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Your Connection To The Arts In San Diego
Funding for "Pat Launer, Center Stage", is provided by the Elaine Lipinsky Family Foundation.
Vaudeville is back – with its kissing cousins, follies and minstrel shows. These stylized forms of entertainment may have objectified women and blacks. But in two brilliant musical creations, their ebullience is used to tell a darker story – in the Sondheim classic, “Follies,” and the more recent, controversial show, “The Scottsboro Boys.”
“Scottsboro,” one of the last collaborations by musical theater greats, composer John Kander and the late lyricist, Fred Ebb, premiered on Broadway in 2010. The high-octane show tells the sad, true tale of nine young African Americans, strangers ranging in age from 13 –19, riding the rails in Alabama, looking for work during the Depression, in 1931. Out of nowhere, they’re framed, falsely accused of raping two white women who were also on the train. Journalists at the time referred to the travesty of a trial as a “minstrel show.” So that’s just what its creators made of it – a high-kicking, over-the-top purveyor of stereotypes. Black singers and dancers perform the exaggerated, Stepin Fetchit routines, even putting on blackface, to tell the sordid story.
Throw in a New York Jewish lawyer and you’ve got a bucketful of Dixie racism and anti-Semitism. The truth in the details makes it all the more discomfiting and unnerving. And that’s the whole point.
The celebrated Broadway director/choreographer Susan Stroman helms the West coast premiere, a co-production of the Old Globe and San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre. It’s a stunning production, sharply conceived, ingeniously designed, gorgeously sung and danced. There are many squirm-inducing moments, especially when the terrifically talented cast parodies and caricatures African Americans. But at the end, they take off the blackface and repudiate the whole endeavor, leaving behind the suggestion that their suffering later inspired the Civil Rights movement.
This unique and incandescent show gets you in the gut. You marvel at the clever conceit, the wonderful music, the sheer imagination of it all. You laugh, and you gasp. This is must-see theater – provocative, stirring, dispiriting, amazing. Do not miss it.
And if you’re a musical theater aficionado, you won’t miss the rare opportunity to see one of Stephen Sondheim’s biggest and best musicals. Almost the entire, highly acclaimed Broadway cast of “Follies” has come to the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A. And they are fantastic, belting out Sondheim’s most beautiful, hummable, romantically bittersweet score. The costumes are sumptuous, the emotions and memories intense. A group of graying performers has come back to the Weissmann Follies theater one last time, before it’s demolished, to recall and relive their heyday in the ‘30s, to reminisce and express their regrets. Most are miserable, their lives and relationships a failure. Their dreams didn’t come true. But they recount them in the most glorious ways.
You wouldn’t think so, but discontent and miscarriage of justice make for marvelous musicals.
“The Scottsboro Boys” runs through June 10 at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park.
“Follies” continues through June 9 at the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A.
© 2012 Pat Launer
We’ve come a long way, Baby – from docile, dutiful and dependent wifeys to strong, assertive, self-sufficient CEOs. The glass ceiling is still there, but we’ve been attacking it with baseball bats.
There’s a music and rhythm to the ascension of women over the past century – and Dorothy Marcic knows the score. A Management professor at Columbia University, she started punctuating her lectures on male-female equality with pop songs, realizing that Top 40 hits actually chronicle the recent history of women. This led to a book and then a one-woman show she performed for several years before expanding it to a 4-person “musical celebration.”
"Respect: A Musical Journey of Women” has visited four cities so far. But the producers are so happy with the current, local cast, they’re thinking of taking them on an extended tour.
They do make for a formidable quartet: the redoubtable Leigh Scarritt; blues/jazz wonderwoman Lisa H. Payton; mellow-voiced, humorous Nancy Snow Carr; and show-stealing ingénue, Kelsey Venter.
According to Murcic, who interlaces her own multi-generational family story with historical factoids, figures and eras, there were three stages in women’s emancipation and evolution, embodied by the rebel teen, slightly older cynic and mature, hopefully wiser adult. These don’t come through in the show, which freely mixes timeframes. And the supposedly illustrative overhead projections sometimes distract, either because they’re too dim or the people are not sufficiently identifiable. So, as is often the case with this kind of jukebox musical, the linking narrative is the weak link.
Still, there’s much to respect about “Respect.” First, the walk down musical memory lane is great fun, spanning everything from “Someone To Watch Over Me” to “If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake,” from “Where the Boys Are” to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” “These Boots are Made for Walkin’,” “I am Woman” and “I Will Survive.” Why no writing credits are given in the song list is a mystery.
But there’s no mystery about the vocal talent, and the fresh, often exciting arrangements by musical director Cris O’Bryon, with excellent backup from a knockout band. The choreography is lackluster, and the costumes aren’t flattering or varied enough. The set is minimalist, with center-stage stairs that seem to unnerve the performers at times.
Really, though, the whole effort is about the 50 fabulous songs, a lightweight but irresistible expression of nostalgia and empowerment. The enthusiastic opening night audience – male and female – was more than willing to sing, stomp and clap along. This is an obvious Gals’ Night Out, but guys will enjoy it, too. The high energy, unabashedly entertaining show lures you in with a pop refrain: “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me.”
“RESPECT” runs through June 24 at the Lyceum Theatre in Horton Plaza.
© 2012 Pat Launer
You know the drill: Throw a few disparate people together in close quarters and sparks will fly. Whether strangers or relatives, in a comedy or a drama, the result is the same. In other words, watch out for conflagrations and revelations.
It doesn’t get more intensely dramatic than in Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning “Topdog/Underdog.” Two brothers, forced by dire financial circumstances to share a tiny, dingy apartment, continue their lifelong game of one-upsmanship. It’s all about games here, whether cat and mouse, “Can you top this?,” “Gotcha!,” or Three Card Monte.
This African American Cain and Abel sport unfortunate names: Lincoln and Booth. Linc used to be the card-shark king of the streets. But after one of his cohorts was killed, he’s sworn off the con. But that soon changes, in deadly ways. Meanwhile, as Booth steals everything they need to survive and look sharp, Linc tries to go straight, taking a regular job, though it’s admittedly an odd one; he works at an arcade, dressed up as Abraham Lincoln, in whiteface, sitting in a simulated theater so visitors can shoot him, and he can die for their amusement.
Back at home, as the tension escalates and the relationship deteriorates, family secrets are revealed, though the brothers never quite figure out why, in rapid succession, both their parents abandoned them. The competition and desperation build in this deconstruction of the American Dream, and the ending is a shocker.
Three years ago, UCSD mounted a dazzling production of the play. But with these somewhat older actors at ion theatre, this tale of emptiness and loss is even more desperate and disturbing. Under the superb direction of Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, Laurence Brown and Mark Christopher Lawrence are terrific. From the nimble handling of the cards, to the comical, competitive and dramatic acts, these are two exquisite performances.
The ensemble is excellent at Lamb’s Players Theatre, too, but the material they have to work with is a lot less satisfying. Though billed as a comedy, Janece Shaffer’s “Brownie Points” aspires to something deeper. But despite its head-on confrontation of race, class and religion, it has the distinct whiff of sitcom. Five moms in a cabin in the woods, Brownie daughters camping outside. The highest-class, most educated one, a black surgeon, accuses another of being a racist. We learn that every one of these women has a cross to bear, though single parenthood, minority religion and skin color are not exactly comparable. The message is heavy-handed, there’s too much yelling, but the set, lighting and sound design are outstanding.
Race relations figure prominently in both these plays, so save some time for post-performance dialogue.
“Topdog/Underdog” runs through May 20 at ion theatre in Hillcrest.
“Brownie Points” continues through May 27 at Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado.
© 2012 Pat Launer
Sometimes, you need a bit of outside intervention to get you back on track. It could come in the form of a matchmaker or a music mix or an interested immigrant. In a theatrical trifecta – “Hello, Dolly!,” “miXtape” and “Song of Extinction” – three knockout productions show you that a little push propels you forward, urges you to move on – from stagnation or age or even illness and death. In other words, you get by with a little help from your friends -- or a teacher, or even a yenta.
Like Dolly Levi, the ultimate meddler. There’s nothing she loves better than butting into other people’s business, to find them – or herself – a mate, a night on the town or a taste of happiness. There’s a reason that Dolly isn’t seen too often around town. The immortal 1964 character, whose music and lyrics were created by the incomparable Jerry Herman, is way larger than life, both dramatically and vocally. Fortunately, Starlight Theatre, and director/choreographer Dan Mojica, have a powerhouse in local favorite, Melinda Gilb. With her big voice and huge hats, she commands the stage -- and its colorful characters. If she ramped up the humor a notch (she’s definitely got the chops), she’d be absolutely perfect. The cast, production and orchestra, are stellar, too. Isn’t it high time for you to say “Hello, Dolly” again?
And while you’re humming timeless tunes, take yourself back to the ‘80s, that era of outrageously unfortunate outfits and diverse musical output. Lamb’s Players Theatre’s talented Colleen Collar Smith and Jon Lorenz have mined all the rock anthems, TV-show themes and sad laments to bring us “miXtape,” the tales of eight perpetually unsettled Gen Xers, whose lives are chronicled in mix-tapes that they made or were given, to mark their feelings and the stages of their unfulfilled lives. In the tradition of “Boomers,” this vibrant, inventive, enormously energetic creation, sung by a spectacular cast, accompanied by a sensational band, is destined for a long and triumphant run.
But not everything is melodious in these dog days of summer. You should definitely not ignore thought-provoking dramatic fare, especially when it’s as gripping and splendidly presented as ion theatre’s “Song of Extinction,” winner of the American Theatre Critics Association’s 2009 New Play Award. Playwright EM Lewis sets her piece in Portland, Cambodia, Bolivia and the imagination, capturing multiple journeys of mortality, survival and redemption. Claudio Raygoza has created a stunning soundscape and shepherded a marvelous ensemble, centered by luminous Robin Christ, heartbreaking as the dying mother, with Tom Hall and Matthew Alexander riveting as her distracted husband and distraught son, and Diep Huynh compelling as the kid’s caring but conflicted teacher, haunted by his memories of the Cambodian “killing fields.”
Three killer productions to choose from; why not end your summer on a high note?
Lamb’s Players’ “miXtape” runs through July 8 at the Horton Grand Theatre downtown.
© 2012 Pat Launer
For an archive of all of Pat's reviews, going back to 1990, use the 'search' function at www.PatteProductions.com.
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