Theater review: A People's Cuban Christmas Tale

                     

You know about that grasping old coot Scrooge, right? Maybe you even saw the Old Globe’s version of the story in Balboa Park.

Have I got a switch for you. James P. Darvas, artistic director of Chula Vista’s OnStage Playhouse, has mounted a new, Cuban version of the familiar tale, written by that crazy guy Herbert Siguënza, perhaps best known as a founding member of the comedy group Culture Clash.

So what’s different? This is the political version that reimagines the story from the perspective of the Cuban people who became political pawns in the late 1950s and ’60s.

The old story is here, with modifications: the rich Ezequiel Scrooge (Richard P Trujillo) is a sugar baron who treats his workers (including Roberto Cruz, played by Javier Guerrero) badly and threatens the folks who rent living spaces from him with eviction if they can’t pay the rent.

He’s a tightwad who won’t even donate to good causes like the one represented by collectors (Nick Young and Vanessa Lopez), who come around at Christmas trying to raise money to feed the poor. 

Scrooge isn’t even nice to his relatives – his niece Alicia (Sandra Ruiz, who also plays Cuban poet José Martí), for example.

Yep, Scrooge gets what he deserves: the ghost of his deceased former partner Marley (Jose Balistrieri) shows up, promising visitations on three nights to come. 

Things get progressively more scary for Scrooge, until on the third night he sees his own tombstone, a big, ugly thing that says “Scrooge. Capitalista” as an insult. And he decides to change his stingy ways.

But these Cubans aren’t just poor factory workers who want to celebrate Christmas. Some of them are revolutionaries who, in this version of the story, support Fidel Castro, and there is talk of taking over the government by force if necessary.

It’s a whole different take on the Dickens story. I loved it. A three-piece band is set up close to the door, and they contribute great Latino-inspired beats like “Guantanamera.” 

The cast is uniformly terrific, the story is both classic and revolutionary, and it ends well. What more could you ask?

“A People’s Cuban Christmas Tale” plays through December 19, 2021 at OnStage Playhouse.

For times and tickets: onstage playhouse.org/2021-2022-season

Theater review: My Fair Lady

That brilliant (just ask him) but boorish professor Henry Higgins is back in town, trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear (or, as he so elegantly puts it, “a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe”) in Lerner and Loewe’s great musical “My Fair Lady.” The show is here through Sunday at Civic Theatre, under the auspices of Broadway San Diego.

One day, cruising through Covent Garden, Higgins (Laird Mackintosh) sees Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Shereen Ahmed), and becomes fascinated with her manner of speech. He’s making notes on it (and planning to tape her speech patterns), when Colonel Pickering (an expert on Sanskrit who came to London to meet Higgins) emerges from a theater and sees him. They compare notes on her speech. When Higgins boasts that with training, he can pass her off as a duchess, Pickering (Kevin Pariseau) bets he can’t and the experiment is on.

Meanwhile Eliza, who wants to work in a proper flower shop someday, volunteers for training and will go to live with Higgins for the duration. Eliza will soon discover what a real jerk Higgins is, but she will be treated well by Higgins’ housekeeper Mrs. Pierce (Gayton Scott) and by Col. Pickering.

Along the way, another character: Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Sam Simahk), the rich son of a rich mother sees Eliza and becomes enchanted with her. 

And let’s not forget Eliza’s dad Alfred P. Doolittle (Adam Grupper), a dustman, who hears about Eliza’s adventure and visits Higgins to try a little graft of his own in order to maintain the lifestyle to which he aspires – getting just enough money to get drunk and have a pleasant evening, and to do it again every night.

After the amusing first-act ender at the Ascot horse races – in which Eliza uses rather colorful language to encourage the favorite horse – Higgins and Pickering get back to work to ready her for her presentation at the ball.

Eliza succeeds in the charade despite the efforts of Lee Zarrett as obnoxious Professor Zoltan Karparthy to expose the plot. But Higgins takes all the credit and won’t concede that Eliza deserves any credit even after they all return to the Higgins household. The men, in fact, ignore her, congratulate each other and then toddle off to bed, leaving Eliza both crushed and furious.

“My Fair Lady,” a 1957 Tony winner that became an Academy Award-winning film, is one of the best musicals ever written, and it’s great to see it back in the theater. This version boasts fabulous sets and costumes, a fine cast and a particularly excellent orchestra in the pit.

Ahmed is an adorable Eliza, the object (and I do mean that literally) of Higgins’ efforts and victim of his boorish manners. 

Pariseau and Scott (Col. Pickering and Mrs. Pearce) are excellent as they treat Eliza humanely and try to mitigate Higgins’ behavior.

Grupper is terrific as Eliza’s old dad, pointing out the class differences in a delightful song “With a Little Bit of Luck.”

And Simahk rounds out the fine starring cast as Freddy, who offers little to Eliza other than attention, which is what she needed. 

This production offers really fine revolving sets (by Michael Yeargan) and colorful costumes by Catherine Zuber. Kudos to Trude Rittmann for the fine dance arrangements, and to Donald Holder and Marc Salzberg for the lighting and sound.

Orchestra conductor John Bell helms a particularly fine 14-member group, many of them local musicians.

“My Fair Lady” offers an amusing night of theater, though I always leave pondering why it is that some people want to “fix” others.

“My Fair Lady” runs through Sunday, Dec. 5 at Civic Theatre. 

Shows at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and Friday; Saturday at 2 and 7:30 p.m.; Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m.

For tickets: broadwaysd.com

Patrons must wear masks and show proof of full vaccination or a negative Covid-19 PCR within 72 hours, or rapid antigen test performed by a medical professional within 12 hours of showtime.