The play Slasher is a sudeo-comedy that pits the feminist ire of a mother against the exploitation of a classic B movie slasher film. Sheena (Tonya Glanz) lives with and supports her wheelchair bound mother Frances (Susi Damilano) and little sister Hildegard (Melissa Quine) by working as a waitress. On her shift she meets film director Marc Hunter (Robert Parsons) who discovers that she is perfect for the role of the last girl to be murdered in his upcoming film. Sheena’a new job outrages her ulta-femisist and mentally unstable mother, and as Sheena shoots her movie her mother concocts ways to stop the chauvinistic film.

The story sounds pretty straight forward, but there are a ton subplots, such as the mother’s and the film director’s dark past, which were confusing and unrealized. In fact a huge amount of the plot seemed unmotivated, confusing and didn’t fit into the world that was created. This was the major problem with this production. The reality that the play created just didn’t fit the script. The play is a camp comedy and this production took it self too seriously. The play tried to exist in a “real world” while the script in all its insanity, plot twists, and outright ridiculousness called for something with much more imagination and artistic definition.

The play however does have some very funny moments, and the acting was very committed. The sets and costumes are also very well done, and some of the set changes were so quick and seamless that they take you by surprise. But in the end, the play is scattered, hard to believe and difficult to follow.

For This Play I’d Say: It’s funny, and it’s not executed poorly, but the production doesn’t use the camp to its advantage, and leaves you with a play that is confusing, distant, and unfulfilling.

“Slasher” By Allison Moore at The SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter Street San Francisco, CA 94102, through June 5. Info at 415.677.9596 or www.sfplayhouse.org

Berkeley Rep’s Girlfriend is a musical about two teenage Nebraskan boys who fall in love in classic, innocent, awkward, high school fashion. The show takes it’s music from Matthew Sweet’s album titled (you guessed it!) Girlfriend, and his songs mark and motivate the show. The play is a pretty simple affair with two characters, Will (Ryder Bach) a nerdy outcast ,and Mike (Jason Hite) a popular jock. It uses two small sets for each character’s bedroom, and an oft used couch which doubles as the front seat of a car. The story tracks Will and Mike as they explore and uncover their sexuality, wrestle with the nerves of teenage love, and prepare for life after high school.

The plot and characters sound familiar because, for better or worse, they are. The play doesn’t try to create a new story line, but rather swaps the girl with glasses for a boy and uses the techniques of a coming of age high school story to perfection. Ryder Bach’s dry and sarcastic delivery as Will gives the play a simmering humor, and the tenderness and apprehension between the two characters as they inch closer  is impossible to watch without a smile. Even though the plot doesn’t create many original moments, the play manages to stay engaging because of its comedy and music. The actors are accompanied by a four piece female band and though the songs sometimes seem a bit forced and unmotivated, they were all sincere and beautifully arranged.

I found it very surprising that a play about two young gay men made no comment about anything greater than high school homophobia, but I think the bottom line is that this play doesn’t try to be more than what it is. It’s a feel good love letter to first romances, the cute clichés of the early 90′s, and to Matthew Sweet’s album. It deserves to be respected for it’s execution but not for its originality.

For This Play I’d Say: Come expecting something sweet, sincere, and funny, with some awesome music, but don’t expect much more.

“Girlfriend” Extends its run through May 16, at Berkeley Rep’s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison Street Berkeley

SO keeping that in mind…..

Right NOW I’m directing a short piece for the Chautauqau theater festival called Dock 23. It’s a film Noir which I’ve reimagined for the theatrical realm, or at least that’s what I’ve been telling people! If you want to figure out what that means (I hope!)  you’ll have to come see it! Tech’s in two weeks, opening on the 27th.  I’ve got a great group of actors and I think we’re going to make something, which at the least, is pretty cool, and we are so on schedule it’s not even funny!

On the horizon I’m going to be an acting intern for Shakespeare Santa Cruz, which I am sooo excited about. I’m going to try put my experiences on this blog, which hopefully will be kind of cool…

And in a year from now I’m going to be directing The Seagull for the UC Santa Cruz theater department in the eXspace. Which is totally awesome.

YES!

Berkeley Rep’s Tiny Kushner is a set of five one-act plays written by Tony Kushner. Each is unique and has markedly different plots and settings, although similar themes tended to run through out each piece. The play allows the cast of four actors to tackle role after role and demonstrate their range. With a minimal set and a small ensemble Kushner’s writing is really put on display. His style, intelligence and creativity are the lifeblood of the play and, as he should, Kushner shines brightly. His ability to seamlessly infuse everyday speech with his own unique poetry, his grasp on the heart of complex moral and political issues, his humor, and the way he effortlessly unties a story from any and all worldly conventions makes this play engaging, interesting, and worthwhile. Unfortunately, outside of the writing and what the talented group of actors does with it, there wasn’t much else for me to sink my teeth into. I missed a long form plot, and I missed fully developed characters, even though I knew from the beginning that those things were never going to be a part of the piece.

That being said, I stayed engaged and was entertained through the entire show. Each short had its merits, and as to be expected, some stood out more than others. In the third piece East Coast Ode to Howard Jarvis: a little teleplay in tiny monologues actor Jim Lichtscheidl takes on what seemed like a thirty minute monologue of a screen play (complete with “cut to”s and “fade out”s) about a tax evasion scam that took place in among New York City employees. Lichtscheidl goes from one character to the next with considerable grace but this stuck in my mind particularly because of the relief I felt when this monumental task was completed.

Another enjoyable piece was Dr. Arnold A. Hutschnecker in Paradise, in which actor J.C. Cutler played the afore mentioned Doctor and Richard Nixon’s real life therapist. The scene takes place in heaven during one of Hutschnecker’s personal therapy sessions. Cutler’s wonderful physicality, coupled with his character dishing about Nixon’s neurosis was very amusing, but this too brief encounter left me unfulfilled.

The standout of the show was the final piece Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy. In it Kate Eifrig plays former first lady Laura Bush who is set to read for three unseen deceased Iraqi children. Kushner’s genius really shines in this piece. The Laura Bush he creates reveals herself as walking contradiction. Kushner masterfully shows how she is powerless to act upon the faith and truth inside her because she is trapped by her position and political ideals. Eifrig is phenomenal, and plays the character with touching sensitivity and striking inelegance. In the end we’re left with a woman trapped between the clash of the realities of the world around her, and the morality of the world inside her. This was the one out of the five that reached out and grabbed me, and I could have happy just seeing piece, and been ecstatic about seeing an extended version of it.

“Tiny Kushner” closed Nov. 29, at Berkeley Rep’s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison Street Berkeley

This play is a farce about fictional American president Charles Smith (Andrew Polk) and takes place just before election day. His current term as president has gone so badly that re-election is all but out of the question, and he now realizes that he has no money or source of income for his bleak post-presidential life. (Though there are clear connections to George W., the fictional president Smith, sadly, comes off as a bit smarter than the real one). Smith and his stone-faced assistant Archer Brown (Anthony Fusco) jump on the opportunity to black mail A Representative of the National Association of Turkey and Turkey By-products Manufacturers (Manoel Felciano) who comes wishing to endow his turkeys with the annual pre-Thanksgiving presidential pardon. The deal Smith dreams up is that the turkey rep will give him two million dollars, or he will pardon every turkey in America. Throw some much-needed morality into the play in the form of gifted lesbian speech writer Clarice Bernstein (Rene Augesen) and what is created is a wonderfully concocted piece which make the idiocy and corruption that goes on behind closed doors palatable by throwing it in the ring of the ridiculous.

Watching this play I realized that a Mamet comedy is no easy task. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is both totally absurd and completely realistic at the same time, which gives the actors a very difficult task. They have to be naturalistic without being boring, and be funny without being campy. This brings me back to my professor Danny Scheie. When he played Smith he was, as he generally is, outrageous and hilarious. However this level of comedic ridiculousness did not take the part of the president to a dishonest or unrealistic place. Because I was laughing at, and sometimes with, his character I found myself connecting more and more to him, the other actors, and the showing its self.

What was missing from ACT’s production was a real sense of comedy coming from the central figure of the play, president Smith. It seemed that the actor, Andrew Polk, was tied to the realism of the play, and the production suffered because of this. There were many comic lines which were brushed aside for the sake of naturalism (and even Mametism), and if a little reality was sacrificed in order to create fuller comic moments this play would have been much more engaging from as a whole.

One thing I did really love about this play was its style and look. The way the oval office was set up and lit, and the and the hint of exaggeration added to the costumes, make-up, and hair (especially the hair) complemented the show’s strange but perfect balance between complete verisimilitude, and total absurdity.

For this play I’d say: This is a finely crafted, well done production of probably the best Thanksgiving play there is, but because of a lack of focus on comedy I never found myself really engaging with the production.

“November” closed Nov. 22, at ACT’s American Conservatory Stage, 405 Geary Street San Francisco

By Jillian Bartels

City on a Hill Press Reporter

http://www.cityonahillpress.com/2009/11/05/experimental-theater-brings-‘omaha’-to-santa-cruz/

Standing in the skeletal set of a Midwestern living room, surrounded by the black walls of UC Santa Cruz’s experimental theater, the actors of “The Animals of Omaha” mentally prepare for opening night.

Jacob Cribbs, a creative writing graduate and theater arts student at UCSC, was the 2009 recipient of the Dharma Grace Award for his play, “The Animals of Omaha.”

“The theme of the play is that memories are always with you,” Cribbs said.

The Dharma Grace Award was established by the UCSC theater department in order to provide funding and a performance space for one full-length student-written play selected by a theater department committee each year. The winner is chosen from a pool of submitted scripts based on criteria determined by the committee, which is comprised of faculty members as well as a student representative.

“The Animals of Omaha,”written by theater arts student Jacob Cribbs, won the 2009 Dharma Grace Award for his work. Due to budget cuts, however, the award may not be offered again next year. Photo by Morgan Grana.

“We always have a lively discussion about the works, in which we consider their theatricality, their originality and their success in creating a complete and dynamic dramatic world,” said associate professor Kimberly Jannarone, a Dharma Grace Committee member.

However, due to the state of the economy and the shrinking budget of theater arts, the award is in danger of not being offered next year.

“We wanted to make this valuable to the community so that the award can continue to happen,” said Cribbs.

Directed by Stacy-Michelle Walker, a UCSC fourth-year feminist studies and theater arts major, “The Animals of Omaha” explores dark topics such as domestic violence, drug abuse and extortion, some of which were were hard for her to explore.

“As a feminist, taking on something that has so much violence against people, women, homosexuals — and to be able to stage it well — has been a very challenging process,” Walker said.

Walker said that one of the most unique aspects of the play is its multiple endings that will change the outcome of the show each night.

“There are a million ways to experience life, a million choices we can make,” Walker said. “These are just three possibilities.”

Both the writer and director have collaborated in creating a different show for the audience each night in other ways than the multiple endings.

“We wanted to divide the audience experience so it makes them pick sides,” Cribbs said.

Walker said she deliberately staged certain aspects of the show so that if an audience member sits in a certain seat, they will observe different details of the action onstage.

“You can sit in any section you like and you can see a completely different show from the person across from you,” Walker said.

One such perspective is an up-close encounter with a couple’s cramped quarters. Actors pass within inches of the seats and the audience can hear every whisper. On the other side of the same stage, however, the audience members will gaze into a formal living room from a distance.

“The audience is in the cramped space, forced to participate as well as spectate,” Walker said. “Some of the audience, however, has the luxury of distance.”

The cast of 10 takes on living characters as well as images in those characters’ memories. Alexandra Pucci, a fourth-year psychology major and theater minor, plays Marian, who has a capacity for love as well as a taste for violence and vengeance.

“My favorite aspect of this project was finding the humanity in something that seems so bleak,” Pucci said. “The characters in this show don’t think of themselves as villains.”

With only five weeks to prepare for the show, the actors said it has been a trial as well as a learning experience.

“It has been a lot of work, but it has been awesome,” said Josh Saleh, a second-year theater arts major. “Playing with the space around you, experimenting; it has been a real challenge.”

Walker said that the audience has to be prepared for an experience that may cause discomfort in the passive viewer.

“I hope people are prepared to work, as an audience,” Walker said. “People who are used to traditional, naturalistic theater may be turned off.”

Jannarone said that “The Animals of Omaha” met the high standards of the Dharma Grace Award not only through its intricate story line and complex characters, but by the ambitious nature of the entire project.

“‘The Animals of Omaha’ stood out, in a way, because it had a striking fullness to it: it is very complex, and yet beautifully structured; it dramatizes dark and difficult moments in human relations, and yet it is often extraordinarily funny,” Jannarone said.

Cribbs said that the play is aimed at bringing attention to issues that are not only pertinent to up-and-coming playwrights interested in preserving this award, but to any theatergoers and community members interested in contemporary politics and deep social issues.

“If everybody does the same art and does the same thing, what’s the point?” Cribbs said. “Art by nature should be a little subversive.”

“The Animals of Omaha” runs Nov. 6-8 and Nov. 12-15 in the UCSC Experimental Theater
Performances are at 7 p.m. every day (except Sundays, 3 p.m.).
There will be a talkback/open dialogue with the cast, writer and director on Saturday the 14th following the performance.
Tickets are free for UCSC undergraduates w/ ID, $11 general admission, $10 senior citizens and students. May be purchased at the UCSC box offic

One of the surprising things about this show was how powerful it was, and how that power was communicated to the audience. The play was incredibly racy, more so than I think anyone expected, and kept me guessing at what was coming next. The blocking and choreography (as well as the set and lighting) was simple enough so that it didn’t distract from the story, but was interesting and totally creative; no matter where you looked you were watching something that drew you in. But what really stuck with me when I left the theatre was how moved I was. Everything on stage connected me to the story and the plight of the characters. When the lights (open light bulbs hanging from the ceiling) came up in blue, I was immediately taken into the inner emotional life of a character, and when a song came crashing in I was taken into the world of another. Throughout the play the importance of meaningful physical contact in the repressed world of the play registered deeply with me on a gut level, so that by the end of the show when people touched each other I was hit with the wave of emotion that had been brewing on stage the entire show.

For this play I’d say: You’ll laugh, you’ll be surprised, you’ll be deeply moved, and you’ll get your moneys worth

“Spring Awakening” Will next be in Sacramento CA Nov 4-15