You've Been Served

San Francisco companies, take notice: The most ballsy and edgy theatre I've seen all year hasn't been in the Tenderloin or in the Mission, it was last night in Vallejo.

I know, I was shocked, too.

Under artistic director Jon Tracy, Darkroom Productions presented a loose adaptation of Trainspotting, which probably would have been a Northern California premiere had a group not produced it years ago at SF's Edinburgh Castle pub. It closed last night. If you didn't see it, you fuckin' missed out.

Trainspotting was a pure, in-your-face production, yet stripped of any artsy pretensions and certainly stripped of any amateurish, just-out-of-theatre-school tricks. On a set littered with crates, a few pieces of furniture and a TV, director Tracy created gritty, kinetic scenes: rad, slow-motion Jean-Claude Van Damme fight scenes or creepy heroin-induced fantasias, to mention a couple. His minimal yet precise lighting design and John Epperson's brilliant sound design (with Warren Sandoval's original music) served the play perfectly, neither one overpowering the other.

Travis Mullins kicked ass as Mark Renton, as did Victor Ballesteros as his mate Tommy Begbie. While Ballesteros's wide-ranging credits include San Jose Rep, Teatro Vision, Willows and the Mountain Play, Mullins is based in Sacramento with only a few credits. We should be seeing a lot more of him; his performance was completely present and devoid of any obvious false notes. Rob Dario and Jena Rose turned in equally committed and strong performances.

Jon Tracy and Darkroom Productions is the real deal, a much-welcome alternative to fringe theatre that has turned safe over the years. This production showed a passion, with talent to back it up, of a company with really nothing to prove and nothing to lose. Well, maybe they feel a little differently. But they filled the house with a bunch of 20-30-somethings that could have been mistaken for a SF audience.

And the Fetterly Playhouse, located in a unlikely strip mall, is quite a marvelous little space, judging from the house (I don't know the technical specs). A small black-box space with fixed seating and a great, deep playing space versatile enough for warehouse-feel productions like Trainspotting and more traditional musicals like those that Vallejo Music Theatre produces. And because it's in the back, there's no street noise!

Some of Tracy's upcoming directing jobs include Aurora Theatre (the Global Age Project) and Richard III at Artaud, but Darkroom seems committed to Vallejo, which, as weird as it may sound, I think is great. For years, if SF magazine was to be believed, Vallejo has had potential. The main problem is that the city has never been able to figure out the best use of Mare Island, and there are really no jobs in the area. But, only about an hour from San Francisco, it has some pretty affordable real estate. It just needed a burgeoning artistic fringe, and that finally seems to be happening.