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![“Oklahoma” – Moonlight Stage Productions, “The Pajama Game” – Starlight Theatre & [title of show] – Diversionary Theatre](newspix/8928d5568fba4871480cc47d1934f911.jpg)
So, how do you like your summer musicals: current, corny, romantic, nostalgic or self-indulgent? There’s something for everyone on local stages – indoors and out, with or without intrusive aircraft.
In the latter category, there’s Starlight Theatre’s production of “The Pajama Game,” the 1954 romantic comedy about labor and management at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Against the backdrop of a threatened strike, the new plant superintendent falls for a pretty union activist. What with the current glut of layoffs and unfair business practices, the show should feel remarkably relevant. But the music is played at such a pokey pace that the whole affair feels hokey and decidedly retro. There are two standout performances, though, from SDSU musical theater alumni Courtney Corey and xx xx. The production features plenty of dancing, but there should be less. I never thought I’d say that about a musical, but I can extend the opinion to “Oklahoma” at Moonlight Stage Productions.
The dancers are far better in this corn-fed chestnut, but the choreography is variable and repeatedly overstays its welcome. The comedy ratio is high, thanks to Bets Malone as flirtatious Ado Annie and Jason Maddy as the slippery Persian peddler, Ali Hakim. At the center of the piece, the falsely reluctant romantics, Laurey and Curly, represent the cowmen and the farmers, duking it out in the pre-state Western territory at the turn of the last century.
These two classic musicals have a passel of great songs, including “Pajama Game’s” “Hey There” and “Hernando’s Hideaway” and “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” and “People Will say We’re in Love” from “Oklahoma.” But both are shows of the most traditional kind.
If you like your tuners more snarky, head on over to Diversionary Theatre for [title of show], so post-modern it doesn’t even have a bona fide title. Written in 2004 by two New York theater geeks, it’s about two New York theater geeks writing a show about writing a show – about two New York theater geeks. The guys and their gal-pals even played themselves, on and Off Broadway. Self-referential enough for ya? There are winks, nods and sly allusions to a zillion prior musicals, famous and obscure, which will have theater queens drooling in the aisles. But while the conceit is a little slow to warm up to – and a little precious and self-congratulatory once you do – the cast of four is terrific: funny, talented, energetic, engaging and, under the direction of James Vasquez, damn near irresistible.
All right, so it’s empty calories, but go ahead and stuff yourself on the summer’s theatrical equivalent of cotton candy. Stale or fresh, these shows are weightless and fluffy. But isn’t that what summer musicals are all about?
“The Pajama Game” plays through August 1 at Starlight Theatre in Balboa Park.
“Oklahoma” runs through July 31, at Moonlight Stage Productions in Vista.
[title of show] continues through August 8 at Diversionary Theatre in University Heights.
© 2010 Pat Launer
A thematic thread runs through the three plays in the Summer Shakespeare Festival at the Old Globe: emotions run amok – in two mad monarchs and one shrieking hellcat. In each case, self-awareness brings self-control.
The anchor of the season is “King Lear,” Shakespeare’s masterpiece of misguided parental myopia. Festival artistic director Adrian Noble has brilliantly sandwiched the tragedy between a drama and a comedy, imaginatively underscoring echoes of “Lear” in each.
In Allan Bennett’s 1991 play, “The Madness of George III,” there’s a wonderful moment when the 18th century English ruler, half out of his wits, reads scenes from “King Lear” with his doctor, played by Robert Foxworth, the same actor who’s Lear on alternate nights at the Globe. A reflexive, self-referential stroke of genius.
The Festival gets its special effects money’s worth this summer: all three shows feature a wildly swirling, thunder-and-lightning snowstorm.
There are many reasons for you to see all three productions, each a marvel in its own right. For one thing, it’s exhilarating to watch the same actors flex their dramatic muscles in vastly different roles. And each is a play of enormous substance and relevance.
This forceful “Lear” is an object lesson in governance, parenting and being blinded by flattery and fawning. Both historical and metaphorical, “George III” presents a fictionalized version of one decade in the life of the British King who lost the colonies (that would be us!) -- and the two-party, split-family, back-room political power-wrangling that served as backdrop to his bouts of lunacy. The smart, sharp-witted play also serves as a figurative commentary on a sick body politic and a defective health care system.
Miles Anderson is spectacular as the sporadically debilitated, deranged monarch. Under Noble’s direction, the ensemble is outstanding, though there’s a bit too much ceremonial posing and door-closing.
There’s a tad of excess in “The Taming of the Shrew,” too. Director Ron Daniels overuses the dancing boys and shoots for over-the-top, wink-nudge, audience-interaction comedy throughout. But he gets the central relationship thrillingly right. It’s not about the total subjugation of a woman; it’s a coming together of intellectual equals. This Kate realizes early on that she’s met her match in Petruchio. She seems to see the payoff in going along on his bizarre journey of control, a battle of the wills and wits that, in this rendering, will surely culminate in marital harmony. Clearly, there’s a strong physical/mental/emotional attraction between the couple, superbly portrayed by Jonno Roberts and Emily Swallow. This is a partnership forged in passion and playfulness, a partnership of peers – dressed, by the way, in the most stunning of costumes.
So, what are you waiting for? A terrific trio of productions is there for the taking. Hie thee forthwith to the Festival Stage in Balboa Park.
“The Taming of the Shrew” and “The Madness of George III” run in repertory with “King Lear,” through late September, on the Globe’s outdoor Festival Stage in Balboa Park.
© 2010 Pat Launer
Which is harder – living up to your parents’ expectations, or your own? In a searing tragicomedy and a light-hearted musical, there are few parents in sight, but their influence is deeply felt – in a school spelling competition and in the fractious interactions between two estranged brothers. In both productions, the offspring have been affected by Parasite Drag, an aerodynamic term that refers to the friction or interference that diminishes power.
In his play called “Paradise Drag,” Mark Roberts, executive producer of TV’s “Two and a Half Men,” calls up images of Sam Shepard and his darkly dysfunctional sibling relations. Gene and Ronnie haven’t seen each other for years. Their lives have gone in distinctly different directions – one professorial, the other, janitorial. On a stormy Illinois night, they’re reunited as their sister lies dying, a long-ago victim of family horror who became a wild, homeless addict and is now succumbing to AIDS.
Highly educated Gene is lost in a marriage that’s loveless and arid; his wife, Joellen, is repressed and depressed. About to be ordained as a minister, Gene has forced her to live by rigid rules, cloaking himself in religion to hide his pain and shame. It isn’t working. Ronnie’s been a drifter, a loser, a womanizer. Like him, his floozy wife is crude and foul-mouthed, but they’re a lot less likely to suppress the excruciating truths of the family’s past.
ion theatre, inaugurating its fifth season of provocative plays, especially loves to sink its teeth into edgy drama. In this West Coast premiere, producing artistic director Glen Paris shepherds a superb ensemble, centered by a knockout performance from John Polak as the volatile, explosive Ronnie. It’s 85 intense minutes that will leave you breathless.
You’ll have to stop a few times to catch your breath during “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” too, but that’s because you’re laughing so hard. A local premiere, this spunky musical, by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin, spotlights the extreme anxiety and heartbreaking backstory of the highly competitive geeks whose parents push them to perfection – if they haven’t already driven themselves there.
SDSU professor Rick Simas helms a terrific and hilarious cast, with side-splitting standouts Omri Schein as the smug and ultra-smart nerd-king, William Barfee and Jacob Caltrider as the self-effacing and seriously wacko Leaf Coneybear. Behind the mirth, there’s a pathetic story of obsessed and compulsive kids. And in the tragic tale of “Parasite Drag,” humor leavens the emotional distress. In both cases, loss leads to self-reflection, and at last, the ability to move on.
So don’t wait for your parents’ approbation. Find your own moral compass, and point yourself in the direction of some really fine theater, or the comic of dramatic kind.
“Parasite Drag” runs through July 24, at ion theatre’s Black Box in Hillcrest.
“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” continues through August 3, at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach.
© 2010 Pat Launer
Two families torn apart. One ancient, one modern. One mythical, one fictional. Both brought down by a misguided parent with misplaced priorities. One play is a titanic Shakespearean masterwork, the other a trifling, San Diego-set world premiere.
“King Lear” is often considered “the Everest of Shakespeare,” the role classical actors hope they’ll live long enough to inhabit. Robert Foxworth, a Patté Award-winning associate artist at the Old Globe and a recent transplant to North County, makes a formidable monarch. His Lear takes a terrible journey from pompous and pig-headed -- judging his offspring by their fawning adulation -- to wild, deranged and ultimately, humbled and heart-rending. Unfortunately, at the peak of his delirium, Foxworth has to compete with a storm so fierce and loud that, even shouting, he struggles to be heard. The other madman of the piece, poor put-upon Edgar, swindled by his malevolent, bastard brother, is wonderfully played Jay Whittaker.
Those are the most memorable performances in this noteworthy, if not definitive, production, ably directed by Adrian Noble, who for 13 years was head of England’s renowned Royal Shakespeare Company. There’s a spate of gratuitous gore here, but the language is very well-spoken, and the relationships are crystalline. In a tale where eyesight is insight, two fathers, foolish old men duped by flattery and deceit, pay a horrible price for their myopia.
There’s a problem of vision in the latest work by Annie Weisman, the L.A.-based playwright who grew up in these parts. In “Be Aggressive,” which premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2001, she was uncompromisingly funny and quirky, aiming lovingly poison-tipped darts at her vapid, materialistic hometown. In “Surf Report,” she seems to have little left to say about San Diego. Her characters are stereotypes – an over-rich, overgrown surfer dude who’s a vulture, um, venture capitalist; a woman so devoted to his every need that she neglects her confused daughter and seriously ill husband to follow the monster boss and perhaps even have a tryst with him, though most of his paramours are the age of said daughter – oops! Spoiler! -- and harbinger of predictable things to come. There are a few laughs along the way, but the action descends into melodrama, and these characters are so thoroughly unlikable we wouldn’t care if full-on tragedy felled them in the first act.
The production is stunning, though, the set an ultra-modern seaside villa fancifully ensconced in the curl of a wave. The surfing imagery and metaphors float tiresomely by. Under the direction of Lisa Peterson, the cast is fine, and convincing, though what they have to say is lifeless and trite.
Not every play’s a winner right out of the gate. And then there are those that, 450 years after their creation, still feel fresh and relevant and gut-wrenchingly real.
“Surf Report” plays through July 11, at the La Jolla Playhouse on the campus of UCSD.
“King Lear” continues in repertory, as part of the Summer Shakespeare Festival, through September 23, in the Old Globe’s outdoor theater in Balboa Park.
© 2010 Pat Launer
For an archive of all of Pat's reviews, going back to 1990, use the 'search' function at www.PatteProductions.com.
