Beckett Revised

My "theatre date" created this portrait, which he calls "South Park Does: Waiting for Godot."
Create your own South Park characters here.

Annual Critics Circle Complaints

This week a comment came in to an older post regarding the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle:

"Once again the bay area critics circle has proved itself a sham. Do these people spend any time in marin or the north bay at all. It's enough to make you want to get out of this little pond and become sashimi in a real theater community"

Well, I'd be lying if I said this was the first time, or even the 50th time, I heard such a comment. And I'm certainly no apologist for the Circle. I suspect, though, that the deal is most of these critics write for smaller papers, and their editors don't want them to review anything outside that beat. So after attending up to three shows a week in their beat, the last thing they want to do is haul ass across the Bay Area to see a show that they aren't going to review, meaning, that they won't get paid for. If this is really the deal, it's the main problem with the Circle. For better or worse, the theatre community sees the Critics Circle Award as perhaps the best in the area. The Circle members, if they want to maintain that reputation (or gain it back, depending on how you feel), should step up and see shows all over the Bay Area, otherwise their awards have no authority.

But for all the companies' and theatre workers' complaining, they still proudly announce what awards they've won in marketing materials, in bios, on websites, and so on. So the community must think that the Circle still does have authority.

(If you're lost, here's the list of this year's Critics Circle nominees and winners.)

Musical Chairs

Lots of comings and goings in the Bay Area and nationally.

The biggest news came through my email this week: Ben Cameron is leaving TCG this summer for the Doris Duke Foundation. This was not a surprise, as Cameron apparently intended from the beginning to stay with TCG for about 10 years, and it's been about 10 years.

Most knew that David Gluck left his position as managing director of Magic Theatre. The new managing director? David Jobin, who leaves his post at San Jose Rep to join Magic Theatre. John McCluggage is also leaving San Jose Rep.

And, Randy Adams is leaving his post as managing director of TheatreWorks to pursue other interests.

Oh, and Marc Vogl, one of the Killing My Lobster cofounders, leaves the company this summer.

Something in the water? Or maybe just too much rain?

Star Film Critic

Prince Gomolvilas's 75-year-old neighbor has the most brilliant review of Curious George. Move over, Anthony Lane.

Our Lady of 121st Street

SF Playhouse productions just get better and better. I'm amazed at what they've been able to do in just a few years. They've offered Equity contracts with time towards the health plan, and so have snagged some of the best talent in the area, certainly evidenced in the steller ensemble cast of Our Lady of 121st Street.

Deftly directed by artistic director Bill English, the West Coast premiere of Our Lady--well, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The script rivaled South Park in its humor (that's a compliment), and the cast displayed great comic timing on opening night. Hansford Prince (great to have him back in town for this production) rocked in his portrayal of Rooftop, especially during his confessional scenes. In the second one he had the audience roaring, then had them completely silent as his character turned to more serious matters. Keith Burkland was nicely conflicted and exasperated as Father Lux in these scenes. Gabe Marin also stood out as the detective Balthazar, who carries a tragic emotional burden. Well, I could go down the cast list--Ian Walker as the denial-ridden Flip, Ashkon Davaron turning in a sweetly sympathetic performance as Pinky, Stephanie Prentice as the embattled Norca. And on.

The one or two nitpicky things I could point out is that Guirgis's scenes, which start out strong, kind of peeter out, and because there are so many episodes, this becomes more and more apparent. But because it's so consistent, I suspect it's intentional. Also, the cast--probably riding on the adrenalin of a very appreciative and willing to laugh often opening night audience--skimmed over the more dramatic portions of the script. Hansford and Gabe were not as guilty of this, but Gabe's last scene as Balthazar talking about his son was so moving that I realized later that the script was so much more complex than I first thought. Luckily, the cast is so well-tuned so early that they will be able to find and live in these tragic moments more fully, then switch to the comedic moments.

But, like with all nitpicky things, they don't really take away from the enjoyment of the play. People often ask me, when they find out what I do, what are the best shows playing right now. Our Lady of 121st Street is on the top of my list.

And, by the way, you daily newspapers, where were you on press night?! This is a West Coast premiere and a steller cast. OK, world premieres are great too, but hopefully if you were at one of them, it was a world premiere by a local playwright.

4 Adverbs

Word for Word's production of Daniel Handler's (Lemony Snicket, for those who live on Mars) 4 Adverbs was quite the event, especially press night last Friday, which packed Project Artaud Theater.

One of the things I like about Word for Word is that their audiences, save for press night, are almost complete strangers to me. Usually, at most theatres, I see a couple of civilians amongst the geeks, but at Word for Word I hardly see any geeks. Except the literary ones. I especially saw the literary geeks at 4 Adverbs, where they could get a sneak peek at Handler's forthcoming novel, Adverbs, which isn't coming out until like May. I heard that the cast had to sign papers saying they wouldn't show the scripts to anyone.

It was a perfectly lovely evening: smart, witty, fun. The evening was rather oddly structured, though, with three adverbs, intermission, one adverb. But the adverb before intermission, featuring the wonderfully genuine Beth Wilmurt, was appropriate before an intermission, for no other reason than it struck a nice tone. I'm afraid I didn't connect at all with the last adverb, and so the evening, which started strong, kinda peetered out for me.

But there was a lovely reception afterward, where I chatted with a local dancer/artist and another fairly well-known local fiction writer, who was quite taken with what Word for Word does with text, so much so that he actually expressed the notion of handing them some of his stuff and saying, Can you do this with my work? One of my old creative writing professors asked me if playwrights had more fun (than say novelists or poets). Perhaps they do.

In Case of Emergency

OK, so does anyone else think this new state (or whatever) law that requires theatres to make a pre-show curtain announcement explicitly pointing out the exits is just plain stupid? And annoying?

Before a performance of Master Builder, Aurora announced "A new state law requires us to point out the exits...." And the audience laughed incredulously. Some have got more fun, like ACT's announcement before Gem of the Ocean, which features Gregory Wallace in character, sarcasm and all.

OK, yeah, in the unlikely event that terrorists decide the way to bring down the country's economy is to attack a local theatre, I'm sure the audience in question would love to know in advance which way they should start running.

But in the meantime, after the cell phones and the no photos and the Equity and the candy wrappers and now the exits, jeez, it's all turning into a Shakespearean prologue.