Theater Review: Sense of Decency

                         Sense of Decency

It’s difficult to even consider “decency” and Nazism in the same sentence, but that’s what you’ll get with North Coast Rep’s new play “Sense of Decency.”

North Coast Repertory Theatre’s artistic director David Ellenstein read Jack El-Hai’s nonfiction book “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist” a few years ago and found its theatrical possibilities irresistible. It’s about an American psychiatrist sent to interview jailed Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring in jail, before he killed himself with cyanide the night before his scheduled execution.

Not the sort of thing you’d usually find in a lovely afternoon at the theater? To say the least. But playwright Jake Broder adapted El-Hai’s book into the play you’ll see in NCRT’s latest offering, “Sense of Decency,” playing through May 12 at North Coast Rep.

A little, um, difficult to watch? Yep. But just consider what you would say to Göring, if somebody had asked you to interview him. It is a bit fascinating to think about. The play posits a psychiatrist (you know, the white-jacketed type) named Douglas McGlashan Kelley (and played with great amusement by Brendan Ford) being sent to interview Göring. Kelley is reported as saying his fascination with Göring was that he seemed amoral rather than immoral, even narcissistic.

But the good doc doesn’t get any new, strange or startling admissions from the

Nazi awaiting execution.

The play also includes Kelley’s new wife Dukie (played by Lucy Davenport, who also plays Göring’s wife Emmy). Of course, the wives also have things to say but (surprise!) get little chance to say them.

Göring is not above making fun of the American treatment of oppressed people here (such as native Americans) and gets a giggle out of the fact that “you actually had a war fighting for the right to keep slavery going!”

But “Sense of Decency” is neither the topic nor sort of play I would be hankering to see. This one goes on a bit too much and is both too long and too choppy to keep me sufficiently riveted. 

The details

“Sense of Decency” plays through May 12, 2024 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach.

Shows Wednesday and Thursday at 7 p.m.; Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m.

Tickets: (858)481-1055 or northcoastrep.org

Theater Review: The 39 Steps

                    Dallas McLaughlin and Erica Marie Weisz in "The 39 Steps"
                         Daren Scott, photographer

Spy stories are always fun to watch. They’re especially fun when they’re played for laughs.

Carlsbad’s New Village Arts gives us a rollicking stage version of Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s famous 1935 film “The 39 Steps.” It plays through May 12.

Here, innocent bystander Richard Hannay (excellently played by Dallas McLaughlin) is drafted in pre-World War II Britain, after which he becomes inadvertently entangled in a web of espionage after a mysterious woman is murdered in his apartment.

This is something Hannay is ill equipped to handle, feeling a bit alienated himself. But he does the best he can, which turns out to be good enough and very funny to those of us watching him.

The cast numbers four, two of whom are called “clowns” (hilarious they are) and the others are various women played by one very fine actress named Erica Marie Weisz. Are you confused yet?

Fear not, the director (Dr. AJ Knox, who also serves as sound designer) will make sure it all comes clear (well, more or less) by the end.

My favorite in the cast is Reden Magtira, one of the Clowns whose job is to explain everything to us, the audience. He is just fun to watch, especially when he goes into his “thinking cap” trances.

With the help of stage manager and sound technician Nathan Waits and his assistant Joseff Paz, scenic coordinator Frank Seed, costume designer Grace Wong, lighting designer Russel Chow, props designer McKenna Foote, intimacy coordinator Kate Rose Reynolds, sound operator Marcus Rico and dialect coach Gerilyn Brault, the show comes off as the writer intended. 

Not surprisingly, the original show won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy and the Tony Award for Best Play.

Grab a ticket now and enjoy it yourself.

The details

“The 39 Steps” plays through May 12 at New Village Arts, 2787 State Street in Carlsbad.

Lobby doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the show starts every day at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets available at the box office (760) 433-3245

Theater Review: Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

Leave it to the Russians to come up with a seemingly endless classic called “War and Peace,” and to playwright Dave Malloy to take that and make a crazy-making electro-pop musical about it.

Musical? About Tolstoy’s “War and Peace?”

Yep. And not only that, but those loonies at Cygnet Theatre have put it onstage, and described it like this: “Somewhere between war and peace, young love burns hot.”

The young lover in this case is Natasha (Selena Ceja), who falls in love with Anatole (Michael Louis Cusimano) while her betrothed Andrey (Brian Mackey) is off fighting the war. How will this work out?

Cygnet’s artistic director Sean Murray directs the show, which runs through May 19. Patrick Marion does the musical direction and Katie Banville the choreography.

The way the cast rushes in and out gives the impression of a cast of hundreds, but no, the totality is played by only ten actors. Described as an “immersive experience,” you will find yourself surrounded by sound, words and dance.

Never mind how nutty it sounds, just go see the show and be assured that at the end you’ll be glad you did.

Theater Review: Ride

What would you do if you were a 19th-century young working-class English woman named Annie Cohen Kopchovsky who desired adventure? You probably wouldn’t do what Annie did, but then you’d miss out on one heck of an entertaining story now playing at The Old Globe Theatre.

The show is called “Ride” and it lets Annie tell her story in a wildly entertaining musical with book by Freya Catrin Smith and music by Jack Williams. The story of the first woman to bike around the world won several awards in England when it debuted in 2023. You can see it here through April 28.

There are only two characters here: Annie (played by Alex Finke) and Martha, a secretary played by Livvy Marcus. When the show opens, it is 1894 and Annie is talking to newspaper publishers like Joseph Pulitzer, attempting to get at least one of them to fund her proposed bike ride around the world. Martha is fascinated, and when Annie gets the approval (she will change her name to Annie Londonderry because she likes the sound), Martha agrees to go with her. Martha will get more and more musical and narrative space as the show continues.

Bikes are seen, though like nearly everything else, they are more often described than seen, and the show moves from ebullience to the grim reality of Annie’s poverty-stricken life as a young wife and mother and her struggles against sexism and class prejudice.

Finke’s voice as Annie is suitably huge, sometimes used almost foghorn-like, and kicks off the show with “The World’s Greatest Story.” Marcus has a lovely, more understated voice as Martha.

The show bounces around, and Marcus changes characters often, from French customs official to cruise ship operator. And Annie’s lot changes too, from enthusiastic adventurer to her struggles with sexism, poverty, class prejudice and the like. 

Kudos also to British director Sarah Meadows, choreographer Jennifer Jancuska and music supervisor Sam Young, who get the most out of the cast.

Bravo also to the crew that created the furniture and to the crew that quietly moves it around. The show runs one hour, 30 minutes (one act with no intermission).

“Ride” is a show like no other I’ve seen. It’s worth seeing for that alone, but fear not, there is substance here as well. Don’t miss this show.

The details

“Ride” plays through April 28 on The Old Globe’s Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage, 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

Performance schedule: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.

A post-show forum will be held on Wednesday, April 24. An open-caption performance will be held on Saturday, April 20 at 2 p.m.

Tickets: www.TheOldGlobe.org or (619) 234-5623

Theater Review: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

 

It’s late 1999 somewhere in Texas, and 7th-grader Calpurnia Tate (Aubriella Navarro) finds herself living in a largish family with several boys, aunts, maids and a wonderful old grandfather who is scientifically-oriented.

That’s lucky for Calpurnia, because this youngster is fascinated by science herself. She spends lots of time with Grandpa (Christopher Vettel), a retired but still fascinated scientist who is the grandfather I’d like to have had. 

Calpurnia sees a few grasshoppers, notes that some are yellow and others green, and wants to know why and what’s the difference?

The women in the family aren’t the least bit interested in such questions. They want her to act like, you know, a girl, but Calpurnia just spends more time with Grandpa, who tells her science stories like the time he found a bat while out walking, and reminds her that it’s important to “take the moment” to appreciate the day.

Lambs’ Players in Coronado will be all too happy to tell (and sing) you their latest story, a local production with book and lyrics by local funnyman Omri Schein and set to music by Daniel Lincoln. The story is based on Jacqueline Kelly’s Newbery Award-winning novel.

The show is fast-moving, almost even exhausting as boys in the family – Harry (Max Leadley), Sam (Jacob Mears) and Travis (Cole D’Agostino) – reach the age to discover girls, leading Mom (Jacquelyn Ritz) to wonder why daughter Calpurnia is more interested in bugs, while Calpurnia’s best girlfriend Lula (Milly Cocanig), is a “proper” girl who sews and knits and does things girls are supposed to do.

Big kudos to local seventh-grader Aubriella Navarro, making a brilliant Lamb’s Players debut as up-and-coming scientist Calpurnia. Her joy of learning and disappointment at what her mom wants her to be are both amusing and a little sad to watch.

But the whole cast is terrific. Especially notable are the teens, who are universally excellent and fun to watch. I’d also like to see Christopher Vettel, an import from the Bay Area as Grandpa, onstage locally again.

Congratulations also to Mike Buckley and Jemima Dutra, for the timely set and costume designs; Nathan Peirson and Patrick Duffy for the fine lighting and sound and Jessica Couto for the props design. 

The show lopes along lickety-split, lasting only 95 minutes with no intermission, so you don’t have time to ponder too much, with all that activity and the (perhaps a bit too loud) music provided by a four-piece band at the back of the stage.

If you’d like to know more of what happens here, grab a ticket to Lamb’s Players’ latest show and see it.

As Calpurnia puts it, “All you have to do is believe.”

Theater Review: The Harvest

It would never occur to me, a survivor of fundamentalist Christianity, to want to go off and proselytize the not-yet-Christian world. I always figured people will find the religion they want by themselves, without my help.

So when I sat down at Onstage Playhouse for Samuel D. Hunter’s “The Harvest,” the latest show during the theater's 40th anniversary season, I was surprised to find that it involves eight people getting ready to do just that: go out and make more Christians.

The playwright, winner of a genius grant in 2014, has written about things such as morbid obesity (“The Whale”) and nursing home residents (“Rest”), so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he picked this topic for a play.

The gang in “The Harvest” is first seen in the grungy basement of a small church, speaking in tongues. Five of this group will depart in three days for “over there,” somewhere in the Middle East, where they will try to make more Christians. Four of them plan to stay for four months, but young Josh (Marcel Ferrin) has committed to an indefinite stay, perhaps because his father has recently died (his mother had left the family long before).

Early on, Josh’s elder sister Michaela (Emily Candia), a former meth addict, shows up in an attempt to sway brother Josh from his stated goal. Josh’s father has recently died of alcoholism, and she would like to live with her brother. But Josh has other ideas.

One of the other four is another young man named Tom (Jaden Guerrero), who takes a fancy to Josh. Will this go anywhere?

There’s also a mission trainee named Denise (Shelby Wuitschick), whose husband won’t even let her speak in tongues, and the group’s unofficial trainer Ada (Adriana Cuba).

The last character is a preacher named Chuck (played by director James P. Darvas), who shows up at the end.

“The Harvest” is a strange play that left many audience members wondering a bit. But as Onstage’s board president puts it, “Onstage Playhouse pledges to continue to do our very best to live up to our motto of bringing you theatre worth talking about in a way that challenges all of us to live brighter in this world.”

Theater Review: King James

               Caleb Foote as Matt and Joshua Echebiri as Shawn

                    Photo by Rich Soublet II

Rajiv Joseph’s “King James” is a play that will amuse, delight, perhaps even confuse and confound you.

It stars two guys in Cleveland. Shawn (Joshua Echebiri*) is black and a huge fan of basketball icon LeBron James. He runs the family antique store.

Matt (Caleb Foote*) is white and a young bartender, trying to make it financially, but you know how hard that is, given how dependent it is on visitors who drop in for a drink. He has tickets to the Cavaliers games, which he is hoping to sell for inflated prices to take care of a bad investment that has left him needing cash.

Their friendship starts in 2004, when Shawn drops into Matt’s bar for a drink. Matt mentions the tickets, even showing them to his customer, and they spend some time getting acquainted and talking about LeBron.

Shawn, a big Cavs fan, won tickets once, but his dad had to work a shift that night and they didn’t get to see either the game or LeBron. Shawn likes to write.

Matt and Shawn have both little and a lot in common. And over the course of this play (which takes place in four different years: 2004, 2010, 2014 and 2016) they will realize that they both need and have become friends.

It’s a little unusual to call a play in which guys toss many crumpled-up pieces of paper toward an upright trash can theater, but somehow it seems just right here, as a step toward becoming buddies.

Director Justin Emeka, who’s lived in Ohio for several years and grew up playing basketball with his brothers, is an excellent choice here. He has said he remembers when LeBron came into the league as a teenage phenomenon, and when spectators remarked that they were going to become the LeBron of whatever their world was.

Playwright Joseph has made Matt the “angry young man” here, the one who always thinks he has the answer and doesn’t hesitate to mention it (despite things like the hilariously ancient dinosaur of a cell phone he uses).

But some years later, Matt will say “Social media will be the end of us all” and advise his friend Shawn to “be genuine, man.”

Shawn will move to New York to study writing. He plans to move to Los Angeles after he gets his degree. 

“King James” is a show like no other I’ve seen. It’s a delightful, funny, sometimes even charming portrait of male friendships and the male viewpoint. 

Don’t miss it.

The details

“King James” plays through March 31, 2024 at The Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way.

Performances Tuesday at 7 p.m.; Wednesday at 2 and 7 p.m.; Thursday at 7 p.m.; Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m.

Prices start at $33.

Box office hours: 12:00 noon to final curtain, Tuesday through Sunday. 

(619) 234-5623

Post-show forum events will be held on Tuesday, March 19; Wednesday, March 20 and Tuesday, March 26.