and aspirational but we hear little music from the club.
Amanda is an aging Southern belle who has never let go of her glory days attending cotillions in the Mississippi delta, where she was courted by—in her memory—a seemingly endless procession of “gentlemen callers.” Laura is a high-school dropout with a limp, who pretends to be attending secretarial school while doing little more than wandering around town, playing old records on the family’s Victrola, or managing her collection of glass animal figurines—the “glass menagerie” of the show’s title.
Tom is a would-be writer toiling away in a shoe warehouse, and the tale’s narrator in Williams’ gorgeous prose. He and Laura both chafe under pressure from their mother, but Tom alone displays open rebellion, much of it self-defeating, such as spending money for the household’s monthly expenses on personal frivolities—including making his first payment for merchant mariners’ union dues.
Lo introduces Laura’s only gentleman caller, Tom’s co-worker Jim O’Connor (William Thomas Hodgson), immediately in the first scene, although he doesn’t appear in the drama until much later, when his tentative introduction to Laura appears promising but goes awry when he recognizes that the Wingfield family dysfunction isn’t to his liking.
Javier brings a weary lack of confidence to her character, but director Lo doesn’t give her much opportunity to mine Laura’s nuances. In the entire production, we don’t see her at the Victrola or playing with her glass collection until her encounter with Jim. Javier is underutilized in this production—she could contribute much more with directorial encouragement.
The set, in fact, doesn’t include a Victrola at all, but stage-right there’s an oddly-positioned 1980s-style record player—clearly not part of the Wingfield residence—to which Tom returns several times to cue up a 12” vinyl record, which also didn’t exist in 1939. The Glass Menagerie is what Williams called “a memory play,” so it’s possible that this gambit is a visual reference to a time in the future when Tom is recalling his past.
Amanda (Susi Damilano) is concerned for her children in San Francisco Playhouse’s “The Glass Menagerie.” Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
Even so, it’s one of several anachronisms in the show. Another is the ultra-long cigarette that Tom habitually smokes, a product that didn’t hit the market until the 1980s. Jomar Tagatac is a fabulous actor with wonderful delivery. He appears frequently at most major SF and Bay Area theaters, but it’s a big leap of faith to accept him as a 20-something aspiring writer. He’s more like an uncle to Laura than a brother and former high-school classmate. Hodgson is also a talented prolific actor and nails the subtlety of the Jim O’Connor role, without bringing anything new.
But it’s Susi Damilano who anchors this Glass Menagerie. She absolutely shines in the role of Amanda, a character often portrayed as bitter, delusional, and manipulative—a fearsome harridan. Damilano turns this tradition on its head—yes, her Amanda exudes worry, frustration, annoyance, insistence, and pathos, but is also infused with love, whimsy, good humor, and self-awareness. Damilano mines hidden comedy in the Amanda role. She has always done great work, but she finds new depth is a character that other performers have been prodding for eighty-some years. Her performance alone is worth the price of admission. Brava!
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ASR Senior Writer & EditorCari Lynn Pace is a voting member of SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and writes theatre and lifestyle reviews for the Marinscope Community Newspapers throughout Marin County.
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
Even before the story from the famous film begins, missteps, gags, mockery, parody, double-takes, and more abound in The 39 Steps at San Francisco Playhouse.
Our leading man appears, apparently ready to begin the show, then is blacked out by the lighting, comes back into view, then falls asleep in a chair while SFP Artistic Director Bill English gives the welcoming speech. What’s happening? Are they confused? Are they ready for opening night?
You bet!
It’s the audience that should be ready to exhilarate in two hours plus of clowning and buffoonery animating Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of a Hitchcock classic.
… Highly recommended to recharge your funny bone…
The 39 Steps is a classic noir narrative which started with a 1915 novel, was adapted in 1935 by Alfred Hitchcock, and from there morphed into new films, TV series, a radio play, and a stage comedy. It’s a popular and easily adapted story that has proven its popularity time after time. Its secret is a mystery thriller base that has been freely adapted with new or excised material in subsequent renditions.
Richard Hannay (Phil Wong) is captivated by the mysterious Anabella (Maggie Mason) in “The 39 Steps,” presented by San Francisco Playhouse March 7 – April 20. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
The story revolves around the stylish character Richard Hannay, marvelously played by Phil Wong, as he falls into one unlikely scenario after another. The action follows his path from falsely accused murderer to international spy-ring exposer and hero. It snakes from London to Scotland and back again with a cast of 150 characters, according to SF Playhouse. (I confess I lost count.)These roles are hilariously and frantically embodied by three superb actors.
Lithe and intense Maggie Mason shows us the women in Hannay’s life: Annabella, the spy whom Hannay is accused of murdering; Pamela, the girl on the train whom he first meets by attacking her with kisses; and Margaret, the collier’s wife who helps him escape from murderous thugs. Greg Ayers showcases a multitude of male and female roles with comic physical and facial wit that continually inspires laughter, as do his double takes for additional laughs. He both opens and closes the show with an important character, Mister Memory, and his shenanigans expand this role with his stage antics.
Richard Hannay (center – Phil Wong) is apprehended by two policemen (l to r: Renee Rogoff and Greg Ayers) as Pamela (Maggie Mason) denies association in “The 39 Steps,” presented by SF Playhouse. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
Covering another bevy of parts, including a squadron of police and thugs, a ruthless power-hungry professor, and a dour innkeeper, Renee Rogoff seems to appear in every other scene in new costume or aspect. One of the funniest moments occurs when Mason, Ayers and Rogoff miraculously turn into six marching bagpipers immersing Wong in one of his many escape moves – a showcase for the inspired direction by Susi Damilano.
Like icing on a delicious cake, the lighting design, sound effects, costumes, projections and puppetry mesh together with the clowning to create a play that is a many-layered spoof. The 39 Steps is a farce that skims ever so lightly over themes of fate, chance, romance and ultimately human empathy. This production is a delight for all the senses. Highly recommended to recharge your funny bone.
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Since arriving in California from New York in 1991, Susan Dunn has been on the executive boards of Hillbarn Theatre, Altarena Playhouse, Berkeley Playhouse, Virago Theatre and Island City Opera, where she is a development director and stage manager. An enthusiastic advocate for new productions and local playwrights, she is a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, and a recipient of a 2015 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award. Contact: susanmdunn@yahoo.com
Here’s a play that will teach us how to make the Vietnamese soup specialty: Pho. Not quite! My Home on the Moon quickly takes us from our ordinary lives to other realities in the cyber world.
Act One opens on an average-looking Asian soup shop, adorned with pictures of the homeland and featuring a much-revered shrine to the shop owner’s sister, and former joint owner. The discouraged proprietress Lan (versatile and winning Sharon Omi) reveals the desperate straits her business is experiencing with the neighborhood takeover by mega-corporations and the fall to the wrecker’s ball of small businesses like hers.
…”My Home on the Moon” is a humorous take on a Matrix-like reality…
Lan is joined by her grouchy assistant Mai (hilariously played by Jenny Nguyen Nelson), who breaks the 4th wall to great effect. Soon enough, we hear the doom of a building being crushed to rubble off-stage. The corporate enemy is closing in.
Lan (Sharon Omi) reminisces about her childhood with a giant noodle (background: puppeteered by Erin Mei-Ling Stuart) on the moon in San Francisco Playhouse’s World Premiere Play “My Home on the Moon,” performing January 25 – February 24. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
But Lan has applied for a financial aid grant for her shop, and her winnings come in to save it from default. First, a huge basket of delectable Vietnamese goodies appears, and the consumables seem to anesthetize Lan and Mai, whose binge puts them prone on the floor.
Next, they are greeted by marketeer Vera, who represents Novus Corporation, the company taking over local real estate. She promises the shop will be transformed, dripping with cachét and busy with customers now that Lan has won the grant. And Vera, smartly and charmingly played by Rinabeth Apostal, can make it all happen: the blank white shop turns to orange ambience, NFTs (Non-fungible tokens in cyber-talk) grace the walls, and the backyard becomes a Vietnamese jungle.
(L-R) A food critic (Will Dao) samples cuisine, watched by Lan (Sharon Omi), Mai (Jenny Nguyen Nelson) and a camera person (Erin Mei-Ling Stuart) in SF Playhouse’s “My Home on the Moon.” Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
Miraculously, both Lan and Mai are smartly re-uniformed to enhance the look of the café. But who is Vera really? And why doesn’t she eat the fabulous Pho?
Understanding who is real and who is a robot or ‘simulation’ challenges us as the story and timeline proceed, and actors take on multiple roles. A standout is Will Dao, playing four very different personas, all to amazing effect. He grabs our attention immediately with every unexpected appearance. This is truly an eye-popping show, replete with suggestive dancers, sinuous and menacing cyber light cords, and alternate states of consciousness or digital manipulation depending on which of the corporate robots or managers are controlling the scene.
Mai (Jenny Nguyen Nelson) and Vera (Rinabeth Apostol) share a moment at San Francisco Playhouse. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
The challenge and ultimate success of scene changes and manipulations are handsomely done by the creative team under the direction of Mei Ann Teo. Projections are used to great effect in many scenes and in many parts of the stage by Hao Bai, and the scene swivels to reveal three different sets, times/places and states of consciousness.
Finally we are left to ponder what reality we live in. Is it the actual world, or is it the digital river of games, memes, virtual reality, NFTs and other predations on our consciousness?
My Home on the Moon is a humorous take on a Matrix-like reality where people are trapped in a simulated digital world. Warning: the constant food themes may spark your hunger for an immediate bowl of Pho.
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Since arriving in California from New York in 1991, Susan Dunn has been on the executive boards of Hillbarn Theatre, Altarena Playhouse, Berkeley Playhouse, Virago Theatre and Island City Opera, where she is a development director and stage manager. An enthusiastic advocate for new productions and local playwrights, she is a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, and a recipient of a 2015 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award. Contact: susanmdunn@yahoo.com
It’s virtually impossible to rate the new San Francisco Playhouse production of Guys and Dolls as anything but almost perfect, not quite as good as God’s long-running comic-tragedy, Mankind.
Sanitized, slang-spouting characters lifted from two 1920s and ‘30s Damon Runyon short stories remain extremely likeable 73 years after the Tony Award-winning musical comedy debuted on Broadway — New Yawk gamblers and gangsters mostly, but also a couple of inept Chicago crooks/crapshooters. And then, of course, there’s Sarah Brown, the Save-A-Soul missionary heroine who proves that love can conquer all.
… it’s the cast of the superb show …
Frank Loesser’s music (and lyrics) for this rendition — accompanied by a sprightly, hidden-onstage band under the direction of Dave Dobrusky — reaches the epitome of peppy, ideal for the holiday season.
Sky Masterson (David Toshiro Crane, center) and gamblers roll the dice.
Choreography by Nicole Helfer, even if somewhat derivative, hits an exciting high (with each dancer sublimely connected to all the others). Costumes designed by Kathleen Qiu appear both authentic to the era and playful (especially numbers in the Hot Box burlesque hall where Adelaide comically struts her stuff), augmented by sundry wigs concocted by Laundra Tyme—some straightforward, some whimsical.
Adelaide (Melissa WolfKlain, center) performs with the Hot Box Girls (from left, Malia Abayon, Alison Ewing, Jill Slyter, and Brigitte Losey) in “Guys and Dolls.”
The frequently revolving sets by scenic designer Heater Kenyon come across as exceptionally imaginative, a proverbial wonder to behold. Yet it’s the cast of the superb show — which is labeled a fable, but which adroitly delves into how one segment of society has trouble understanding another — that shines brightest.
Audience faces light right up, for example, each time Melissa WolfKlain, who delightfully and deliberately squeaks as Adelaide steps onto the stage, a stripper-star who’s been engaged for well over a decade to Nathan Detroit a guy whose livelihood stems from running a long-haul floating crap game. She’s particularly marvelous rendering “Adelaide’s Lament” (“In other words, just from worrying if the wedding is on or off, A person can develop a cough”), “Take Back Your Mink,” and “Marry the Man Today” (a duet with Abigail Esfira Campbell, as puritanical but seducible Sgt. Sarah Brown).
Campbell sings with a purity that can make most other vocalists jealous. She’s top-drawer on “I’ll Know” and “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” with her acting chops becoming an ideal accompaniment to her vocals (her slinky drunk scene in Cuba is most noteworthy). Both melodies are performed, by the way, in duet with David Toshiro Crane as charismatic, cocky, sexy gambler Sky Masterson.
Crane gives the Masterson character a sturdiness that makes you believe he can change from a high-roller to a guy high on life and love. His voice, too, soothes while delivering whatever emotion is required.
Joel Roster acts appropriately oblivious to his doll as Nathan Detroit, the guy who can’t bring himself to commit to her but who’s committed to finding a gambling site somewhere.
Kay Loren, who uses the pronouns they/them, rounds out the frontline performers as Nicely-Nicely Johnson, a part usually filled by a man. Director Bill English and casting director Kieran Beccia, in fact, carefully gender-bent other actor-singers (such as having Kay Loren and Jessica Coker play Nicely-Nickely Johnson and Big Jule, respectively). They ethnic-bent, too, with Asian Alex Hsu assuming the slick role of Irish cop Lt. Brannigan.
But it takes only a minute or two for a theatergoer to fully suspended his or her disbelief and enjoy the binary and racial tampering.
Underscoring what unison truly means — musically and with a racial mix — is the praiseworthy chorus.
Sgt. Sarah Brown (Abigail Esfira Campbell, center) tries to enlist sinners for the Save-A-Soul Mission.
The major plot device is about finding a location for that dice game. The subplot feels terribly familiar: Guy meets and courts girl (because he bets the then huge sum of $1,000 that he can); girl is attracted to and then turned off by guy; guy gets girl.
Other don’t-miss tunes include the title tune, “Luck Be a Lady,” and “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” — and two exhilarating all-dance numbers, “Havana” and “The Crapshooter’s Dance.”
The only thing absent from this two hour-plus version is the thick, unpolished Lower East Side of New Yawk accents — along with the “deses” and “doses” — that instantly tell visitors from Boise, Idaho, that they’re in the Big Apple.
Guys and Dolls has been considered by many as the ultimate musical comedy. The SF Playhouse production shouldn’t disavow that opinion.
Dancers Chachi Delgado and Malia Abayon move fast but sensually in a Havana nightclub.
A Footnote: I’ve told the tale of my wife’s obsession with the show for about 20 years — ever since the last time we saw it.
Before watching a touring company at another San Francisco theater, she’d played the entire score for me on our piano at home. She’d followed by humming most of its tunes during our trip into the city from San Anselmo. And, as I did, she loved the show itself.
But then she inserted a CD of the score on the way back from that performance. I knew she’d adored the show penned by famed theatrical storyline fixer Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling ever since as a pre-teen she’d seen the original with Robert Alda, Alan’s dad, playing Sky Masterson — that final over-the-top fangirl action was much too much for me to handle.
Ergo, I had some trepidation about leading her to the SF Playhouse, even as a MysteryDate, something we’ve been doing for all 36 years we’ve been wed. A MysteryDate, FYI, is an almost-certain way to help keep the sizzle in a relationship — an activity you arrange without your partner knowing where she or he is going until you get there. Or vice versa — that is, one arranged with you in the dark.
After five years of working on it, not incidentally, I’ve just finished writing a book about MysteryDates, one that can double as a travel guidebook while clobbering the myth that long-term relationships are inevitably doomed to become unexciting, monotonous, or drab. The book should be available in January. Check out https://woodyweingarten.com to be sure.
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ASR Senior Contributor Woody Weingarten has decades of experience writing arts and entertainment reviews and features. A member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, he is the author of three books, The Roving I; Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates; and Rollercoaster: How a Man Can Survive His Partner’s Breast Cancer. Contact: voodee@sbcglobal.net or https://woodyweingarten.com or http://www.vitalitypress.com/
An aspiring actress gets her chance in Jocelyn Bioh’s uproarious Nollywood Dreams, at San Francisco Playhouse through November 4.
Ayamma Okafor (Angel Adedokun) works at her family’s travel agency in Lagos, Nigeria, where the entire story takes place. Probably not a well-known fact among Americans, Nigeria’s thriving film industry is one of the world’s most prolific.
Ayamma (Angel Adedokun) is starstruck as she meets Wale (Jordan Covington) and Gbenga (Tre’Vonne Bell) in San Francisco Playhouse’s “Nollywood Dreams,” performing thru Nov 4, 2023. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
Ayamma hopes to lift herself out of the tedium of her daily work and venture into the glitzy world of film—and fame. Her lackadaisical sister and workmate Dede (Brittany Nicole Sims) has no such aspirations, but does worship film stars, especially the handsome charmer Wale Owuso (Jordan Covington).
…Nollywood Dreams is exactly the feel-good antidote we need today…
The Playhouse is lit with neon and splashy patterns, accompanied by throbbing rhythms of Africa. Your heartbeat is up even before the actors appear. The production is significantly interactive: we are invited to let the actors know how we feel about them and their story by joining in with our own reactions. Breaking the “4th wall,” one scene includes an actor sitting with the audience.
On a huge revolving set by Bill English, Nollywood Dreams features continual scenes across three different locales: the travel agency, a TV studio, and the office of film director Gbenga Ezie (Tre’Vonne Bell). Initially we meet our protagonist, wannabe actress Ayamma—slim, intense, and sincere—who pours her heart out to older sister Dede, an outrageous, outspoken, but unmotivated couch-potato. Their dynamic is loving and hilarious at each turn.
The stage turns and a TV interview is in progress. Now we (the play’s audience) become the vocal audience of a daytime TV show hosted by the queen bee of Nigerian celebrity gossip, the brightly-swathed and head-dressed Adenikeh (Tanika Baptiste), a character partly modeled on America’s own Oprah. Baptiste is totally engaging and effusive as she prods interviewee Gbenga about auditions for his next film, a romantic comedy called The Comfort Zone.
Adenikeh (Tanika Baptiste), the Oprah of Lagos, dishes on her talk show in San Francisco Playhouse’s “Nollywood Dreams.” Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
Her outsized female persona foils his suave, understated but sweeping masculinity. Our verbal reactions to his story of marital and extramarital love up the ante of our emotional engagement. Through some Nigerian film history projections we meet the final two characters in this play: Wale the endearing lover-boy actor already well-known to Nigerian audiences, and Fayola (Anna Marie Sharpe), an established actress whose career has hit an impasse. Sharp’s wise-cracking subtlety must be seen to be believed.
Who will be cast in this next movie? How will previous dating relationships, careers (or lack thereof) and political machinations solve the casting choices? The set revolves to reveal the director’s office, where auditions of a kind, amid spats and jealousies, play out evoking old loves and new emotional blooming. A favorite scene involves Dede’s curse on the rival actress to aid sister Ayamma’s chances for snagging a role.
Nigerian film director Gbenga (Tre’Vonne Bell) dishes on a talk show in San Francisco Playhouse’s “Nollywood Dreams” Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
Nollywood Dreams is a terrifically paced production of a laugh-out-loud script, filled with characters who pop with iconic familiarity. The show is blessed with performing excellence, directorial finesse and assurance and production values that excel in every scene. As fabulous or ordinary costumes (Jasmine Milan Williams, designer) change from one quick scene to another we wonder how they can top the previous look.
Theater veteran and director Margo Hall has coaxed the utmost from her richly talented cast. The eye-candy set and projections, and especially the unexpected finale, deliver a luscious dessert of a play that on opening night provoked a sustained standing ovation. Nollywood Dreams is exactly the feel-good antidote we need today.
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Since arriving in California from New York in 1991, Susan Dunn has been on the executive boards of Hillbarn Theatre, Altarena Playhouse, Berkeley Playhouse, Virago Theatre and Island City Opera, where she is a development director and stage manager. An enthusiastic advocate for new productions and local playwrights, she is a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, and a recipient of a 2015 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award. Contact: susanmdunn@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.
Early each summer, San Franciso Playhouse launches a classic musical that runs well into September—a genius strategy leveraging Union Square tourist traffic. This year’s offering is a brilliant production of A Chorus Line, directed by Bill English and choreographed by Nicole Helfer.
Background: In 1975, word on the street in New York City was “get to the Public Theatre and see the workshop of a new musical called A Chorus Line!” The show opened to standing-room-only on April 14, closed on July 13, and opened 12 days later on Broadway at the Shubert Theater, becoming (until Cats) the longest-running musical in Broadway history. It’s hard to imagine that A Chorus Line appeared the same year as Fosse’s Chicago and Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures. A Chorus Line swept the Tony Awards, leaving Chicago empty-handed until the revival put together by Ann Reinking.
Dancers pin their hopes on winning a role in “A Chorus Line,” presented by San Francisco Playhouse June 22 – September 9th.
Based on Michael Bennett’s conversations with Broadway dancers, the story centers on their careers, hopes, dreams, frustrations, and possible longevity during a wildly vacillating time for Broadway musicals. At these initial meetings, Bennet knew he had something remarkable to tell. The team of writers Nicholas Dante and James Kirkwood, lyricist Ed Kleban, composer Marvin Hamlisch, and co-choreographer Bob Avian yielded one of the most revolutionary musicals of all time, a conceptual breakthrough when it first appeared.
Dancers strut their stuff in SF Playhouse’s “A Chorus Line,” performing June 22 – September 9th in The City.
A Chorus Line conveys multiple stories about a corps of dancers seeking spots in a touring production. A couple of them are so young that they have yet to land their first serious gigs. At the other end of the spectrum are veterans feeling the inevitable pressures of age. In between are those with personal issues that could affect their careers — the responsibilities of parenthood, for example, or long-running guilt over being gay (this was the early ‘70s), or a drug habit, or a tone-deaf singing voice. Anything that might derail the touring production for which they are auditioning is cause for anxiety for them and the show’s director. There are ongoing and sometimes overly broad hints about fleeting friendships and petty jealousies among the dancers.
. . . A Chorus Line is every actor’s story, whether professional or community theater. “I Hope I Get It” . . .
Overseeing them all is a stern but not unsympathetic taskmaster named Zach (Keith Pinto), choreographer of the show-to-be. Zach talks to them in turn as he puts them through their paces, sometimes barking like a Marine Corps drill instructor and at other times almost whispering like a trusted friend.
Zach (center – Keith Pinto) instructs dancers auditioning in San Francisco Playhouse’s “A Chorus Line”.
Zach came up through the ranks and understands their plight, but he also has a high-pressure job to do. Pinto manages this conflict like a high-wire artist, in a riveting performance.
GM: Wasn’t it great to see the SF Playhouse stage filled with some of the finest musical theater talent in SF?
BW: Absolutely. We are lucky to live in such a talent-rich part of the world—talent across all the arts, not merely theater. This production features some of the Bay Area’s best.
GM: Bill English’s direction really highlights the uniqueness in each role as their stories unfold, and Nicole Helfer’s choreography hits a balance of distinction for each. Her ensemble numbers are remarkable.
BW:Nicole is a wonderful choreographer and an excellent director. She filled both duties exceptionally well with her fine production of She Loves Me at RVP recently. This Chorus Line is the first time I can recall seeing her onstage.
I thought she brought a superb blend of self-doubt, vulnerability, determination, and mastery of the craft to the role of Cassie, the show-to-be’s potential lead dancer, Zach’s former girlfriend, and an almost-over-the-hill veteran who hopes to land just one more glorious role before resigning herself to the post-career Siberia of teaching. Nicole’s solo “The Music and the Mirror” is marvelous.
GM: I loved the surprises of newer emerging talents like Chachi Delgado’s as Richie in “Gimme The Ball” and Tony Conaty as Mike in “I Can Do That.”
BW: They’re both great performers. Conaty is amazingly dynamic, but Delgado is in a league of his own in this production—the epitome of innate athleticism, effortless grace, and deep confidence.
GM: Great to see the husband and wife team of Keith Pinto and Alison Ewing perform so well as Zach and Sheila.
BW:Absolutely. Their real-world relationship in some ways reflects a couple of the show’s secondary themes.
GM: Chorus Line never needs a set as such—the tall mirrors at the back of the stage evoke the 52nd & Broadway dance studio where the original actually took place. Michael Oesch’s lighting design brought us focus, and his finale lights are stunning!
BW: Michael made incalculable contributions to the success of this production. During the post-show meet-and-greet he mentioned having basically lived at the Playhouse for the last two weeks before opening.
GM: A Chorus Line delves into the personal and professional torment that is the life of all artists. 1975 was my time in NYC, Barry. I stopped auditioning for Broadway choruses when I was at the very end of the final ten for Shenandoah. Choreographer Bob Tucker asked me (like Zach does) in front of everyone “Why aren’t you taking dance classes?”
I had not taken dance classes to sharpen my skills. I mumbled some lame excuse, walked out with my head down—crying on Broadway!—then said to myself, “Well, maybe I can do Shakespeare!” The rest, dear hearts, is history.
A Chorus Line is among the greatest productions ever about the lives of desperate artists, willing to make almost any sacrifice for their moment under the bright lights. It’s simultaneously personal, painful, and exhilarating—and Dave Dobrusky’s backstage band is terrific! This SF Playhouse production is a must-see event.
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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
Production
A Chorus Line
Written by
James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante/music by Marvin Hamlisch/lyrics by Edward Kleban
While on a visit to China, Chinese-American dramatist David Henry Hwang saw a sign in a men’s room: “Deformed Man’s Toilet”. Wildly mistranslated from “Handicapped Restroom,” this misnomer was the inspiration for the multi-award winning writer (Gold Child, M Butterfly, FOB, the Disney cartoon Tarzan etc,) to dig deeper into the cultural phenomenon of mistranslation, both grammatically and culturally, between American and Chinese people. The phenomenon is examined with great hilarity in Chinglish at San Francisco Playhouse.
We have come a long way from the Hollywood casting of white actors as Asian stereotypes: Marlon Brando and Mickey Rooney in Tea House of the August Moon, John Wayne as Genghis Kahn, Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed, and many others.
…Stunningly directed by Jeffrey Lo, SF Playhouse’s wonderful production (of Chinglish) is a winner…
What sets Chinglish apart is that it not only lampoons the language divide, with merry misfiring mirth, but also reaches deeply into the geo-political realities of what such misfires can and indeed do create.
The political economic power of the current Chinese economy is a frightening reminder to America of where we now stand in the world and how far the Chinese have come. Hwang’s script has been updated since the play’s 2011 opening. to reflect both the Sino-American political landscape and modern conveniences like cellphones.
American businessman Daniel Cavanaugh (Michael Barrett Austin) has an encounter with vice minister Xi Yan (Nicole Tung) in San Francisco Playhouse’s “Chinglish,” performing May 4 – June 10. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
Chinglish tells the story of David Cavanaugh (Michael Barret Austin), the owner of a family sign making firm in Cleveland. Newly arrived in China, he’s prepared to make a proposal for signage at a new cultural arts center in the town of Guiyang. He is richly seen by Chinese officials as the genius who was responsible for Enron when the topic is introduced.
Peter Timms (Matthew Bohrer) and minister Cai Guoliang (Alex Hsu) discuss Guānxi and the complications of business in San Francisco Playhouse’s “Chinglish.” Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
The Minister of Culture (a very funny and ultimately deeply poignant Alex Hsu) is accompanied by his associate Xi Yan (a stately and multi-faceted Nicole Tung). Ms. Yan has her own agendas playing out as a relationship develops between herself and Cavanaugh.
In one hilarious post-coital scene, Cavanaugh attempts to say “I love you,” but the tonal resonance of Mandarin Chinese translates it first as “my fifth aunt” and then “my frog needs to pee!”
Vice minister Xi Yan (Nicole Tung) makes a confession to Peter Timms (Matthew Bohrer) in SF Playhouse’s “Chinglish.” — Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
The ever-changing conversational mishaps presented by the worst possible, most inept Chinese translations are projected onto set designer Andrea Bechert’s imaginative sliding screens, and beautifully realized under Wen-Ling Liao’s luminous lights, and projection designer Spense Matubang’s glowing translations.
Stunningly directed by Jeffrey Lo, SF Playhouse’s wonderful production is a winner. One major translation not misinterpreted is “All persons get screwed!” Therein lies the premise of this wonderful and prescient Chinglish.
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ASR Contributing Writer George Maguire is a San Francisco based actor and director. and a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. He is a Professor Emeritus of Solano College. Contact: gmaguire1204@yahoo.com
Production
Chinglish
Written by
David Henry Hwang
Directed by
Jeffrey Lo
Producing Company
San Francisco Playhouse
Production Dates
Thru June 10th
Production Address
SF Playhouse
450 Post Street
San Francisco, CA
Website
www.sfplayhouse.org
Telephone
(415) 677-9596
Tickets
$30 - $100
Reviewer Score
Max in each category is 5/5
Overall
3.5/5
Performance
3.5/5
Script
3.0/5
Stagecraft
3.5/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?
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Other Voices….
"...achieves the sort of momentum that sends audiences into the ether."
The New York Times
"...great frisky fun, with savory chemistry between its leads and a refreshingly grown-up undercoating of well-earned melancholy."
When I returned home from the SF Playhouse and their energetic, almost frenetic production of Clue, I immediately ransacked my closet and found (ta da!) my own Parker Brothers original version of the game.
I doubt there is anyone who has not played this fun and inventive game sometime in their life. With over 350 scenarios, it’s been translated into numerous other languages.
Among the suspects, we all had favorites—for me, usually Miss Scarlet or Professor Plum. Its popularity engendered a 1985 film starring Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Eileen Brennan and Christopher Lloyd. A Broadway musical followed in 1997, then a Broadway play in 2018, revised in 2022 with additional material by Hunter Foster and Eric Price
All six of our suspects are here: Miss Scarlet (a ravishing Courtney Walsh), Colonel Mustard (a perfectly befuddled Michael Ray Wisely), Professor Plum (a leering Michael Gene Sullivan), Mr. Green (a primly proper Greg Ayers), Mrs. White (a diabolical Rene Rogoff) and finally Mrs. Peacock (an inspired piece of casting with the versatile Stacy Ross).
Boddy Manor’s guests share their suspicions about the murders that keep happening in SF Playhouse’s “Clue,” performing March 9 – April 22. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
Add a butler (Dorian Lockett), a French maid (Margherita Ventura), a Mr. Body, a tapping messenger girl, and a police captain (Will Springhorn Jr.) with more accents than all the others put together, plus his cohorts, and you have hilarity in the making.
All six suspects are being blackmailed for their secrets and have received invitations to a very private dinner party without knowing one another. The banquet begins, and as in Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap, the bodies pile up.
There’s one more big star: designer Heather Kenyon’s amazing set. This masterpiece of invention is in itself a suspect, and a hiding place that brings to us every room and hallway from the game. Suddenly we are in the numerous rooms and lounges where the action enfolds. Bravo Ms. Kenyon!
Director Susi Damilano has a blast putting this cast of characters into gyrating and tip-toeing terpsichorean romps of entrances and exits across the stage in beams and bars from Derek Duarte’s lights.
The occupants of Boddy Manor reveal a shocking twist! Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
The last fifteen minutes are a roundelay of imagined possibilities as the suspects argue which was the real way the story and murders progressed.
Once you have seen the play, I urge you to see the film, available on Netflix. You’ll recognize the conceit drummed exhaustingly at us. By the end a galloping “Whew!” is sparked in the audience.
Go and have a laughingly good time at the Playhouse. After ninety minutes you’re on your way home—maybe to play the game yourself!
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ASR Contributing Writer George Maguire is a San Francisco based actor and director. and a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. He is a Professor Emeritus of Solano College. Contact: gmaguire1204@yahoo.com
Production
Clue
Written by
Sandy Rustin.
With additional material by Hunter Foster and Eric Price,
"... the show is absolutely fun; light and silly and full of entertaining moments."
www.broadwayworld.com/
"At S.F. Playhouse’s ‘Clue,’ everyone’s guilty — of having a good time"
San Francisco Chronicle
"...this is a drop-dead, bonafide beauty of a black comedy. It’s guaranteed to produce thrills, chills, goosebumps and uncontrollable laughter for the entire 90 minutes of its uninterrupted mayhem."
Chicago Theatre Review
"...the show is a very fun, very silly 1950s-set whodunit..."
Many of life’s tragedies involve addiction. Theatre stages have presented poignant stories – dramas drawn from fantasy or reality – in the hopes that audiences will be both thoughtfully entertained and well warned. Cashed Out checks both boxes, admirably.
San Francisco Playhouse first presented a dramatic “zoomlet” – a 10-minute reading of a potential new play by Claude Jackson, Jr., during the pandemic. Patrons praised the reading touching upon gambling addiction, casinos, and the Native America community. Artistic Director Bill English recognized it as a story not often heard, and commissioned the playwright to expand it into a full script.
“Artistic Director Bill English recognized it as a story not often heard…”
SF Playhouse took great pains to assemble a cadre of Native American actors to ensure the authenticity of their world premiere. It’s a risk that pays off handsomely in Cashed Out. Director Tara Moses coaxed astounding performances from these largely Actors’ Equity members. They bring a glimpse of their culture, both proud and at times humbling, to the stage.
Cashed Out opens on an adobe duplex complete with terra cotta roof tiles on a reservation in Arizona, strikingly imagined by scenic designer Tanya Orellana. It’s dusty and dry, with a branch shelter and woven baskets in various stages of completion.
Rocky (Rainbow Dickerson) is a pretty young woman full of high spirits and bright expectations. She’s about to enter a local beauty contest and ignores Levi, her eager would-be boyfriend (Chingwe Padraig Sullivan). Rocky argues about native garb with her weary mother (Lisa Ramirez.) while her aunt Nan (Sheila Tousey) sagely serves as mediator. It is soon apparent that Nan is the solid rock in this turbulent family drama.
Rocky (Rainbow Dickerson) reaches out to Levi (Chingwe Padraig Sullivan) for a lifeline in “Cashed Out” at SF Playhouse
Flashbacks and fast-forward scenes intertwine as the stage rotates to show Rocky’s challenging journey with her gambling addiction. She’s hooked on a machine’s payout in a dark casino, dismissive with her young daughter Maya (Louisa Kizer) and desperately manipulative when she cajoles Levi to provide her with a character reference. Her family recognizes she needs help, but is powerless against Rocky’s stubborn and highly volatile character. Nan observes Rocky’s turmoil and shakes her head, sadly intoning “Imagine the eagle not trusting her own wings.”
Act I closes as Rocky continues to explode in an over-the-top performance, re-visiting her mother’s words “You’re not worthy” as mother weaves priceless Pima baskets. Thankfully, Act II opens on a brighter day. Rocky intones the Gamblers Anonymous mantra “I’m powerless over gambling” and appears to have cleaned up her act.
Maya (Louisa Kizer), Buddy (Matt Kizer), Levi (Chingwe Padraig Sullivan), and Nan (Sheila Tousey) receive news about Rocky in San Francisco Playhouse’s World Premiere of “Cashed Out.”
But addictions are not easily conquered, and never completely erased from an addict’s soul. When Rocky’s long-gone father (Matt Kizer) reappears, family tensions completely erupt. It’s quiet only when Rocky is absent, leaving her family tapped out and resigned.
Cashed Out is a hard-hitting and sadly true-to-life depiction of a gambler’s behavior. Rocky’s increasingly manic fantasy is thrown against irrefutable reality. In the sudden stark ending, neither side wins.
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ASR Writer & Editor Cari Lynn Pace is a voting member of SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and writes theatre and lifestyle reviews for the Marinscope Community Newspapers throughout Marin County. Contact: pace-koch@comcast.net
As You Like It, the Musical at SF Playhouse is delightful. Originally presented by The Public Theater, The New York Times named it among “The Best Theater of 2017.”
The performances are terrific, all the actors clearly having a great time onstage, totally invested in giving their absolute best to drive the show along and to entertain. This modern adaptation of a Shakespearean classic is well-directed by Bill English, who on opening night graciously thanked members of the press for attending.
The show is just plain fun!
Entrances and exits are head-spinningly perfect, the rollicking energy spectacular. The spare sets by English and Heather Kenyon are great, the lighting superb, (David Robertson), the choreography marvelous (Nicole Helfer), the costuming charming (Kathleen Qiu), and the live band terrific (Dave Dobrusky + 4). The show is just plain fun! They even threw in a Kanye West joke.
Oliver (front left: Ryan Torres) is summoned into court by Duke Frederick (Will Springhorn Jr. – center back), viewed by (l to r: Renee Rogoff, Jillian A. Smith, Johann Santiago Santos) in SF Playhouse’s musical version of “As You Like It”. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
The production has many elements of an English pantomime, a Christmas-season tradition in the UK. This reviewer would have enjoyed seeing even more of this. Slapstick components include topical humor, call-and-response lines with the audience, a “drag” character (in addition to Rosalind, the Bard’s original), and some lame “badda-bing” jokes such as:
“Did you know that I own a pencil used by William Shakespeare? He chewed on it a lot though, so I can’t tell if it’s 2B or not 2B.”
“Did you know that Shakespeare was able to write with either his left or right hand equally well? Yes, he was iambidextrous.”
“Over-the-top” is a perfect description of this show. My guest loved it and so did the entire audience. The 17 players received a well-deserved standing-O at the end.
Orlando (Nikita Burshteyn) invades the forest community of Arden (l to r: Ezra Reaves, Emily Dwyer, Jillian A. Smith) in the forest of Arden in San Francisco Playhouse’s musical version of “As You Like It,” performing now through January 14, 2023. Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli
Even though the songs in this show are written by Shaina Taub, currently working with Sir Elton John on a musical adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada, I didn’t leave the auditorium singing or even humming the songs, My Fair Lady it ain’t, but how many musical shows are? Even so, as a fun, entertaining theater experience, it was “as I like it.”
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Mitchell Field is a Sr. Contributing Writer for Aisle Seat Review. Based in Marin County, Mr. Field is an actor and voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (SFBATCC). Contact: mitchfield@aol.com
Production
As You Like It, the Musical
Written by
William Shakespeare - adapted by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery Music and Lyrics by Shaina Taub
San Francisco Playhouse’s play-about-a-play is both an historical recounting and a peek into theatre of today. Nominated for three Tony Awards, “Indecent” marks the Bay Area premier of this critically acclaimed work by Paula Vogel.
Director Susi Damilano staged this production with a skillful hand and an eye toward authenticity, expertly aided by the Yiddish Theatre Ensemble. The changes in place and time come together swiftly in this two-hour production, spanning the first half of the 20th century. Many stop-action tableaux are used to stunning effect, moving the scenes forward as the actors shift years. Three musicians led by Dmitri Gaskin lend joyful klezmer-infused songs onstage as actors intermittently dance and sing.
The set by Richard Olmsted is an open frame where props, costumes, lights, and actors wait on the sides until needed. “Indecent” action centers inside the frame as the narrator, the Yiddish theater company stage manager Lemml (Dean Linnard) begins telling the story to the audience. He’s backed by a solid wall punctuating the actors’ dialog as it flips from Yiddish to German to English and back again.
“…it became the first Yiddish play to be translated into multiple languages and staged across Europe”
“Indecent” follows the true 1906 saga of a young Jewish playwright, Sholem Asch (Billy Cohen), who vainly attempted to have the Polish literati support his new play “The God of Vengeance.” Soundly rejected by rivals in Warsaw for the “immoral and indecent” themes contained, Asch took the play to various international cities, starting with Berlin, to great acclaim.
Set in a Jewish community in Poland, it became the first Yiddish play to be translated into multiple languages and staged across Europe. It was controversial with its themes of sex, lesbianism, a brothel side business, hypocrisy, and the desecration of a Torah scroll. “God of Vengeance” was highly acclaimed and mightily condemned for 17 years. It enjoyed a successful international run until it reached New York City.
Lemml (Dean Linnard*, center) introduces the troupe (L-R): Mayer Balsam (Matthew Stein), on violin , Nelly Friedman (Audrey Jackson), on clarinet, Halina (Rivka Borek*), Mendel (Ted Zoldan), Chana (Malka Wallick*), Avram (Billy Cohen*), Moriz Godowsky (Dmitri Gaskin), on accordion, Otto (Victor Talmadge*), and Vera (Rachel Botchan*). Production photography by Jessica Palopoli for ‘Indecent’ by Paula Vogel at SF Playhouse.
In 1922 “God of Vengeance” was translated to English and premiered in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The controversial buzz—and the police—were waiting when the play opened in NYC the following year. The producer and entire cast were busted for “unlawfully advertising, giving, presenting and participating in an obscene, indecent, immoral and impure drama or play.” Their arrest and the fallout through 1953 form the basis for “Indecent,” which playwright Vogel has captured with astounding sadness, madness, and hope.
Interestingly, “Indecent” reveals it was the local NY rabbi who lodged the obscenity charges against the solidly Jewish playwright. Although overturned two years later, the charges altered the lives of all concerned. Eugene O’Neill(also Billy Cohen), a defender of the play, shares a cameo part onstage with an older Asch (Victor Talmadge) when he commiserates that “Every religion, even Jews, sells God for a price.”
The troupe makes its long journey to America. Photo by Jessica Palopoli for ‘Indecent’ by Paula Vogel at San Francisco Playhouse.
“Indecent” is a time capsule bursting with the best and worst of history and hope. Playing now through November 5th, it’s a welcome opener for San Francisco Playhouse’s 20th anniversary season. They couldn’t have made a more solid choice.
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ASR Writer & Editor Cari Lynn Pace is a member of SFBATCC and writes theatre and lifestyle reviews for the Marinscope Community Newspapers throughout Marin County.
Production
Indecent
Written by
Paula Vogel
Directed by
Susi Damilano
Producing Company
San Francisco Playhouse and
Yiddish Theatre Ensemble
Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musical “Follies” first opened April 4, 1971. It was nominated for eleven Tony Awards, won seven, and has enjoyed many revivals.
During her 1987 West End performance, Eartha Kitt sparked a comeback and went on to perform her own one-woman show to sold-out houses after “Follies” closed. Several songs from the show—“Broadway Baby,” “I’m Still Here,” “Losing My Mind”—have become standards.
…an awesome, great, and exhausting show, done with San Francisco Playhouse panache!
The latest version of “Follies” arrived at the San Francisco Playhouse July 20, after five years in development and delays due to Covid. The show had never been performed in its entirety by a professional troupe in The City, according to director Bill English, also co-designer of the show’s imposing set and projections with Heather Kenyon.
Phyllis Rogers Stone (Maureen McVerry*, center) reckons with life’s choices through ‘The Story of Lucy and Jessie,’ accompanied by (L-R) Jill Slyter, Chachi Delgado, Anthony Maglio, M. Javi Harnly, Cameron La Brie, and Ann Warque. Photo courtesy SF Playhouse. (*Equity Actor)
Set as a reunion of past performers of the “Weismann’s Follies,” (a musical revue based on the Ziegfeld Follies, that played in that theater between the world wars) in a soon-to-be-demolished Broadway theater, the show focuses on two mature married couples at the reunion: Buddy and Sally (Anthony Rollins-Mullens and Natascia Diaz, respectively) and Ben and Phyllis (Chris Vettel and Maureen McVerry, respectively).
Sally and Phyllis were once showgirls in the Follies; both marriages are in trouble. Ghosts of former showgirls as youngsters glide through the crumbling theater without being seen by the revelers. Thus begins a series of musical numbers performed by the Follies’ many veterans, exploring their lives and desires, while “invisible” younger performers mirror them in counterpoint. Other ghosts from former shows appear and the characters try to recapture their youth in re-creations of past performances.
The ghosts of Follies past (L-R: Catrina Manahan, Samantha Rose Cárdenas, Ann Warque, Danielle Cheiken, and Emily Corbo) welcome you to Dimitri Weismann’s theater. Photo courtesy SF Playhouse.
Broadway producer/director Hal Prince said of the show: ” ‘Follies’ examines obsessive behavior, neurosis and self-indulgence.”
Spirited, emotional and touching musical numbers performed by a perfectly-cast blend of seasoned professionals and talened newcomers fill this production with energy and verve, as do many lively and dynamic dance routines.
While the book by James Goldman is thin on plot, as one of the show’s characters opines: “Facts never interest me, what matters is the song!” Originally a one-act show, “Follies” was later expanded into two acts. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote: “It wasn’t until the second act that I fell in love all over again with ‘Follies’.” This reviewer concurs.
As with several Sondheim shows, the second act is often “where the beef is.” The second act of “Follies” is wildly divergent from the first, as in “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Into the Woods.” In “Follies,” the first act is primarily the introduction of characters and their back-stories. It’s a lot of exposition in the midst of glittering showgirls and assorted middle-aged matrons at the reunion party. Either by design or possibly due to opening-night nerves, act one got off to a stilted start, making the second act all the more spectacular.
Benjamin Stone (Chris Vettel*, center) reevaluates his priorities during ‘Live, Laugh, Love,’ accompanied by the Follies company (L-R: Emily Corbo, Anthony Maglio, Samantha Rose Cárdenas*, M. Javi Harnly, Catrina Manahan, Chachi Delgado, and Danielle Cheiken). Photo courtesy SF Playhouse. (*Equity Actor)
In the ‘Loveland’ scene, (“the place where lovers are always young and beautiful, and everyone lives only for love”), Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy, perform in a dream-like pastiche of vaudeville-style numbers in which each acts out their own particular folly.
The scene culminates in total hysteria, as the characters reveal their true emotions for all to see, before returning to the theater, the end of the reunion and the rest of their lives.
A long odyssey for SF Playhouse, “Follies” is an enormous undertaking for any theater company, requiring a large cast of triple-threat performers. The late critic Martin Gottfried wrote: “Follies is truly awesome and, if it is not consistently good, it is always great.”
This production lives up Gottfired’s description. Expertly directed by Bill English, with gorgeous costumes by Alba Berman and choreography by Nicole Helfer, it’s an awesome, great, and exhausting show, done with San Francisco Playhouse panache!
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Contributing Writer Mitchell Field is an actor and voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle based in Marin County, California. Contact: mitchfield@aol.com
Production
Follies
Written / Music by
Book by James Goldman. Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
A brave high school student learns life lessons from one of history’s most famous conquerors in “The Great Khan” at San Francisco Playhouse, through November 13.
Leon Jones stars as Jayden, a student whose bravery in defending a classmate from a gang attack has caused his mother to move them to a new home and enroll him in a new school to save him from harassment and possible retaliation. Laudable precautions on her part don’t prevent nightly visits from “Ant,” the girl he saved, who climbs through his bedroom window each night to give him trouble about his gallant deed. Ant (Jamella Cross) seems genuinely confused as to whether she should be thankful or resentful, as if the rescue somehow demeaned her independence. Jayden, in turn, is genuinely confused about what she’s doing in his room.
Two people thrown together by accident: it’s a potent setup for Michael Gene Sullivan’s ambitious and mostly successful meditation on teenage identity. Jayden’s a smart kid but is a worry for his hard-working single mom Crystal, played with some emotional detachment by Velina Brown. He has tough time connecting to school, especially a history class about the European Middle Ages, a field of study that he dismisses as being mostly about “dead white people.” Then his well-meaning but mostly clueless teacher Mr. Adams (Adam KuveNiemann) suggests that he research Genghis Khan, the legendary Mongolian conqueror whose empire encompassed most of Asia and a large part of Europe. Mr. Adams ups the ante by assigning Jayden a project partner, a nerdy girl named Gao-Ming (Kina Kantor) whose encyclopedic knowledge almost compensates for her social awkwardness.
…a good solid effort…
As Gao-Ming and Jayden study, he develops a near-obsession about the conqueror whose given name was Temujin (Brian Rivera). In a delightful bit of magical realism, Temujin begins to appear in his room, telling Jayden all about his life, from growing up and selecting a bride, to ultimately creating one of the biggest empires the world has ever known.
Temujin (Brian Rivera*) gets acquainted with Jayden (Leon Jones) in ‘The Great Khan’ by Michael Gene Sullivan at SF Playhouse.
It’s a life-changing event for Jayden, and for the audience too—Rivera simply commands the stage as the legendary Khan, striding about in full Mongol warrior gear (costumes by Kathleen Qiu), singing lustily in Mongolian, and telling Jayden how he succeeded: by offering the conquered the opportunity to join his horde, and by instructing his soldiers to leave some of their enemies alive that “they might tell the tale”—an early exercise in what we now call “brand building.”
Relaxed and confident, Rivera clearly relishes the role. His performance is so mesmerizing that it has the unfortunate effect of putting his castmates in his shadow—probably not director Darryl V. Jones’ intention, but perhaps an inevitability when an actor is so perfectly suited for his part.
Sullivan’s script, while very good, could use a bit of editing. The early part suffers from too much exposition—Ant makes multiple appearances in Jayden’s room, in an effort to resolve her own feelings about the incident which launched the story, but she might be able to do so in three visits instead of five.
The scriptwriter’s “rule of three”—applied to setups for jokes as well as dramatic buildups—has proven accurate over centuries. And Gao-Ming seems under-utilized, mostly as comic relief. She, Crystal, and Mr. Adams have the shallowest character arcs in the play, while Jayden and Ant have the largest. Temujin doesn’t need a character arc—his presence alone is sufficient to drive the drama.
Ant (Jamella Cross*) confides in Jayden (Leon Jones) in ‘The Great Khan’ by Michael Gene Sullivan .
“The Great Khan” is the first big-cast post-pandemic production put on by SF Playhouse. It’s a good solid effort that showgoers will find both rewarding and provocative. A streaming version is available for those still reluctant to venture into indoor gatherings.
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ASR Nor Cal Edition 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
Racism is an eternal condition of the human species. Xenophobia, tribalism, call it what you will, it continues to plague us today despite our self-congratulatory image as a modern, rational society.
In “Hold These Truths,” at San Francisco Playhouse through July 3, playwright Jeanne Sakata makes the universal personal with a tale of one Japanese-American’s effort to deal with an unjust sentence leveled against him for ignoring a curfew applied only to him and his fellow “Nisei,” (second-generation Japanese immigrants), all of them US citizens by virtue of having been born in this country. In Gordon Hirabayashi’s story, we also get a history lesson about how detention camps to house them were set up in western US states, the result of widespread fear following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was (and still is) considered one of the most socially conscious presidents of the 20th century, but his signing of Executive Order 9066 that established the camps was one of his most reprehensible acts, one that was challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld its legality in a split decision. The order was clearly motivated by racism, but Italian-Americans and German-Americans, two of the largest immigrant groups in the US, were also herded into camps and deprived of their fundamental rights.
Director Jeffrey Lo has coaxed a lovely recital from Tagatac…
In a ninety-minute-plus solo performance, Jomar Tagatac embodies both the young and mature Hirabayashi, encompassing his journey from college student to college professor, and celebrating his ultimate success in getting his conviction overturned, the result of an accidental discovery of his legal records by an academic colleague.
A veteran of many productions at SF Playhouse, Tagatac also acts the parts of members of Hirabayashi’s family, his friends, officials, police officers, judges, and many other characters in quick seamless character shifts, under a modestly-scaled but beautiful projected montage (design by Teddy Hulsker) of slowly varying flag motifs, old photographs, and historical documents, including the US Constitution, whose slogan “we hold these truths to be self-evident . . . that all men are created equal” remains an article of faith held by Hirabayashi throughout his life, despite many reasons to doubt it.
Tagatac expertly distinguishes all his characters from each other, and especially from the primary one, sometimes simply by changing his jacket or moving from one spot to another on the mostly-bare stage (set by Christopher Fitzer).
While “Hold These Truths” is a cautionary tale about how the law can be subverted, it’s not a horror story of oppression and violence, especially not in the context of the horrors that consumed much of the “civilized” world in the 1940s. Some of it is actually funny—having negotiated a 90-day sentence for his curfew violation, Hirabayashi has to report to a road crew in Arizona, and gets there by hitchhiking from Seattle, apparently without any trouble. When he arrives, the local sheriff doesn’t know what to do with him other than to suggest that he go to a movie in town, to a theater equipped with air conditioning. In addition, he succeeds in winning conscientious objector status thanks to having joined the Quakers.
Director Jeffrey Lo has coaxed a lovely recital from Tagatac, who breezed through the press opener without a glitch. SF Playhouse was extremely cautious with this soft opener—all attendees had to present proof of vaccination, have their temperatures checked, agree to an affidavit stating their good health, and mop their hands with sanitizer before being admitted to the theater upstairs, where they were seated far apart but still asked to wear masks.
As of today (June 15) it’s unclear whether that policy will continue with the statewide lifting of pandemic precautions. In any case, “Hold These Truths” is a lovely performance and a welcome return to live, in-person theater. For those still reluctant to venture out, the show will also be available as an online streaming production.
ASR Nor Cal Edition 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
Production
Saturday Night at Grossinger’s
Written by
Stephen Cole
Directed by
Jaime Love and Larry Williams
Producing Company
Sonoma Arts Live
Production Dates
May 8, 2022
Production Address
Rotary Stage: Andrews Hall, Sonoma Community Center 276 E. Napa Street, Sonoma
AisleSeat Review and our readers are enjoying a new series of question-and-answer interviews with prominent Bay Area theater people.
Our goal is not to subject you the reader to extended portentous sermons of the guest’s views on Russian translations of lesser-known Mamet flash drama (is there such a thing?)
Too often the people who guide and make theater in the Bay Area are behind the scenes — fast-moving denizens of the curtain lines who mumble into microphones while invariably (always excepting Carl Jordan’s beret collection…) dressed head-to-toe in black. These interviews allow you, the reader, to get to know these amazingly talented people a bit more, as…people.
Offering some personal and professional insights: with a heavy dash of humor, this is Aisle Seat Review’s Not So Random Question Time.
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Susi Damilano
Actor/director/producer Susi Damilano is Producing Director of the San Francisco Playhouse, co-founded with husband Bill English, the company’s Artistic Director. In its seventeen years SF Playhouse has grown from relatively obscurity to one of the city’s preeminent theater companies. Damilano is a five-time recipient of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (SFBATCC) ‘Excellence in Theatre Award for Principal Actress in a Play’ for Playhouse productions “Abigail’s Party,” “Harper Regan,” “Bug,” “Six Degrees of Separation,” and “Reckless.”
She has also performed in many other leading roles, in addition to directing Playhouse productions of “Groundhog Day the Musical,” “Cabaret,” “Mary Poppins,” “Noises Off,” “She Loves Me,” “Stage Kiss,” “Company,” “Stupid Fucking Bird,” “Into the Woods,” “A Behanding in Spokane,” “Den of Thieves,” “Wirehead” (SFBATCC nomination).
Damilano also directed the West Coast premieres of “Honey Brown Eyes” (SFBATCC nomination), “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” “Coronado,” “The Mystery Plays,” and “Roulette,” and the world premieres of “On Clover Road” by Steven Dietz, “From Red to Black” by Rhett Rossi, and “Seven Days” by Daniel Heath. As will attest anyone who’s been to one of the Playhouse’s legendary opening nights, she is also a world-class caterer.
ASR: How did you get started in theater?
SD: When I was 27 I visited a friend in London. She told me that while she was at work during the day, to go to Leicester Square and get a half price ticket to anything. I did, and saw my first professional play, “Les Miserables.” I was hooked. The next day I saw “42nd Street.” Wow! That began my love for theater—the magic of seeing someone jump off a bridge to their suicide, and ‘knowing’ he must have landed on the floor, and believing he landed in water. Beautiful.
Our focus is on how plays impact the audience…
ASR: What was the first play you performed in or directed for a paying audience?
SD: The first play I performed was called “Coming Attractions” at City Lights Theater. I got to play tons of different parts, sang and danced and had so much fun. Wendy Wisely took a chance on me and because of her, I was accepted into the Bay Area acting world.
ASR: How many theater companies have you been involved with?
SD: As I was learning my craft I took jobs anywhere around the Bay: City Lights, Town Hall, CenterRep, Actors Theatre, Phoenix Theatre, Bus Barn.
ASR: When was your present company formed?
SD: We had our first show in 2003.
ASR: Did you anticipate that it would become as successful as it has?
SD: We dreamed of what we could be and decided from the first moment to work as if we were on par with Steppenwolf or Royal Court or Donmar or Almeida … all theaters we admired, and the ones in London that we loved to visit.
ASR: Does your company have a special focus, i.e., genre/historical period, contemporary, experimental, emerging playwrights, etc?
SD: Our focus is on how plays impact the audience, not on any particular topic, niche or type. The goal is to bring people together, to touch and be touched. To share an experience and create compassion.
ASR: Who has had the largest impact on your professional development in the theater?
SD: My husband, Bill English, who is a walking library of dramatic works and knowledge. I learned to direct by sitting next to him for years and observing. My acting work was most influenced by Jean Shelton and Richard Seyd, and my courage has most been influenced by our patrons, who keep coming back and who are in the lobby crying or laughing afterward, confirming that what we are doing makes a difference.
ASR: It will likely be several months until theaters reopen. How is your company coping with the shutdown?
SD: We have the most incredible staff and board and patrons. The shutdown happened the week we were supposed to start previews for “Real Women Have Curves.” Everyone took the news so bravely. Actors lost the opportunity to share a beautiful story, our staff went to work calling ticket holders; ticket holders became donors and supporters. We’ve had to furlough many of our dear staff and are grateful that California unemployment will provide that extra $600 to them. On the other hand, we continued with announcing our season. We did a virtual announcement that has received more views and positive feedback than any event in the past.
ASR: How has the crisis affected your planning for coming seasons?
SD: When we announced the season we did not include dates or actual order of the shows. That certainty is simply not available to us right now.
ASR: How do you envision the future for your company? For the theater community overall?
SD: My vision (hope) is that we will come out of this ‘big pause’ stronger than ever. Our love and need for the arts have been solidified through its absence. The theatre has always been a place where people gather. Spacing, masks, gloves, hand sanitizer will be likely be the norm in the short term.
ASR: Almost forgotten with the pandemic is the crisis caused in the performing arts by the passage of Assembly Bill 5, requiring most workers to be paid the California minimum wage. There are multiple efforts underway in Sacramento to get performing artists exempted from this. Has AB5 affected your theater company’s plans?
SD: It hasn’t impacted our plans other than inducing confusion as to how an artist or designer could be an employee.
ASR: Do you have a “day job?”
SD: I left my ‘day job’ to run the Playhouse in our 12th season. Besides acting and directing, managing the Playhouse is my day job.
ASR: What are your interests outside of theater?
SD: I love spending time with friends and family, and of course, my dog Emi.
ASR: Do you follow other arts—music, film, dance, painting/sculpture? Do you pursue any other arts apart from theater?
SD: I love the arts, and have dabbled with drawing, and film — wish I was a trained dancer and pianist … maybe soon, if we keep staying home.
ASR: You discover a beautiful island on which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What are the first three rules you’d put into place?
SD: The words “no” and “but” are forbidden and to be replaced with “yes,” “and.” Honor the environment and keep it beautiful and strong. Be kind.
ASR: What would be the worst “buy one get one free” sale of all time?
SD: If I wanted to buy one, wouldn’t getting two be great?
ASR: If you were arrested with no explanation, your friends and family might assume you had done what?
SD: Been framed.
ASR: What three songs are Included on the soundtrack to your life? And why each?
SD: My soundtrack is more like the ocean waves, or breeze through the trees.
ASR: A fashion accessory you like better than others?
SD: Bracelets.
ASR: What would be the coolest animal to scale up to the size of a horse?
SD: None. Too big for my house.
ASR: Theater people often pride themselves on “taking risks” — have you any interest in true risk taking, such as rock climbing, shark diving, bungee jumping, skydiving?
SD: When I was younger, for sure. Not anymore.
ASR: Favorite quote from a movie or stage play?
SD: It’s from “The Sound of Music” — “Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must’ve done something good.”
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ASR 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.
Cast and Crew of ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ at SF Playhouse. Director Bill English is up-center-left in jacket.
An online advice columnist discovers that she is a wellspring of wisdom and empathy in “Tiny Beautiful Things” at SF Playhouse, through March 7.
Before each performance, Playhouse Artistic Director Bill English delivers a curtain speech in which he reiterates that his company envisions their theater as an “empathy gym” where performers and audience alike get to flex their emotional muscles. The speech couldn’t be more appropriate than it is for “Tiny Beautiful Things” developed by Nia Vardalos from the autobiographical book by Cheryl Strayed.
English directs Susi Damilano as “Sugar,” the initially reluctant advice columnist, and Mark Anderson Phillips, Kina Kantor, and Jomar Tagatac as Sugar’s various correspondents, who seek guidance on everything from the intricacies of love to matters of life and death. Sugar’s no Ph.D. psychologist but simply a woman of vast personal experience—far more vast than she first understands—who digs deep to deliver heartfelt consolation and hope to her readers, often delivered with gentle humor.
Kina Kantor, Susi Damilano, Jomar Tagatac, and Mark Anderson Phillips make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches together.
Damilano is confident and sly as Sugar, who goes repeatedly to her refrigerator for refills of white wine and emotional conviction. At first, amused by her work, she soon discovers that she’s dealing with serious issues, and rises to the challenge.
… a well-deserved standing ovation.
The play’s dramatic structure is a recitation of letters, each beginning with “Dear Sugar,” spoken and acted with palpable gravitas by Damilano’s three supporting actors. Part literary fugue and part call-and-response, the recitation continues in a rolling rhythm throughout the play’s 85 minutes, reaching a crescendo when Sugar incites her readers to find love in their hearts for everything that life throws at them.
Letter Writer #3 (Jomar Tagatac) takes in Sugar’s (Susi Damilano) words of wisdom in ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ at San Francisco Playhouse.
It’s a beautiful moment, on a dreamscape of suspended metal poles (set design by Jacquelyn Scott) evocatively illuminated by lighting designer Michael Oesch. Unfortunately, its impact is diminished by an extended continuation of letters and responses, as if Vardalos couldn’t decide what to keep and what to cut. It’s a not-so-unusual theatrical circumstance of less-could-be-more with more careful editing.
Even so, “Tiny Beautiful Things” is a rare undertaking and within its limits, a sparkling gem. Author Cheryl Stayed was in the audience on opening night, and got a well-deserved standing ovation. The world could do well with more empathetic advisors like her and fewer snarky commentators.
ASR Executive Editor Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: barry.m.willis@gmail.com
Production
Tiny Beautiful Things
Written by
Adapted by Nia Vardalos from the book by Cheryl Strayed.
Co-conceived by Marshall Heyman, Thomas Kail and Nia Vardalos.
Better late than never, the old adage has it. Here (in no particular order) are some memorable productions from last season, a year full of four- and five-star achievements.
The Jungle (Curran Theatre): San Francisco’s renovated Curran Theatre was re-renovated for an immersive recreation of a 2016 crisis in a refugee camp in Calais, France. A huge and hugely talented multi-ethnic cast made this show last season’s most profound and moving theatrical experience. (BW)
After Miss Julie (Main Stage West): Ilana Niernberger and Sam Coughlin paired up for a thrilling pas de deux in Patrick Marber’s evocative spin on “Miss Julie,” transplanting Strindberg’s classic story to a summer night in 1945. A stunning set, great lighting, and white-hot performances brought class and erotic tensions to a boil, culminating in a seriously steamy tango scene that won’t be soon forgotten. (NS)
Rocky Horror Show (Marin Musical Theatre Company): MMTC took this Halloween favorite far over the top at the San Anselmo Playhouse, thanks to stunning efforts by Jake Gale, Nelson Brown, Dani Innocenti-Beem, Pearl Fugit and many others. (BW)
Barbecue Apocalypse (Spreckels): The laughs were served well-done in this quirky comedy, thanks to a witty script marinated in millennial-centric humor and a talented ensemble. Clever costumes, strong technical work, and excellent casting proved that all it takes to survive the end of days is a little raccoon meat and some serious comic relief. (NS)
Romeo and Juliet (Throckmorton): Mill Valley’s Throckmorton Theatre and the streets around it became Verona, Italy, in a sweetly evocative, imaginative, and fully immersive production of Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy. (BW)
Sex with Strangers (Left Edge Theatre): Left Edge Theatre turned up the heat in “Sex with Strangers,” a seductive modern romance that broaches big questions about love, ambition, and the price of success in the digital era. Dean Linnard and Sandra Ish brought the story’s unlikely couple to life with electric chemistry and powerful, nuanced performances. (NS)
Incidents in the Wicked Life of Moll Flanders(Ross Valley Players): RVP gambled and won with Jennifer LeBlanc’s adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s 1722 novel. Amber Collins Crane stole the show as the lead in a compelling tale about a beautiful, quick-witted woman who rose from miserable circumstances to respectability through petty crime, stealth, charm, and unusually good luck. (BW)
Drumming with Anubis (Left Edge Theatre): Left Edge Theatre invited us along to the Neo-Heathen Male Bonding and Drumming Society’s annual campout, where a group of aging death metal fans communes in the desert to beat their bongos. Things got a little dark, a lot hilarious, and surprisingly touching when the Egyptian god of death crashed the party. Local playwright David Templeton’s brilliant new show earned a 5-star reception, featuring a phenomenal cast and beautiful scenic design. (NS)
How I Learned What I Learned (Marin Theatre Company):Director Margo Hall coaxed a tremendous performance from Steven Anthony Jones, who brought grandfatherly wit and wisdom to the role of playwright August Wilson. A master class in story-telling. (BW)
Faceless (6th Street Playhouse): Former artistic director Craig A. Miller returned to helm this riveting courtroom drama about an American teenager caught running away to join her internet boyfriend in ISIS. Razor-sharp dialogue and powerhouse performances made for an intense and memorable experience in 6th Street’s intimate studio theater. (NS)
The Year of Magical Thinking (Aurora Theatre Company): Stacy Ross glowed in a masterly solo recital of Joan Didion’s play from her book of the same name. (BW)
Home (Berkeley Repertory Theatre): In this stunning piece of performance art by Geoff Sobelle, audiences watched a two-story house materialize from the shadows of an empty stage as if by magic. A spectacle of epic proportions, this visual feast reminded theatergoers that a house is just a space in which we come together to make a home. (NS)
Fully Committed (6th Street Playhouse): Patrick Varner channeled 40-some characters in his hilarious one-man depiction of a scheduling manager at his wits’ end in a high-end NYC restaurant, at Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse. (BW)
Merman’s Apprentice (Sonoma Arts Live): Daniela Innocenti-Beem brought Broadway legend Ethel Merman back to the stage with a larger-than-life performance in this sparkling world premiere, brimming with catchy tunes and colorful humor. Innocenti-Beem and teenaged costar Emma Sutherland boast some serious pipes, which made this charming new musical all the more fun. (NS)
Mother of the Maid (Marin Theatre Company): A mother’s love and devotion were never so well depicted as in this lovely, heart-rending piece about Joan of Arc’s mother Isabelle (Sherman Fracher). (BW)
Eureka Day (Spreckels): Laughter proved contagious in Jonathan Spector’s whip-smart “Eureka Day,” pitting parents at a Berkeley charter school against each other in the wake of a mumps outbreak. An all-star cast, elaborate set design, and top-notch technical work combined to make this a 5-star production. (NS)
Cabaret (San Francisco Playhouse and Napa’s Lucky Penny Productions): Both of these productions were excellent and amazing versions of this dazzling but starkly disturbing cautionary tale. (BW)
Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (Spreckels): Theatergoers were dazzled by this cleverly written and superbly acted continuation of Jane Austen’s beloved Pride and Prejudice, containing everything an Austenesque story should: delicious drama, a heartwarming romance, and an abundance of humor and wit. Pitch-perfect direction and exemplary casting made “Miss Bennet” the ultimate holiday treat. (NS)
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Curran Theatre):Nonstop high-intensity theatrical magic is the only way to describe this extravagant production, running into next July. (BW)
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (Spreckels): Hilarity ensued in this madcap musical about a man clawing his way to the top of the family tree. Tim Setzer stole the show as all nine members of the D’Ysquith family, all of whom meet their ends in some of the most creative and comical ways imaginable. Excellent ensemble work, cute choreography, and clever projections made this one killer production. (NS)
Barry Willis is the Executive Editor at Aisle Seat Review, a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, and president of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: barry.m.willis@gmail.com
Nicole Singley is a Senior Contributing Writer and Editor at Aisle Seat Review and a voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, Sonoma County’s Marquee Theater Journalists Association, and the American Theatre Critics Association.
Time flies when you’re having fun. And it slows to a crawl when you aren’t. “Dance Nation” at San Francisco Playhouse succeeds in proving that an hour and fifty-two minutes can feel like an eternity. It fails at just about everything else it ostensibly sets out to accomplish. With no intermission and thus no chance for a polite escape, this production feels more like an avant-garde experiment in torture than an illuminating night at the theater.
The premise is straightforward enough. An Ohio dance troupe comprised of preteen girls – played by adult women of various ages, at the playwright’s instruction – is vying for a spot at Nationals in Tampa Bay. The competition is fierce, and things get really strange and gory. But there isn’t much more to the story, if it could even be called that. Instead it merely serves as a backdrop for a series of disjointed, drawn-out monologues, ranging from flat and painfully boring to overly-intense and agitating, like a bad slam poetry throwdown at the local café where angry feminists commune to rail against the patriarchy and destigmatize the female body. It plays like a misguided grab at women’s empowerment wrapped up in a hollow coming-of-age story about resilience and self-discovery. But none of it rings true.
Clare Barron has packed a lot into her characters, but little that’s terribly realistic or relatable. We bear witness to one girl’s narcissistic meltdown, reaching fever pitch as she shouts at the audience “I’m going to make you my bitch, you motherfucking cunt-munching piece of shit prick. I am your god. I am your second coming.” In another scene, a girl who’s just gotten her period smears menstrual blood across her face like war paint. In yet another, a familiar childhood pact takes a warped turn when the girls wipe armpit sweat on each other’s upper lips and kiss (what ever happened to the good old pinky promise?). We watch grown women depicting thirteen-year-old girls strip naked together without a hint of modesty or embarrassment. (Does this match your childhood locker room experience? It certainly doesn’t mine.) And yet despite their comfortable bond, the show opens awkwardly on the troupe abandoning an injured teammate on the dance floor. It all feels gratuitous, ill-fitting and off-key.
Are these the inner thoughts and lives of women? Good grief, let’s hope not.”
The cast of “Dance Nation” at work at San Francisco Playhouse (Photo Credit: Jessica Palopoli)
The coup de grâce is the show’s conclusion (dare I call it that), which features the entire cast chanting “I wish my soul were as perfect as my pussy!” – louder with each repetition – so many times that I could hear it echoing inside my head the whole drive home. Are these the inner thoughts and lives of women? Good grief, let’s hope not. None of it serves any discernible purpose but to shock and repulse the audience, for shock’s sake alone. Despite being the work of a young female playwright, “Dance Nation” is so deeply out of touch with its subject matter that it fails to be emotionally accessible in any meaningful way. It tries really hard to be controversial and edgy – in keeping with much of contemporary art – but only managed to leave me feeling tired, bored and angry. It certainly didn’t resonate with my experience of puberty and early womanhood, adolescent rivalries and friendships, the inherent camaraderie in competitive sports, or just about anything else it reaches for.
Without more believable and fully-formed characters or a compelling and cohesive narrative arc, it’s hard to feel all that connected to or interested in anything that’s happening on stage. The dancing isn’t very good, either. It’s just a lot of forced, unnatural dialogue broken up by obnoxious monologues and little to no plot, with some pointless nudity and a lot of fake blood thrown into the mix. The actors commit a commendable amount of energy to their roles, but it’s not enough to make us care about what happens to their characters. The set doesn’t help much, either. It’s clunky and underwhelming, offering little to look at but a shelf full of trophies and large pillars that often block the audience’s view.
In light of this experience, it’s difficult to fathom why this play has received such high praise from other critics. (It won the Relentless Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and was even a Pulitzer Prize finalist.) Is Becca Wolff’s direction at fault? Did SF Playhouse simply miss the mark with this one? Given their excellent track record, it’s hard to imagine that’s the case, but without any basis for comparison, it’s impossible to know exactly what to think. All I can say with certainty is that from start to finish, I didn’t find a single minute of this show enjoyable. Seldom have I felt so anxious for something to be over. SF Playhouse calls itself an “empathy gym,” but the only thing “Dance Nation” exercised was this reviewer’s patience.
Nicole Singley is a Senior Contributing Writer and Editor at Aisle Seat Review and a voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, Sonoma County’s Marquee Theater Journalists Association, and the American Theatre Critics Association.
The Kit Kat dancers at SF Playhouse. Photo by Jessica Palopoli
Every summer, San Francisco Playhouse revives a classic musical and runs it all season long. It’s a brilliant marketing ploy leveraging Union Square tourist traffic, one that gives company principals a breather to prepare for an intense fall/winter schedule. The company’s current offering is a splendid take on Kander and Ebbs’s “Cabaret,” through September 14.
It’s one of several iterations of “Cabaret” to pop up recently in the Bay Area, thanks to the Trump presidency and its supporters. SFP’s bawdy effort is both wonderfully entertaining and horrifically startling—a cautionary tale about the rise of pure evil among seemingly nice friendly people, such as Ernst Ludwig (Will Springhorn, Jr.), the charming German businessman who befriends American novelist Cliff Bradshaw (Atticus Shaindlin) on a train ride into Berlin.
Cate Heyman as Sally Bowles works SF Playhouse. Photo by Jessica Palopoli
Ludwig introduces Bradshaw to Fraulein Schneider (Jennie Brick), proprietress of a rooming house where he soon takes up residence, and to the Kit Kat Klub, the cabaret of the show’s title. There he meets many denizens of Berlin’s cultural underworld, including the fetching Sally Bowles (Cate Hayman), a flighty British singer with whom he’s soon head over heels and sharing a room, both to his regret.
…if you haven’t seen it, make it a priority. If you have, it’s worth revisiting.
Many of the songs in this show made it into the pop repertoire, thanks to the commercial success of the 1972 movie: “Wilkommen,” “Don’t Tell Mama,” “Maybe This Time,” “Cabaret,” “Money,” and “Married,” a lovely duet performed by Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz (Louis Parnell), the fruit seller to whom Schneider gets engaged, both of them in late middle age. It’s a lilting note of hope in a show that’s ultimately and intentionally a very bitter pill buried in a thick coating of sugar. Herr Schultz is in deep denial about the rising tide of anti-Semitism, believing that as a native-born German Jew he will be considered a German first. Schneider knows better, and so does Bradshaw.
Jennie Brick and Louis Parnell as Schneider and Schultz. Photo by Jessica Palopoli
But the sugar is sweet and seductive. The Kit Kat Klub’s Master of Ceremonies is convincingly portrayed by John Paul Gonzalez, whose high-energy genderbending is the motive force behind most of the show’s many song-and-dance numbers (choreography by Nicole Helfer), performed by a tremendous ensemble, with music from an ace band under the direction of Dave Dobrusky.
Susi Damilano’s dynamic stage direction is first-rate, as is Jacquelyn Scott’s set design, but what sets this “Cabaret” apart from other very good productions is Cate Hayman as Sally Bowles. A theater student at Carnegie Mellon University (as is Atticus Shaindlin), Heyman brings a depth to her character that other performers have missed. Sally Bowles is usually portrayed as an annoying self-centered airhead, and Heyman encompasses that, but her Sally has an implied backstory that makes her much more substantial than most. Heyman is the best Sally Bowles this reviewer has ever seen.
Also superb is Abby Haug as Fraulien Kost, a resident at Fraulien Schneider’s who earns her living entertaining sailors by the hour. Haug and Heyman will prove justification for many ticket buyers. “Cabaret” at SF Playhouse runs a couple more weeks—if you haven’t seen it, make it a priority. If you have, it’s worth revisiting.
ASR Senior Editor Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.
A seemingly innocuous statement made at a celebratory dinner party has unexpected ramifications in Christopher Chen’s “You Mean to Do Me Harm,” at San Francisco Playhouse through Nov. 3.
So does just about everything spoken or thought by the four characters in this baffling one-act workshopped last year as part of the Playhouse’s “Sandbox” series. Now given a full production in the company’s main theater, the piece opens strongly with two interracial couples meeting to celebrate an impending new job for Ben (Cassidy Brown), whose Chinese-American wife Samantha (Charisse Loriaux) was promoted over him at social-good non-profit. His new boss will be a Chinese-American named Daniel (Jomar Tagatac), whose spouse, Lindsay (Katie Rubin) is a corporate lawyer who briefly dated Ben in college.
A comment about a camping trip they took some ten years earlier opens a Pandora’s Box of florid and sometimes paranoid fantasies that impinge on every aspect of professional and interpersonal relationships. Racism—private/personal and historical/institutional—is a strong theme.
… The piece opens strongly …
Played out on an austere but imposing set by Angrette McClosky, the urbane banter of the four exposes character flaws and motivations that threaten the stability of their relationships. The job offer for Ben is inexplicably withdrawn. This launches a series of sketches that examine in detail both the outer and inner realities of all four characters.
Harm-Charisse Loriaux and Cassidy Brown as Samantha and Ben – Photo by Ken Levin
These sketches tend to be vicious—especially a shouting match between Ben and Lindsay—but there is one of the two women with a confessional/conspiratorial tone approaching friendship.
The sketch structure is both too little and too much for this 90-minute show: two little in that there are insufficient dramatic/character arcs and too much in the sense that each sketch could be expanded. It’s as if Chen has opened up his notebook and thrown everything onstage that these four characters could do with each other, without considering the ultimate trajectory of the play. The setup is compelling but dramatic development lacking: plenty of conflict, no resolution.
“You Mean to Do Me Harm” begins and ends abruptly and looks very much like an early-stage Netflix series in which each sketch could be developed into a full episode. Director Bill English and his expert cast try mightily to breathe life into it, but as an evening’s entertainment, it’s an interesting but ultimately unfulfilling bit of theater.
ASR Theatre Section Editor and Senior Contributor Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.
Every summer, SanFrancisco Playhouse puts on a classic musical that runs from late June or early July into September. A hugely successful business model, the strategy takes advantage of tourist traffic in the city’s downtown Union Square area.
The current offering, James Lapine’s and Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” has been so successful that the Playhouse has had to add performances to accommodate demand. Now halfway through its run, the show is popular for good reasons—among them, superb performances and stunning stagecraft.
…a beautifully rendered and performed Broadway classic that deserves all the attention it’s getting…
In many ways award-winning director Bill English’s magnum opus, “Sunday in the Park” has amazing sets (also by English) and immersive projections by Theodore J.H. Hulsker that bring the paintings of George Seurat to life, as well as the island in the Seine immortalized in his most famous creation.
The first act’s story focuses on Seurat (John Bambery) and his obsession with 18th century discoveries in optics—in particular, the fact that two closely-spaced unlike colors seen at a distance appear to the eye as a third color. Red and blue appear as lavender, for example.
George (John Bambery) at work on his masterpiece, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” Photo courtesy of SF Playhouse.
His pointillist technique was enormously time-consuming, leaving little margin for the proper treatment of his lover/model/muse Dot (Nanci Zoppi, who steals the show). Zoppi also appears in the second act as Marie, Dot’s daughter, and Bambery is Seurat’s American grandson, also named George, and also an artist. There is some disagreement between Marie and this new George about his exact lineage, and about the direction of his art. The second act spoofs the 1970s art world, but the first act seems to take the artist’s struggle quite seriously.
There are no weak links in the large cast—they range from good to exemplary—but standouts include Maureen McVerry as the Old Lady in Act 1 and as modern art maven Blair Daniels in Act 2, and Anthony Rollins-Mullens as Louis.
George (John Bambery) shares a moment with the Old Lady (Maureen McVerry.) Photo courtesy of SF Playhouse.
The creative team is similarly of high caliber, particularly choreographer Kimberly Richards, costumer Abra Berman, and lighting designer Michael Oesch.
The cast of ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ take their positions in Georges Seurat’s famous painting. Photo courtesy SF Playhouse.
“Sunday in the Park” is an absolute spectacle. Sondheim’s music may give some visitors pause—it rarely rises to the level of recognizable melody, and unfortunately, the composer may have exhausted his considerable lyrical abilities in collaborating with Leonard Bernstein on “West Side Story.”
From the same era that gave us “Company” and “Sweeney Todd,” this show tends toward the atonal and repetitive, but it’s nonetheless a beautifully rendered and performed Broadway classic that deserves all the attention it’s getting.
ASR Theatre Section Editor and Senior Contributor Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.
“Neoteny” is a scientific term for the persistence of immature characteristics in mature organisms: adult dogs with the look and behavior of puppies, for example. By extension, it could be applied to a large swath of the thirty-something population, many of whom seem to have reached their limit of social development in middle school.
It’s also a strong sub-theme in “An Entomologist’s Love Story,” at San Francisco Playhouse through June 23. Expertly directed by Giovanna Sardelli, Melissa Ross’s tight, insightful script examines the relationship of Betty and Jeff (Lori Prince and Lucas Verbrugghe), two doctoral candidates who work together in the entomology department of the Museum of Natural History in New York City.
SF Playhouse: Lucas Verbrugghe and Lori Prince
Briefly lovers during their undergrad days, the two now enjoy a playful relationship like teenage brother and sister. Their nerdy banter is the source of much of Ross’s comedy—much of it true-to-life proof that “thirty is the new thirteen.” Betty is an expert on the mating behaviors of insects—the play is bracketed by her lectures on the subject—but is obsessed with the mating behaviors of humans, an activity with which she has had much experience but no longterm success. She clings to Jeff, who clearly wants to move on, but doesn’t know how.
Lindsay (Jessica Lynn Carroll, right) shows an insect specimen to Jeff (Lucas Verbrugghe).
Then one day he meets Lindsay (Jessica Lynn Carroll), a young woman geekier by far than he and Betty combined, and soon he knows she’s the girl for him. How to break away from Betty is his challenge, and dealing with that is hers. Then life throws her a curve ball in the form of an intellectual janitor named Andy (Will Springhorn, Jr.), who’s attended her lectures and has read “War and Peace” in its entirety.
It’s a spare, beautifully structured plot without a hint of fluff. Every line and every action propel the story toward its lovely uplifting conclusion, all of it conveyed on a spectacular set—both interior and exterior of the museum—by Nina Ball, one of the Bay Area’s most gifted and adventurous set designers. This show’s scientific setting and dissection of the personal lives of realistic scientists make it an excellent follow-up to “The Effect,” with its theme of love and research. And love-among-the-nerds makes it a superb companion piece to “Tinderella,” running through May 26 at Custom Made Theatre, in SF Playhouse’s former home on Sutter Street. Hilarious and hopeful, “An Entomologist’s Love Story” is a sweet antidote for what ails us.
ASR Senior Editor Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.
In “The Effect,” at San Francisco Playhouse through April 28, a clinical drug trial goes off the rails when two test subjects fall in love, and two supervising psychiatrists revisit an old affair.
The story plays out over a few weeks in a lab belonging to the fictional Rauschen pharmaceutical company. Two young trial volunteers, Connie Hall and Tristan Frey (Ayelet Firstenberg and Joe Estlack, respectively) have signed up to test an experimental antidepressant, ostensibly because they need the money, although that is never made explicit.
Lead researcher Dr. Toby Sealey (Robert Parsons) has great hopes for the potential of this new drug to raise levels of dopamine, a substance naturally present in the brain, but depleted in depressed people. His one-time lover Dr. Lorna James (Susi Damilano) is directly in charge of administering incrementally increasing doses to her subjects and monitoring their behavior. She tries vainly to intervene when Connie and Tristan get involved with each other, because love’s pleasure also raises dopamine levels, potentially masking the effect of the drug. She also tries vainly to suppress lingering feelings for Dr. Sealey, a man she dismisses as “the most notorious fuck-around on the conference circuit.”
Playwright Lucy Prebble’s fascinating script examines the nature of love and mental illness, calls into question scientific objectivity, and makes a deserving target of pharmaceuticals with marginal benefits and many deadly side effects. Dr. James does likewise – she remarks to Dr. Sealey that “the history of medicine is the history of placebos” and later predicts that “one day we will look back on all this chemical-imbalance stuff like the four humors.” Their relationship does not blossom anew. It’s implied that Dr. Sealey may enjoy a big payout if the trial’s results are positive.
Set designer Nina Ball is at her best here, evoking the vaguely pleasant but impersonal nature of corporate environments, with superb help from projections designer Theodore J.H. Hulsker, whose video graphics are chillingly effective.
Director Bill English gets a powerful performance from his cast of four. The show’s dark trajectory is interrupted here and there by moments of near-comedy, but the light at the end of its tunnel doesn’t shine on Dr. James. “The Effect” is a well-done theatrical rarity that entertains, informs, and provokes in equal measure.
ASR Senior Editor Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.
Note: These commentaries are primarily focused on the production, direction, and technical aspects of theater and performing arts.
Set in a $235-a-day hotel suite in our nation’s capital after WWII, “Born Yesterday” revolves around one Harry Brock, a self-made scrap-metal tycoon-cum-moneybags who comes to D.C. to buy himself a U.S. Senator. Along the way, he also buys (or so he thinks) a New Republic reporter named Paul Verrall to teach culture and manners to his mistress of eight-plus years, Emma “Billie” Dawn, a mink coat wearing former hoofer from the “Anything Goes” chorus line.
Simple enough. But as they often do in D.C., things go awry.
Because as Billie and Paul (quite quickly and with very little ramp-up) bookworm their way towards a romance, Billie morphs into the best looking, best educated dancer-cum-librarian in these forty-eight states (remember: the play takes place in 1946.)
She also turns a now knowing eye towards the ways Harry has been using/treating her – particularly as a “silent partner”, who, it turns out, owns 160 of what-were-Harry’s-but-are-now-Billie’s junkyards, since Harry insisted that she rather than he sign all the ownership documents (mostly unread.)
To Harry’s horror, Paul’s new student turns into a polished (as opposed to unpolished) dumb blonde, a well-read whistle-blowing crusader-cum-moralist who is in love with said reporter-tutor and not the least bit adverse to some not-so-subtle brink-womanship/blackmail regarding said scrapyards.
Next thing you know, love wins triumphant for Billie and her new beau while Harry has (we’re left to hope) learned his lesson(s) and is licking the wounds of his comeuppance. Curtain calls all around.
Not quite.
There are two flies in the ointment of the SF Playhouse production. As a character, Harry is a bully, a shark who is used to getting his way even if it involves slapping a few people around. That’s a given; no doubt. But, and it’s a BIG but, this play is written as a light comedy and the actor portraying Mr. Brock presents his character as a totally unlikeable, snarling woman (and man) beater. And since he’s such an obvious boob, no self-respecting graft-oriented Senator would get within strongarm (or bank deposit slip) distance of this walking Grand Jury deposition. So, if there is nothing at all likeable about Harry, we’re left with two holes in the plot:
If he’s such a relentless bully, hoodlum, and bruiser, why has Billie stayed with him for 8+ years? She may start the play as a “dumb blonde” but she’s obviously way smarter than to sign-up for endless abuse, even at Act 1-Scene
1.
For the play to reach its intended comedy payoff, the audience should/must be laughing at Harry’s final comeuppance at the hands of these “born yesterday” newbies, Billie and Paul. Without his outraged sputtering, day-late-and-dollar-short, speechless hair-tearing, aghast flummoxing and proverbial pie-in-the-face downfall the audience is robbed of the comedy crescendo to which this tight script leads. He’s the real country bumpkin boob in this show.
Absent those two points, we’re left with a morality play.
***
Editor’s Note: One thing that’s interesting about “Born Yesterday” — As of February 2018, if you remove musicals from the equation, ”Born Yesterday”, based on its 1946-1949 run of 1,642 performances, remains inside the Top 10 Longest Running Broadway Plays list. And inside the Top 50 Longest Running Broadway Plays list even with musicals in the mix. Wow!
***
TECHNICAL SCORECARD
Scenic Design:
SF Playhouse is known for nice sets. This one is, in a word, fabulous. Multi-layered, including a 2 or 3 story window with rear projection of The Mall in Washington, D.C., this is a set among sets. Major marks to Scenic Designer Jacquelyn Scott. Special nod to Projections Designer Theodore J.H. Hulsker. (Score: 9.5/10)
Set Construction:
Nice. Doors close nicely without shaking the two/three story walls. Two center stage columns impress without swaying as people and or doors move. The impressive stairway is quiet and its rails and balusters are sweet. Wall fit, trim and paint details are very, very well executed. The painted floor is also very nice. In short, very nice work all around and kudos to Maggie Koch (Production Manager), Zach Sigman (Technical Director) and all the SF Playhouse production technicians involved. (Score: 9.5/10)
Stage Management:
High-five to Beth Hall, the Stage Manager: the action behind the scenes was almost flawless. Cues were on their mark, entrances snappy, scenic (and projection) transitions timely. Nice work Beth — and Emily Kovalcik, stage management intern. (Score: 9/10)
Sound:
The show doesn’t have an especially large sound cue list, but all of the ever-present Mr. Hulsker’s sounds were executed and voiced well. (Score: 9/10)
Props:
Speaking of omni-present, Ms. Scott of Scenic Design fame also serves as Properties Manager for this production and did yeowoman’s work on this front as well. The furniture was tasteful, the props as period as possible it appeared. (Score: 9/10)
Costumes:
Mid- 20th century (1946) is always a tricky ask of any costumer. Abra Berman took a mighty swing and darn near got all the costumes right. A couple of outfits looked more ‘50s than mid-‘40s, but still a solid job. (Score: 8/10)
Direction:
Susi Damilano knows directing cold. Let’s get that straight right off. She’s a top-flight director. And, comedy – any comedy, anywhere, anytime, in any theater – is hard to direct. Period.
As seen, this show did not represent Ms. Damilano’s very best. Pacing was a solid beat too slow in Act 1 and missed by more in Act 2. Character arcs were left too flat and we missed-out on the comedic payoff of Mr. Brock’s comeuppance (mentioned above.)
To be fair, 1940’s words-and-phrases require more work on the part of actors and directors. Characters of this period often spoke sotto voce, or out of the side of their mouth. (Think Cary Grant, Abner Bieberman, Rosalind Russell, and Ralph Bellamy in “His Girl Friday”.) These were well trained radio actors who knew how to nuance each line they delivered.
On a related note, actors in this show too often spoke both too soft and off-axis from the audience, making it difficult to hear the lines and the jokes. Vocal projection, from these sorts of characters and with this sort of material, is to be expected. When an audience works to hear or to decipher a line (or ‘accent’) jokes die.
Ditto when line speed slows down. Comedy, especially of this period, needs to be tight, crisp, and rat-a-tat fast. (Score: 8/10)
Lighting:
By and large, Michael Oesch’s lighting design for this show was good. In particular, the upstairs lighting and that of the entryway was very well conceived and executed. That said, there were noticeable gaps between the lights set for downstage. At this production level, the audience should not see a dim zone between lights. (Score: 8/10)
Casting:
Casting by Lauren English and Bebe La Grua was mostly fine, with two notable exceptions: the actors selected to portray Mr. Brock and and Mr. Verrall. Both were too ‘one note.’ On the other hand, Ms. Millie Brooks is delightful actress. (Score: 8/10)
Overall Production: What went right: Killer set. Tight stage management. Solid props and sound. Mostly solid costumes and lights. What missed a bit: Direction. Casting.
So, excepting a couple of infield ground balls, (which, to be fair, can largely be addressed) this show has the potential to be the sort of solid inside-the-park home-run production we’re used to from SF Playhouse. (Score: 8.5/10)
Overall Theater Tech Score: (86.5/100) Good work, worth seeing.
Born Yesterday by Garson Kanin
Directed by Susi Damilano
Runs thru March 10, 2018 at SF Playhouse, 450 Post Street, San Francisco, CA
Performance run time is approx. 2 hours 30 minutes w/one 15-minute intermission.
Tickets available online at sfplayhouse.org or by phone at 415.677.9596
Team ASR is composed of a selection of writers, directors, actor, musicians, dancers, technicians, stage managers, and a host of other arts folks.
We don’t name names for obvious reasons — and Team ASR often buys their own tickets and do not announce their presence as such at a performance — but it is important to note that each Team ASR review is screened by one or more ASR Editors to insure a ‘fair’ review, warts and all, when appropriate.
The goal of Team ASR Reviews is to communicate directly with the technical staffs who are largely ignored by most reviewers. These behind the scenes folks work their collective butt’s off to mount a show, and they deserve well-intentioned constructive criticism from fellow artists as appropriate — and ditto for well-earned praise.
SF Playhouse has learned a secret uncovered by few community and regional theaters: big musicals in the June 1 to Sept. 1 time-frame can make serious money. Especially in tourist destination cities or areas.
Raising a vodka gimlet to toast their own obvious success with this secret (as witnessed by the near sell-out audience last Saturday night), SF Playhouse’s production of Company, by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, went down as smooth as a cocktail and left many patrons with a satisfied glow as a result.
Company is not your typical all-singing-all-dancing musical. In fact, there’s little enough dancing in the show—this is a musical with the emphasis on the music and the singing.Company is not a sort of A-to-Z straight-line plot, either. The show is composed of a variety of scenes that taken as a whole tell our tale.
The scenes/music/singing all revolve around the dating / marriage / commitment / relationships of one newly 35-year-old man named Bobby, played with almost detached studied aplomb by Keith Pinto. A perpetual bachelor and bon vivant, Bobby, and his married friends, are celebrating his birthday; that, in essence, is the story line.
As directed by SF Playhouse co-founder Susi Damilano, Company eschews the full orchestration and electric guitars of most productions, relying instead on two pianos, located stage left and stage right. Music Director Dave Dobrusky presides over one of these pianos and surely conducts his charges. The effect of this two-piano strategy is more personal, less grandiose than a full or even partial orchestra.
The set design by Bill English and Jacquelyn Scott is elegant on many levels because the set is built on, you guessed it, many levels. The scenic rear projections as designed by Micah Stieglitz add a powerful theatrical touch to the proceedings. The sound design by Anton Hedman works well, as does the lighting design by Michael Oesch.
Stage management by Tatjana Genser is tight with sound and light cues snappily in place. Costume design by Shannon Sigman takes full marks—elegant, well designed, and nicely rendered. All the actors looked darn good in Sigman’s work. The props design is fine—what props need to be in place are in place, work well, and underscore scenes nicely.
Choreography by Kimberly Richards, ably assisted by Morgan Dayley, is sharp and professional, given the limitations on dancing room due to the multi-plane set.
Let’s move on to the acting. Overall, the casting and associated acting of this show is a little bit uneven, but, to be sure, the acting is in general rendered with obvious verve and commitment.
I do wish we’d gotten to see a bit more of Abby Sammons’ (Jenny) good work. This is a talented lady.
Then there is Monique Hafen as Amy.
Can I say, “Oh. My. God.” in a review? There’s nothing else to say. To say Hafen nails the anxiety, the intensity, the comedy, and the speed-singing of Amy, who may not be getting married today, is like saying the Mona Lisa is “a pretty, sort of, mostly OK drawing.” Once Hafen starts acting and singing, almost all the other cast members turn to specters at worst or supporting actors/singers at best. Hafen is the most exciting and engaging musical performer in this cast, bar none. If she doesn’t have a suitcase permanently packed for Broadway by her home’s front door she’s doing something wrong.
Another notable performance is rendered by Joanne (Stephanie Prentice). Never far from a bar or a drink, the fragile, emotional wreck that is Joanne has one of the most powerful songs of the night (“The Ladies Who Lunch”) and Prentice nailed it cold.
Full marks must be given to Morgan Dayley in her character as a flight attendant who spends as much time looking up at bedroom ceilings as she does looking down airplane aisles. Dayley gives the role her all and does so without stepping into cliché or camp. Watch this performer, she is going places.
“Side by Side by Side/What Would We Do Without You?” is, I will admit, one of my favorite dance numbers and SF Playhouse did it with gusto. Overall, the music and singing were quite good.
All in all, SF Playhouse’s Company is a fine night on the town.
Company continues through Sept. 12 at San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., San Francisco.
Rating: Four out of Five Stars
***
Kris Neely is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and a Theater Bay Area (TBA) Adjudicator.
Mr. Neely’s blogs on theater and performing arts are found on Aisle Seat Review at www.AisleSeatReview.com and also on For All Events at www.ForAllEvents.com.
NOTE: The following commentary is focused primarily on the production, direction, and technical aspects of theater and performing arts.
SF Playhouse has learned a secret uncovered by few community and regional theaters: big musicals in the June 1 to Sept. 1 timeframe can make serious money. Especially in tourist destination cities or areas.
Raising a vodka gimlet to toast their own obvious success with this secret (as witnessed by the near sell-out audience last Saturday night), SF Playhouse’s production of Company, by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, went down as smooth as a cocktail and left many patrons with a satisfied glow as a result.
Company is not your typical all-singing-all-dancing musical. In fact, there’s little enough dancing in the show—this is a musical with the emphasis on the music and the singing.Company is not a sort of A-to-Z straight-line plot, either. The show is composed of a variety of scenes that taken as a whole tell our tale.
The scenes/music/singing all revolve around the dating/marriage/commitment/relationships of one newly 35-year-old man named Bobby, played with almost detached studied aplomb by Keith Pinto. A perpetual bachelor and bon vivant, Bobby, and his married friends, are celebrating his birthday; that, in essence, is the storyline.
TECHNICAL SCORECARD
Scenic Design:
The set design by Bill English and Jacquelyn Scott is elegant on many levels because the set is built on, you guessed it, many levels. The scenic rear projections as designed by Micah Stieglitz add a powerful theatrical touch to the proceedings. (Score: 8/10)
Set Construction:
In a word: quality. A well constructed, well thought-out set. No extraneous architecture—nothing that didn’t need to be there was there. (Score: 8/10)
Stage Management:
As rendered by Tatjana Genser, the stage management was tight with sound and light cues snappily in place. (Score: 8/10)
Sound:
The sound design by Anton Hedman works well. (Score: 7/10)
Props:
The props design is fine—what props need to be in place are in place, work well, and underscore scenes nicely. (Score: 7/10)
Costumes:
Costume design by Shannon Sigman takes full marks—elegant, well designed, and nicely rendered. All the actors looked darn good in Sigman’s work. (Score: 8/10)
Direction:
As directed by SF Playhouse co-founder Susi Damilano, Company is well blocked with excellent stage pictures rendered on the multiple layers of the stage. This adds complexity to the directorial process because it’s easier to watch/direct actors at the same time on a single level plane versus actors scattered liberally from stage left to stage right and upstage to downstage.
Blocking takes on aspects of choreography in many plays (both musical and non-musical), and Damilano handled movement well. My only nudge would be that cue pick-ups could be quicker, brisker, and the same nudge for scene transitions—a bit faster might have added even more audience energy to the proceedings. (Score: 8/10)
Musical Direction:
Company eschews the full orchestration and electric guitars of most productions, relying instead on two pianos, located stage left and stage right. Music Director Dave Dobrusky hosts one of these pianos and surely conducts his musical charges. The effect of this two-piano strategy is more personal, less grandiose than a full or even partial orchestra. That said, at times it felt a bit like the cast was fighting the sound envelope of the pianos. (Score: 6/10)
Lights:
The lighting design by Michael Oesch in and of itself works well. (Score: 8/10)
NOTE:But I have significant reservation about a couple of architectural lighting issues. The house right and house left tormentor lights spill too much light into the audience area. The same is true of the lights high, upstage center. The light spillage was very distracting and detracted from the quality of what was happening onstage.
Casting:
The casting was a bit uneven. Disappointing, as the majority of the cast ranged from good to superb.(Score: 7/10)
Overall Production:
As presented by SF Playhouse, Company gives general audiences and those of us inside theater a solid example of taking a musical from some years back and making it modern, energetic, and appealing to a contemporary audience.
The acting of Monique Hafen made this show for me. Her stellar history with SF Playhouse is now the stuff of regional theater legend. Soon, I have little doubt, it will be the stuff of Broadway legend as well. (Score: 8.5/10)
Reviewer Score:
SF Playhouse has demonstrated to everyone that they know how to rock musical theater. From awards won to sell-out nights, SF Playhouse knows musicals. Company continues that proud heritage.
The quality of SF Playhouse musical productions should be a beacon to technical theater artists as well as actors across the US, and, indeed, globally. (Score: 8.5/10)
Overall Score: (92/120) Extremely good work.
All in all, SF Playhouse’s Company is a fine night on the town.
Company continues through Sept. 12 at San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., San Francisco.
Team ASR is composed of a selection of writers, directors, actor, musicians, dancers, technicians, stage managers, and a host of other arts folks.
We don’t name names for obvious reasons — and Team ASR often buys their own tickets and do not announce their presence as such at a performance — but it is important to note that each Team ASR review is screened by one or more ASR Editors to insure a ‘fair’ review, warts and all, when appropriate.
The goal of Team ASR Reviews is to communicate directly with the technical staffs who are largely ignored by most reviewers. These behind the scenes folks work their collective butt’s off to mount a show, and they deserve well-intentioned constructive criticism from fellow artists as appropriate — and ditto for well-earned praise.
