Theater Review: Lempicka

 

                Some of the cast members of "Lempicka"               

The little Polish girl who grew up to be renowned Art Deco artist Tamara de Lempicka found out very early on that “we can’t control the world” – and that  the “we” was doubly true for women, and for Jews. She was both, and also bisexual.

She was born in Warsaw a few years before the turn of the 20th century, but moved to St. Petersburg, where she married prominent Polish lawyer Tadeusz.

When the Russian Revolution started in 1917, she and Tadeusz decided not to wait around for men to ruin the world any more than they already had, and they planned to flee to France. But Tadeusz was caught and imprisoned.s

Tamara, daughter of a Polish socialite, knew how to work a system when necessary. She got Tadeusz released (women have their ways), and much time in the new musical “Lempicka” is spent with Tadeusz asking how she got him out. 

They fled to Paris. Tadeusz was unable (or unwilling) to find work, and Tamara, fascinated by the prospect of painting, enrolled at the Académie des Beaux Arts, where she started painting. She met the prostitute Rafaela at a local bar, and asked to paint her. She eventually did, and they fell in love. Another complication for her.

But she did become a well-known artist, her breakthrough coming in a 1925 exhibition, where her work was spotted by American journalists and other fashion magazines. A few years later, she won some major awards.

In the 20s and 30s she was a celebrated Art Deco artist, mingling with the culturati and European aristocrats, becoming known as “the baroness with the brush.”

“You want to be a lap dog to the rich?” asks Tadeusz.

“Who else buys paintings?” she responds.

Just as she was getting used to fame and no little fortune, World War II broke out and she and Tadeusz moved again, this time to the United States (Beverly Hills), where modernism and abstract expressionism were in vogue. She had to start over again, and adapted to that as well. 

“Lempicka,” now in a pre-Broadway run at the La Jolla Playhouse, illustrates the complicated, hedonistic life of this complex woman who refused to play by the rules. An aside: Her paintings are featured on the UK book covers of two of my favorite books: iconoclast Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

This is a difficult show to review, because in emphasizing change and upheaval, it uses motion, noise and too-bright lights in rapid succession, leaving at least this viewer more exhausted than fascinated by the goings-on. My brain (or nervous system) couldn’t process all that craziness.

And by the way, why does a show that purports to be a musical not list either song titles or singers in the program? Yeah, just call me a grouch.

But the cast is excellent, and Director Rachel Chavkin does a heroic job of keeping the show moving. This is the group that did a previous pre-Broadway run in 2018, right before Covid gripped the world and stopped most travel and all indoor events. 

They are planning to begin that Broadway run soon after it closes here.

The details

“Lempicka” plays through July 24 at La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive.

Shows Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30; Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m.

Tickets: lajollaplayhouse.org or (858) 550-1010

Theater Review: Freestyle Love Supreme

                         Cast of "Freestyle Love Supreme"
 

What’s to be said about this peculiar, wordy, sometimes musical, often hilarious piece of off-the-cuff hip-hop theater in which the audience provides the inspiration?

Maybe a bit of history will help. “Freestyle Love Supreme” comes to The Old Globe on tour after a successful Broadway run. It features 13 actors of varying talents who find it fun to make up stories (and songs) on the spot with the audience not only watching but participating. 

The show originated when musical comedy buddies and old college friends Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anthony Veneziale and Thomas Kail were taking rehearsal breaks from Miranda’s “In the Heights.” They spent downtime kibitzing, riffing and rhyming just for the fun of it. Later they realized the possibilities of making a whole improvised show of it, with audience input.

That notion scares the stuffing out of me, but I was delighted to watch this crazy gang making up stories with nothing but a suggested topic to start with.

In front of a backdrop that has the square, heavy metal look of umpteen music speakers of varying sizes, the cast cavorts, sings and dances in response to audience suggestions elicited by personable emcee Jelly Donut AKA Andrew Bancroft.

“We’re from New York, where it smells like hot garbage in the summer,” he says. Where do you go from there?

All over the place, with a cast that includes people like Hummingbird (Morgan Reilly) who can sing really high and beautifully, Dizzy (Dizzy Sense) in his white Broncos shirt and others with names like Rich Midway (Richard Baskin, Jr.), Shockwave (Chris Sullivan) and Young Nees (Aneesa Folds).

Don’t bother trying to keep track of anything, just sit back, relax and get ready for an evening that may include talk about Elon Musk, cougars or “Grey’s Anatomy” (but will more likely feature other things entirely).

Beatboxing is not something I really understand, but since I’ve heard it used in connection with this show, I’ll assume I saw it and that you will too. But the important thing is not what you’ll see and hear, it’s that you can depend on it to be fun, often hilarious, sometimes even touching, depending on audience input and cast output.

My advice is to grab a ticket and a friend and spend a night with these affable lunatics. You won’t regret it.

The details

“Freestyle Love Supreme” runs through July 10, 2022 on The Old Globe’s Shiley Stage, 1363 Old Globe Way.

Shows Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday at 5 and 9 p.m.

Tickets: 222.TheOldGlobe.org or (619) 234-5623

Film Review: Lightyear

 

If you don’t have ADD when you enter the theater, you will when this film is over. The show starts with sensation and shaky chairs and sound coming from everywhere. I was wondering how to turn down the sound.

Then we see Lightyear (the Chris Allen version) who seems to be an animated version of Tom Cruise in “Top Gun,” a smart-assed pilot who ignores the rules and the command and flies faster and farther than anybody thought he could.

Buzz does the same thing in animated fashion, only he ends up getting stuck on some nowhere place called T’Kani Prime and unable to get away.

Lucky for him he’s got a good crew and a new buddy, a feline named Sox (voiced by Peter Sohn) who knows more about just about anything you can name than Buzz.

This version adds things we haven’t seen before, perhaps because time moves along so quickly. Or maybe filmmakers are just catching up with society. Anyway there is a married pair of women, who have a kid who grows up and wants to be a space ranger too.

There’s a lot of other stuff I won’t bother you with, but suffice it to say that when they finally get back, Buzz is offered a new team. But he sticks with the crew he had. At least he’s learned something. Good for him.

Theater Review: Iron

 

                  Rosina Reynolds,  Richard P. Trujillo, Jada Alston Owens & Kate Rose Reynolds - photo by Daren Scott

Mother and daughter, near strangers, meet after a 20-year separation in Rona Munro’s stark, startling and thought-provoking “Iron.” 

“Iron,” a production of The Roustabouts Theatre Company, is on the boards through June 26 at Moxie Theatre. This excellent production features an actual mother and daughter: Rosina Reynolds plays mother Fay and her daughter Kate Rose Reynolds plays daughter Josie.

Josie goes to visit her mother in a women’s prison, where Fay is serving a life sentence for the murder of her husband, Josie’s father. Josie, now 25, barely remembers her mother and was raised by her grandmother on her dad’s side. The death of her “Gran” has left Josie alone, and she wants to make a connection with her mother and find out more about her father.

They are both helped and annoyed by prison guards Sheila (Jada Alston Owens) and George (Richard P. Trujillo), who insist on prison rules and paperwork properly executed.

Fay, in fact, is reluctant to meet Josie, but Sheila (a mother herself) encourages her, and the first meeting is quite a scene. Josie wants to know more about her dad; Fay wants to know what Josie’s been up to in the last 20 years and what her future plans are.

Their meetings (always attended by at least one of the guards) are affectingly awkward, sometimes amusing and always a little sad, as we realize that neither of them has another living relative.

Josie generally brings fruit when she comes, and often asks questions that Fay is reluctant to answer. Fay is not a fan of fruit (she finally admits she’d prefer cigarettes and chocolate), and manages to deftly deflect most of Josie’s questions. 

But Josie keeps asking because, as she says, “I’ve got no memories, but you have.” 

Josie admits to being divorced. Fay tells her to change her hair color and get her ears pierced. Josie asks Fay when she will be released. Fay reminds her that she’s a lifer.

This play is so intense, so heavy on the heart that it would be intolerable without this director and cast. Every move here seems just right, down to the slightest grimace or sound of the voice. 

Set in a Scottish women’s prison, “Iron” is gray and foreboding, the more so for Tony Cucuzzella’s stark set. Pamela Stompoly-Ericson’s costumes, Michelle Miles’ lighting design and Paul Durst’s sound design add to the atmosphere.

Ron Christopher Jones did the fight choreography.

I had some problems with the Scottish brogue, especially in the second act, but there’s no mistaking the point of this stark piece that makes you think about family, belonging, connection, separation and uncertainty. 

This is highly recommended theater.

The details

“Iron” plays through June 25, 2022 at Moxie Theatre, 6663 El Cajon Blvd.

Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. Matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Tickets: (619) 568-5800 or the roustabouts.org/tickets

Theater Review: The Taming of the Shrew

 

                               Cast of "The Taming of the Shrew"

Ah, Will. Ah, Bianca. Ah, Kate. Ah, goofiness.

The Old Globe presents an old friend – William Shakespeare – in a modernized version of the old comic story of The Girl Who Would Say Nay….until she changes her mind.

You remember Kate the cursed, Kate the wretched, Kate the, well, the shrew, the bane of her father’s existence and the sister nobody needed. Dad Baptista has his needs too – mainly, to marry off the girls, preferably to guys with dough so he doesn’t have to support them forever (though, of course, he has plenty, so what’s the beef?)

Well, Director Shana Cooper decided to update the old commedia dell’arte story to something a bit more modern, and to bring the story up-to-date visually as well, with distinctly modern dancing and songs, some borrowed from earlier “Shrew” takeoffs like Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate.”

The show opens with a dance pantomime in which all characters are mustachioed, regardless of sex. That should wake you up.

The plot is more or less the same, the actors more or less confusing (to me, but then I’ve never been great at spotting people in different guises and different genders and realizing they’re the same person).

But there’s plenty of energy, crazy action and wild costumes here – not a bad idea for a not-quite-summery night outdoors. For some reason, we were not entertained by the sounds of the zoo next door – the San Diego Zoo, that is, whose critters are typically heard from during Globe summer outdoor performances. 

But the play ends more or less as it was intended by Shakespeare. The program notes by the director indicate that we are meant to realize that Kate is not a victim, but rather in on a parody of misogyny by Petruchio, which she picks up and plays along with. After all, she reasons, only this pair seems to be successful at love.

I like that idea, but must admit I didn’t get it when I saw it. But hey, I’m an old lady who forgot a notebook and whose pen ran out of ink right after the show started, so pay no attention to me.

But when at the end Kate utters the line everybody knows, she changes it to "I am ashamed that people (not “women”) are so simple, to offer war where they should kneel for peace.”

 

I’ll buy that. And you’ll enjoy this very different take on an old favorite.

The details

“The Taming of the Shrew” plays through July 10, 2022 in the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre at The Old Globe, 1363 Old Globe Way.

Shows Tuesday through Sunday at 8 p.m. No performance on June 18.

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

COVID rules: Masks required.

Theater Review: The Outgoing Tide

        
                        Linda Gehringer, Leo Marks and Andrew Barnicle

When middle-aged Jack (Leo Marks) goes to visit his aging father Gunner (Andrew Barnicle) at the parental home on the Chesapeake, he finds something he’s not prepared for in Bruce Graham’s moving play “The Outgoing Tide.”

The old guy is sitting at the waterside, skipping rocks on the water from the family home on the Chesapeake. Jack is used to the fact that Gunner, an Alzheimer’s sufferer, doesn’t always recognize him, but he plays along with dad’s question: “You a city guy?”

“Suburbs,” says Jack. 

After his dad teaches Jack how to skip rocks on the water for a while, Jack goes into the house to see his mother Peg (Linda Gehringer). She tells him she feels they must soon move to a place with access to medical equipment and personnel, but that Gunner will not hear of it.

Anyone who has been around Alzheimer’s victims will recognize this situation. I certainly do; my father was a victim and so is my brother. It’s horrifying  to watch the decline and know there’s nothing you can do to “fix” it.

But when Gunner announces that he’s going to take care of the problem himself by taking his little rowboat out into the water and committing suicide, Peg (in a way a victim herself) wants to make sure he cannot do it. “I am not ready to lose my husband now,” she tells Jack. “It’s my job: in sickness and in health.”

Watching this play is difficult, but kudos to the playwright and to Director Nike Doukas and her splendid cast for making this look and sound so realistic that we can’t help but be engaged.

Barnicle’s Gunner is both maddening and amusing as Gunner, who is still capable of making a decision he feels will benefit Peg. He just wants her benediction.

Gehringer’s Peg does a wonderful job of making us feel the helplessness of the tough spot she’s in, but also her determination to make him as comfortable as possible.

Marks’ Jack, stuck in the helpless bystander slot, still has some good advice for his mom.

Kudos also to the fine North Coast Repertory team headed by Marty Burnett’s fine set design. Matt Novotny’s lighting, Elisa Benzoni’s costumes and Aaron Rumley’s sound design also contribute to the realism of the situation.

“The Outgoing Tide” is a fine production about a difficult situation. It plays through July 3 at North Coast Repertory Theatre.

The details

“The Outgoing Tide” plays through July 3 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach.

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

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

Film Review: A Sexplanation

 

Remember that embarrassing “sex talk” you had with your parents way back when? Or didn’t have, because they were too embarrassed to initiate it?

Queer Asian American Alex Liu does too, and now he’s directed and co-written “A Sexplanation,” a 120-minute documentary about the universal search for connection, love and acceptance – and why it’s so difficult for Americans to talk about sex. 

Liu notes that his parents raised him to “just say no,” and also that his grandmother got the ”sex talk” on her wedding night.

So he goes to talk to experts in the field – in San Francisco, at the Kinsey Institute in Indiana, Rutgers in New Jersey, several sex therapists and even a priest – in search of answers. What he found is several answers and lots of awkward moments.

Given the current state of American politics, this film didn’t come a minute too soon. Ultra conservative Americans seem to think sex is about reproduction alone. But the researchers Liu spoke to say they are wrong. Sex is about connection first and foremost.

There’s talk about masturbation (the world’s most universal sexual behavior),

orgasm (“like a seizure in the brain”) and sexuality. Even researchers can’t define sexuality, they say. 

And sex isn’t one size fits all. There are 7.8 billion people and just as many kinds of sexuality.

So (say I) pick your poison and enjoy it. Let go of that shame. And watch this amusing, enlightening film, maybe even with your parents.

Theater Review: Eighty-Sixed

                 

Cast of "Eighty-Sixed"       

San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre was founded in 1986, the at the height of the AIDS crisis, with the intention of giving the gay community a platform to be seen and heard.

The theater has just opened “Eighty-Sixed,” the world premiere of a new musical about the AIDS epidemic, and it is a wonder. It takes place in New York City, that great party town that soon became paralyzed with fear as AIDS started to rage through the community. Based on the novel by David B. Feinberg, Jeremy J. King wrote the book and Sam Salmond the music and lyrics.

The show starts in 1986, by which time the gay community knew that sex could mean death, and moves back and forth in time to demonstrate the community’s response as the epidemic worsens.

Preston Sadleir plays BJ Rosenthal, joyously going to gay bars and gyms where he meets friends and feels at home – until he finds out that ex-lover Bob (Sean Doherty) has contracted AIDS.

The community as a whole tries to keep up a good front, but as time goes on it becomes more evident that behavior changes will be required to avoid the new epidemic, which can’t help but dampen the fun.

As Bob gets worse, we see him in the hospital, visited by friends who try not to make Bob feel worse by showing their shock and sadness.

What do you do when death is breathing down your neck? Someone suggests to BJ that he get tested, but he is reluctant because he’s afraid he’ll be reported to the CDC if he is positive.

“Who am I alone?” BJ asks. “If you give your heart, all it does is break.”

But you can’t live that way, and the play shows how the community banded together to help each other survive, and to demand research and accessible care.

They’re helped by two women, Farah Dinga as Rachel and Kelly Prendergast as Janey, who in my opinion get rather short shrift, but it’s good they are there.

BJ (and the disease) are the protagonists here, so I’ve concentrated on that. But this is a community effort, and this cast, dominated by Equity actors and familiar faces like Frankie Alicea-Ford, Luke H. Jacobs and David McBean, is terrific.

This show will undoubtedly move on. See it while you can.

Theater Review: Hadestown

                        HADESTOWN

Not many musicals have 32 songs. Not many operas have dialogue.

Here we have “Hadestown,” based on Greek mythology, with both, though in truth many more songs than words.

This weekend you can see it for yourself: Broadway San Diego presents “Hadestown”  at San Diego’s Civic Theatre through June 5.

Hermes (Eddie Noel Rodríguez on opening night), the god of trade, wealth, luck, and several other things like thieves and travel, opens the show, and will be seen throughout, slinking around in a shiny silver suit and narrating the story.

On the “Road to Hell,” we’re told, there’s a railroad line with a coffee shop. This is where Orpheus (Chibueze Ihuoma) waits tables. Eurydice (Morgan Siobhan Green) is a hungry waif just looking for something to eat. They meet and….well, you know the rest of the story. He will soon sing “Come Home With Me,” and a romance will be born.

The show combines the doings of Orpheus and Eurydice with the goings-on of Hades, Hermes and Persephone in the Underworld. They are aided by the Fates and a Workers Chorus.

Persephone (Kimberly Marable) is the Goddess of spring and innocence, but cursed to be both the wife of God of the Underworld Hades (who kidnapped her) and the Goddess of the Underworld.

Kevyn Morrow’s Hades runs the Underworld with an eye toward keeping that post his private property. Hades is not especially nice but Morrow is especially effective in that role.

The fun here (aside from all the terrific acting talent) is in the constant action, the fact that the musicians are on the stage (and identified at one point), the sometimes lovely, sometimes wild costumes (by Michael Krass), the sometimes-otherworldly sound and lighting (by Kevin Steinberg, Todd Sickafoose and Bradley King) and those 32 songs that just keep coming.

But there is a serious side to the show. The playwright also makes a social critique or two about the disastrous effects of poverty and climate change that we in the 21st century are becoming all too familiar with for comfort. You also might get a message about how art can save us from ourselves or how hope might be all we have left.

Kudos to all but especially to the four major characters. Rodríguez plays Hermes, the rich guy who narrates the show, with great panache. 

Morgan Siobhan Green is extremely persuasive as the waif Eurydice, who goes from starving for food to seeking love from Orpheus, and learns what that latter item might cost her.

But my favorite was Chibueze Ihuoma, who played Orpheus on opening night, determined to take Eurydice home and singing his heart out to do it. And boy, can this fella sing. With that glorious high tenor voice, I’d happily go to hear him in concert, all by himself. 

Conductor/pianist Nathan Koci and his six musicians add fine sound to the mix, and even get introduced. Now that’s class.

“Hadestown” is an odd bird, probably because it’s undergone so many incarnations. Starting in 2006, it’s been a play, then a concept album, then an off-Broadway show, finally debuting in 2019 on Broadway. But never mind: the Rachel Chavkin-directed version by Anaïs Mitchell you’ll see here in San Diego is terrific, with jaunty songs and sad, dialogue likewise and a gaggle of really fine actors and musicians (onstage) to take you on their journey.

Theater Review: I Hate Hamlet

              Alex Guzman as Hamlet and John DeCarlo as Barrymore 

Playing Hamlet onstage is tough enough, without having John Barrymore watching – especially if you’re a TV actor like Andrew Rally, famous for a TV series in which he played a rookie surgeon.

Alex Guzman plays Rally, whom we meet looking at a New York apartment to rent for the time he really *does* play his first Hamlet at the world-famous Court Theatre. His agent

The place is too fancy for Andrew’s taste – with big furniture and even art on the walls – but real estate agent Felicia Dante (Christine Hewitt) insists that this is the place for him. The reason? The place is haunted by the ghost of the legendary Barrymore. She even offers a séance to call up Barrymore.

Does that give you a clue about Paul Rudnick’s crazy play “I Hate Hamlet,” playing through June 5 at Scripps Ranch Theatre?

It gets nuttier. The reason he stays is girlfriend Deirdre McDavey (Lynnia Shanley), a pretty little thing who’s crazy about Andrew – and can’t wait to see him as Hamlet – but won’t sleep with him until they marry. 

You read it right. And it was written in 1991. Go figure.

Let’s see. Oh yes, Andrew’s agent Lillian Troy (Jill Drexler) is responsible for getting him the part, and she wants him to stay in that apartment because long ago she had her own little tête-a-tête there with the master.

Director Phil Johnson and his stalwart cast play this goofy story for every laugh it offers, and they are plenty. 

Kudos to the set design crew – Alyssa Kane, designer, and Nathan Waits, construction for the set that changes look as often as Deirdre does opinions.

Pam Stompoly’s costumes are as outrageous as Rudnick’s lines, from frilly ladies’ dresses to Barrymore’s all-black outfit with a big leather codpiece and oh, those black tights (which he maintains are the secret to the character.)

Sound and lighting are tricky and well handled by John Fredette and Mitchell Simkovsky, respectively.

Alex Guzman is great as Andrew, who really only wants to play Hamlet for his own selfish reasons. It’s fun to watch him play at business, love and Shakespeare in turn.

John DeCarlo’s Barrymore is exactly right: imperious, funny (especially in that costume) and anxious to finish this job so he can get out of there.

It’s a joy to see SRT’s former artistic director Jill Drexler back onstage as agent Lillian Troy. She’s always good to watch.

Christine Hewitt does an amusing turn as pushy real estate agent Felicia Dante.

Lynnia Shanley has the unenviable task of making Deirdre both adorable and maddening. And she succeeds brilliantly.

Adam Daniel’s TV guy Gary Peter Lefkowitz amuses as he tries to convince Andrew to go back to TV, where he belongs.

If you’re looking for a fun and very funny evening of theater, take a ride out to Scripps Ranch Theatre. You won’t regret it.

“I Hate Hamlet” plays through June 12, 2022 at Scripps Ranch Theatre at the Legler-Benbough Theatre, Alliant International University, 9783 Avenue of Nations.

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

Tickets: (858) 395-0573 or scrsppsranchtheatre.org

COVID policy: Must wear a mask inside the theater.