Tag: TheaterWorks

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ASR Theater ~~ TheatreWorks “Queen” Probes Scientific Morals

By Joanne Engelhardt

San Jose-based playwright/filmmaker Madhuri Shekar tackles the real-life dilemma of saving bees in Queen, running through March 31 at Lucie Stern Theater in Palo Alto. The “queen” here is the queen bee in a bee colony, voraciously devoured by worker bees.

Is this enough to absorb an audience for 90+ minutes? In this reviewer’s opinion: yes and no.

That said, four fine actors are nearly first-rate; Shekar incorporates a lot of humor into her dialogue to counter the heaviness of scientific research and supposition. Just when it gets a bit too much on the statistics side, Shekar slips in a joke about bees or science to loosen things up.

… Her grandfather keeps setting up blind dates for her, most of whom she finds loathsome…

Queen’s premise is unquestionably true: There’s been a disheartening drop in the number of bees over the past decade. As research assistant Sanam Srinivasan (Uma Paranjpe) points out, “The human race depends on bees.”

L-R, Kjerstine Anderson, Mike Ryan and Uma Paranjpe play researchers in “Queen,” presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. (Courtesy Kevin Berne)

That’s why she and her Ph.D. research partner, Ariel Spiegel (Kjerstine Rose Anderson), have been doggedly trying for years to figure out how to address the issue. They’ve concluded that a pesticide used by Monsanto has killed more than one billion bees. (That’s billion–with a “B.”)

They’ve meticulously done their research and, after eight years, are about to present their case at a conference scheduled a few days hence, then publish their research results in the prestigious scientific journal “Nature.” But the night before the conference they meet with their mentor and supervising professor, Dr. Philip Hayes (Mike Ryan). Sanam says she has discovered an error in coding which is causing the results to be off by a few percentage points.

That’s when a riff appears between Dr. Hayes and Sanam, with the professor telling her that the error is small and can be adjusted later, while Sanam emphatically declaring that she can’t present inaccurate data.

(L-R) Uma Paranjpe, left, and Kjerstine Anderson star as researchers exploring declining bee populations in “Queen” for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Photo: Kevin Berne

There are also a couple of side stories: One involves Ariel’s decision to take six months off from her research to have a child (a daughter often heard crying but never seen). Another involves Sanam whose Indian parents are concerned that she may not marry and give them grandchildren. Her grandfather keeps setting up blind dates for her, most of whom she finds loathsome until she meets Arvind, an Indian American financier who thinks her devotion to her bee research is charming and admirable.

Deven Kolluri plays Arvind as a confident, handsome rogue who eventually wins over Sanam for a romantic night – but she has no intention of following him to New York where he lives.

Playwright Shekar has set her play in a nearby location (UC Santa Cruz), which helps theatregoers relate to the story. But it might not be a winner for everyone–because while it has humor, this reviewer found it a tad heavy on the scientific side. Director Miriam A. Laube ensures that the play moves along quickly, especially when the methodical discourse gets a bit… murky.

All four actors bring unique personalities to their roles– with a couple personal asides: IMHO, Paranjpe speaks a shade too fast and not quite loud enough. Also, Ryan tends to become a bit too…well, bombastic when he’s telling his research assistants to present their data –-inconsistent or not.

Among the clever subtleties of Queen is scenic designer Nina Ball’s proscenium and panels, pockmarked with cut-out circles that give the appearance of a beehive. The panels are quickly moved in and out as lead deck crew Megan Hall and her team soundlessly move set pieces for different scenes. Kent Dorsey’s lighting design is excellent, as is James Ard’s sound.

As with the flawed data, this reviewer is of the mind that this play needs a bit of work to make it as good as it could be. That said, for those more scientifically inclined, the play will give them food for thought.

A joint collaboration between TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and EnActe, located in Sunnyvale and Texas. the entire production runs a scant 100 minutes without intermission.

-30-

 

Aisle Seat Executive Reviewer Joanne Engelhardt is a Peninsula theatre writer and critic. She is a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (SFBATCC). Contact: [email protected]

 

ProductionQueen
Written by
Madhuri Shekar
Directed byMiriam A. Laube
Producing CompanyTheatreWorks Silicon Valley and Entre Acts
Production DatesThru Mar 31st
Production Address1305 Middlefield Road
Palo Alto, CA 94301
Websitewww.theatreworks.org
Telephone(877) 662-8978
Tickets$42- $82
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall3.5/5
Performance3.5/5
Script3.25/5
Stagecraft3.75/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?No.
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PICK! ASR THEATER ~~ Heartfelt Story: Fannie Lou Hamer Celebrated at TheatreWorks

By Joanne Engelhardt

You know you’re in for a story about the plight of Southern Black people when you take your seat in the Lucie Stern Theater in Palo Alto for Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer and see signs all over the theater walls with slogans like “Folks died so you could vote,” “We demand the right to vote,” and “Pass the Civil Rights Bill.”

Then a stubby woman strides down one of the theater’s aisles, gallops up the steps pronouncing her presence and begins a 66-minute dialogue – interrupted only a few times by a line or two from one of the men in the three-person musical orchestra – and by the glorious 1960s gospel songs she sings.

…“To hope is to vote!” — activist/civil rights hero Fannie Lou Hamer…

The magnificent Greta Oglesby immerses herself in the role of civil rights advocate Fannie Lou Hamer who was a simple 44-year-old sharecropper in Louisville, Mississippi when she took on that mantel after learning that President Lyndon B. Johnson was trying to get Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act.

One day Fannie and seventeen others went to the county courthouse to register to vote, but just about everyone else in her town had different ideas. The would-be registrants never even got in the door. Thinking back on it, Fannie declares “We were only trying to register! Imagine if we were actually trying to vote!!”

TheatreWorks artistic director Tim Bond gives Oglesby all the space she needs to exhibit the emotions – from joy to pain and agony – that created the firebrand Fannie became.

One of the most difficult scenes to watch is Fannie telling what happened to her when she was thrown into jail – first alone, but then put in with four male prisoners, both black and white. Listening as she describes being sodomized by one, then another, and another and another, can make your blood boil. Such experiences only made Fannie more resolved than ever that she and “her kind” deserved to both be equal and to have the right to vote.

When Oglesby belts out her gospel songs, she makes the audience feel they are in her church, complete with a sporadic “hallelujah” from the men who add so much, both with their voices and their fine instrumentation—music director Morgan E, Stevenson on keyboards and harmonica, Spencer Guitar on guitars, and Leonard Maddox Jr. on drums.

At one point Fannie urges the audience to join her in a rousing rendition of “This Little Light of Mine.” The audience sings first altogether, then she divides the crowd and has half sing, then the other half. By then she has everyone in her pocket, stomping their feet and singing out as if in a Southern church gospel service.

Photo Credit: Kevin Berne

Aided by Miko S. Simmons’ projections, scenic designer Andrea Bechert does a masterful job of creating a set that switches from scenes of marches and demonstrations to intimate times in Fannie’s living room. Ronnie Rafael Alcaraz’s lighting adds another dimension to many scenes as does Gregory Robinson’s sound.

Yet  this reviewer found something wanting in playwright Cheryl L. West’s scant (one hour, six minutes) script. At one point Oglesby marched off the stage and a slide came up telling the audience that Fannie Lou died of heart failure in 1977, a few months shy of her 60th birthday. Then Oglesby came out to take a bow. The ending is so abrupt – and the play itself so short! – that this reviewer assumed it was an intermission.

Clearly, this is a production with a lot of heart. What it lacks is a clear view of when it needs to stop ticking.

-30–

Aisle Seat Executive Reviewer Joanne Engelhardt is a Peninsula theatre writer and critic. She is a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (SFBATCC). Contact: [email protected]

 

ProductionFannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer
Written by
Cheryl L. West
Directed byTim Bond
Producing CompanyTheatreWorks Silicon Valley
Production DatesThru Apr 2nd, 2023
Production AddressLucie Stern Theater
1305 Middlefield Road Palo Alto, CA
Websitewww.theatreworks.org
Telephone(877) 662-8978
Tickets$30- $90
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall4/5
Performance4/5
Script3/5
Stagecraft4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?YES!

Other Voices…

"Inspired by her life story and filled with her music, FANNIE is a hopeful rallying cry that honors the spirit of a true revolutionary."
Actors Theatre of Louisville
[the play is] "...welcoming to all people and highly entertaining. For those who know little about Hamer’s life, there is a willingness to inform. For those that do, there’s an impulse to celebrate the achievements of what turned out to be an extraordinary American life..."
Chicago Tribune
..."rich in memorable vignettes, just as the song-laden show abounds in energy, wit and aspiration."
Chicago On the Aisle
"...As Hamer ruminates on the problems of the 1960s — police brutality, victim blaming, gentrification, the education gap and voter suppression, among them — the unsettling parallels to life in 2020's deepen. Even before the play evokes Harriet Tubman and John Lewis, the message crystallizes: If these heroes fought for what’s right in the face of unspeakable turmoil and trauma, what’s your excuse for apathy?"
Washington Post
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PICK! ASR Theater ~~ Still Relevant: “Nan and the Lower Body” at TheatreWorks

By Sue Morgan

The two-hour drive from the Russian River to the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto proved to be more than worth the time to attend TheatreWorks’ world premier of Jessica Dickey’s remarkable “Nan and the Lower Body,” directed by Giovanna Sardelli.

Via a poignantly serendipitous series of circumstance, the production, which on the surface deals with women’s reproductive health, but at heart deals with every woman’s worth and right to be recognized as a human being, was originally scheduled to premier in 2020 but, due to the worldwide pandemic, was rescheduled for release a mere three weeks after what Dicky terms “this travesty; the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”

…a timely catalyst for deep reflection about the journey of women…

Dickey performs somewhat of a magic trick, successfully using both pathos and humor to express the urgency and maddening frustration of a midcentury medical system that ignored the number one cause of death in women (cervical cancer) due in large part to the discomfort of doctors and scientists in separating female anatomy from female sexuality.

Nan (Elissa Beth Stebbins) examines a slide as Dr. Papanicolaou (Christopher Daftsios), inventor of the Pap smear, watches in the World Premiere of “Nan and the Lower Body,” presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley July 13 – August 7.

Arriving in the US in 1913, Greek immigrant Dr. George Papanicolaou (skillfully played by Christopher Daftsios) toiled tirelessly for decades to develop and promulgate the use of the Pap Smear, allowing detection of cancers via analysis of cells found in women’s vaginal secretions.

Here, conceived as a jocular over-sharer and passionate champion of women’s rights, he exhorts all he meets to “call me Dr. Pap,” and enjoys frequent use of the word “vagina” to create discomfort in and shorten interactions with those who have interrupted his work. By contrast, in a deeply powerful scene, Pap’s face and gestures transform from angry frustration to compassionate tenderness as he gently places a series of unusable slides into the bottom of a garbage can, as if to honor the sacredness of the contents.

Nan’s character is based on Dickey’s maternal grandmother who became a cytologist. According to family lore, in 1952 she worked with Dr. Papanicolaou as a researcher, examining slides to ascertain the presence or absence of abnormal cells. Elissa Beth Stebbins’ Nan is a stolid woman determined to “do good” in the world both through the vehicle of her career and as a mother. Hired by Dr. Papanicolaou because of her insightful cover letter, outstanding academic performance and because she was “the only woman to apply,” Nan is secretly battling the baffling early stages of what will later prove to be multiple sclerosis.

Mache (Lisa Ramirez) meets Dr. Papanicolaou’s new assistant Nan (Elissa Beth Stebbins) in the World Premiere of “Nan and the Lower Body,” presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley July 13 – August 7.

In her first mainstage performance with TheatreWorks, Lisa Ramirez is compelling as Mache, Dr. Pap’s spouse, partner, former colleague, and test subject. Responding to her husband’s assertion that he knew she would be up to the task of being a doctor’s wife after seeing her bear an injury silently and without complaint, Mache momentarily cracks wide open as she admits that she remained silent because if she’d allowed herself to speak, she “would have sobbed.”

Jeffrey Brian Adams does a fine job as Nan’s husband, the minister Ted. In a riveting feminist discussion in which Dr. Pap asserts that women are superior to men because of the complexity and capabilities inherent in their anatomy, Ted insists that it is, paradoxically, essential for women to be seen simply as human beings if they are ever to be afforded the same rights and privileges as men. Ted points out that if women are seen to be “different,” they will continue to be subjected to separate rules.

Nan (Elissa Beth Stebbins) embraces her husband Ted (Jeffrey Brian Adams) after he visits her at work in the World Premiere of “Nan and the Lower Body,” presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley July 13 – August 7.

The various settings of the play—a university lecture hall, research lab, living room, night-time exterior—are depicted in keeping with the period with no outstanding features other than the lab’s examining table with stirrups. This adherence to the expected affords a lack of distraction so we can focus on dialogue and interactions between characters. Stagecraft by Nina Ball is superb, with one set literally splitting open in the center – half gliding off stage right and the other half stage left, after which the next set glides forward in a seamless motion that set off a chorus of appreciative gasps from the audience.

The Lucie Stern Theatre is itself a treasure. Set within a lovely neighborhood, it’s warm and inviting, spacious and well laid-out, with not a bad seat in the house. The outer courtyard with benches offered a lovely setting for the after-show reception.

“Nan and the Lower Body” acts as a timely catalyst for deep reflection about the journey of women (and the men who try to truly see them). When viewed through the lens of contemporary events, it also reminds us that progress is not always linear and must never be taken for granted.

-30-

Contributing Writer Sue Morgan is a literature-and-theater enthusiast in Sonoma County’s Russian River region. Contact: [email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ProductionNan and the Lower Body
Written byJessica Dickey
Directed byGiovanna Sardelli
Producing CompanyTheatreWorks Silicon Valley
Production DatesThrough Aug 7th
Production AddressLucie Stern Theatre 1305 Middlefield Road Palo Alto CA 94301
Websitewww.theatreworks.org
Telephone(877) 662- 8778
Tickets$35 – $95
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall4/5
Performance4/5
Script5/5
Stagecraft5/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK!Yes!