Theater Review: Into the Breeches

                     Cast of "Into the Breeches"

A slowish start ends in a rip-snortin’ (and even charming) conclusion in George Bran’s “Into the Breeches,” on the boards through Nov. 13 at North Coast Repertory Theatre. Diana Van Fossen directs.

It’s 1942 in Providence, Rhode Island, where the Oberon Theatre has lost most of its male actors to the war effort. Ellsworth Snow (James Newcomb), the conservative Board president of Oberon Play House, comes to tells Maggie Dalton (Melanie Lora), who has taken over directorship of the group since the regular director (her husband) went to war, that he is closing the theater down for the duration.

But the next show on the schedule is Shakespeare’s “Henriad” (“Henry IV” and “Henry V”, played together), and Maggie has another idea: how about doing Shakespeare with an all-female cast? 

Snow is aghast, and immediately says no, but Maggie is persuasive – and as it happens, his non-acting wife Winifred (Shana Wride) is with him, and so enthusiastic about auditioning – that he reluctantly gives in.

Stage Manager Stuart Lasker (Geno Carr) also assumes the worst, though he is more easily persuaded by Maggie, especially since she’s managed to wangle the okay from Snow. Maggie not only does that, but she manages to convince Snow to pay the actors (nobody ever paid female actors at the time).

Then there’s Oberon’s 50-something diva Celeste Fielding (Katie MacNichol), also wailing about the closing of the theater and not the least enthusiastic about an all-female cast of 33 people played by six people, five of them female.

Auditions bring three more women: bouncy June Bennett (Mikaela Marcias), a meek Grace Richards (Rosemarie Chandler) and Ida Green (Taylor Henderson), the only non-white member, who wants to be the costumer (but will also be drafted to act). You don’t want to miss her imaginative costuming for that hanging appendage in the front.

Rehearsals are amusing, but playwright Bran works in serious aspects, as most of the women are concerned about husbands in the war, and worry about the news, especially when letters don’t arrive on time or at all. 

Celeste quits in a twit when she thinks Maggie wants to play Henry (which she regards are her part) and decides to go play Cinderella with a children’s theater group instead. But rest assured that she will return in time to play the Henrys.

The cast is wonderful all around, and so are Renetta Lloyd and Roz Lehman’s costumes. Marty Burnett’s set is simple and workable, Matt Novotny’s lighting 

and Ryan Ford’s sound excellent, and props (by Cindy Rumley) and hair designs are well done by Peter Herman.

Director Diana Van Fossen gets the most from this fine cast. The show plays with lots of giggles and some serious thought about the war effort, and theatergoers will leave amused and satisfied with this ultimate love letter to theater.

Theater Review: Ken Ludwig's Baskerville

            

                            

                                     Omri Schein, Brian Mackey and John Wells III

There’s funny, there’s lunatic and then there’s Ken Ludwig’s “Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery,” which almost defies description. But don’t let that keep you from Lamb’s Players Theatre, where the show plays through November 20.

Ludwig likes making fun of Holmes. In a previous play, 2012’s “The Game’s Afoot,” a group of actors who had previously done a Holmes piece convene for a party that turns into a murder mystery à la Sherlock. 

But “Baskerville” is played strictly for laughs. The setup features

Brian Mackey as Sherlock Holmes, John Wells III as Dr. Watson and three other actors (Michael Cusimano, Omri Schein and Angela Chatelain Avila) playing a total of 37 other characters.

You read that right, and to make it happen, there’s a lot of (well, let’s just say constant) running around and costume changing going on. 

Is there a plot? Well, sort of. It seems the male heirs of the Baskerville clan are being murdered one by one. Will Holmes solve the case? He seems more interested in Being Sherlock than in Doing Sherlock.

Nonetheless, a tiresome Texan (played by Cusimano) arrives, claiming to be the next in line and wanting to take over the foggy Baskerville mansion. And there are all those moors out there, lonely and scary. And what about the famous Hound of the Baskervilles?

One of my favorite Lamb’s regulars, Omri Schein, plays a gaggle of crazies with his usual joy, like the one named Stapleton, who runs around with a butterfly net. And Avila pretends to be Stapleton’s sister, as well as playing several other nutty characters.

Congratulations to the design and tech crews that put this together: costumer Jemima Dutra, lighting designer Nathan Person, sound designer Deborah Gilmour Smyth, sound and projection engineer Patrick Duffy, projection designer Christian Turner and fight choreographer Jordan Miller.

It was a lot of work, I’m sure, and the audience reaps the benefits in laughs, chuckles, chortles and giggles. 

The details

“Baskerville” plays through November 20, 2022 (and again January 3-8, 2023) at Lamb’s Players Theatre, 1142 Orange Ave. in Coronado

Shows Wednesday through Saturday at 7 p.m.; Matinees Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Tickets: (619) 437-6000 or Box.Office@LambsPlayers.org

Theater Review: First Date

 

                         Cast members of “First Date”

There may be nothing more fraught with anxiety, anticipation and – let’s face it – fear than that first date – especially if it’s a blind date. 

Or is it really something to anticipate with curiosity, even joy?

Four men and three women cavort, argue, dance, insult, sing and/or agree to date and perhaps even love each other in Dustin Winberg’s 2012 musical “First Date,” playing through Nov. 6 at Chula Vista’s OnStage Playhouse. 

They are all looking for “The One,” and anyone who’s tried that knows what a trial it can be. 

The setting is a cafe, where the waiter (Enrique Arana) serves up drinks to several patrons including a chunky, lost-looking man named Aaron (Benjamin Monts), seriously overdressed in a business suit and tie, who says he’s waiting for a girl. The waiter (who knows the drill) immediately removes Aaron’s tie and musses him up a bit to prepare him for the encounter.

An unlikely date walks in – Casey (Kylie Young), a pretty blonde with very short shorts and a top that doesn’t cover much. She tops off the outfit with high heels and a hat. 

She looks at the nerve-racked Aaron and figures No Way. She’s put off by his nervousness. But the waiter pours drinks and she gamely makes a stab at conversation, finishing with “My name is Casey and I’m a serial dater.”

Can Casey be The One? I’ll leave that to you to find out.

Meanwhile, other cafe patrons are meeting, drinking, eating and (perhaps) wondering if he or she is The One. Some are related to Casey (her sister Lauren, for example, and her grandmother (Kylie Young and Emily Candia); others are alternately stoners or characters named Reggie (Andrew Gutierrez) and Gabe (Jaden Guerrero) – or other a flurry of other characters unnamed in the program.

Sound confusing? It is, just like serial dating and trying to meet The One. But the one-act show is played lickety-split so you don’t have time to even consider getting bored, and the songs are fun, as is the fine three-man onstage band.(Musical Director Benjamin Goniea on keyboard, Roy Jenkins on bass and Preston Large on drums).

“First Date” even includes a few members of the previous generation (father, mother, etc), who intrude with their own opinions of who should date whom.

Dating can be fun or a chore or even serious business. The terrific cast of “First Date” gives you an amusing glance at the possibilities, in portrayed by a fabulous cast. It’s a wonderful evening’s entertainment. 

Film Review: Till

 

        Jalyn Hall and Danielle Deadwyler as Emmett and Mamie Till    

Here’s a film that makes you sad, then angry, then keeps it up, not letting go or even letting up in its ultimate campaign to convince you that racism must be eradicated sooner rather than later.

Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler) knew what violence was. Her husband was a violent man. When she filed against him, the judge made him choose between jail and the army. He chose the army; they later executed him for rape and murder. The army sent her his only possession: a ring.

Mamie was born in Mississippi in 1921, but her family moved to Chicago when she was two. Mamie and her family were no strangers to racism in either place, but realized their lot was better in Chicago than it would have been in Mississippi.

Mamie had one son, named Emmett Till, who was 14 in 1955. Emmett (Jalyn Hall) was a charming boy, smart and talented (he loved to sing). One day he asked his mother if he could visit his cousins in Mississippi. 

Mamie couldn’t turn him down, but knew what that meant. She wanted to go along, but work wouldn’t allow it. So she had a serious talk, warning him of the danger and exhorting him to “be small down there.” But she had a horrible foreboding.

The world knows the rest of the story. Emmett was a kid, outgoing and friendly, but innocent in the tactics of rabid racists. What he considered an innocent verbal exchange with white store clerk Carolyn Bryant (Haley Bennett) enraged her and would end in his torture and murder at the hands of several racist white men.

“My son came home to me reeking of hatred,” she says, as she plans the open-casket funeral. She wanted everyone to see the horror she saw.

The trial was, of course, a sham. As someone told her, “No Negro in Money, Mississippi has ever testified against a white man and lived.”

But Director Chinonye Chukka didn’t stop there, because Mamie did not allow herself to stumble through the rest of her life in a haze of unfathomable grief. She decided to do something about racism. She went to meetings and began speaking out in public (but not in Money). 

Horrible as her experience was, the film has a positive ending, as she convinced many that “the lynching of any of us had better be the business of all.” 

Even better, President Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act in March of this year, making lynching a federal hate crime.

“Till” is excellently written and acted (especially by Deadwyler as Mamie) and brilliantly shot, and should be seen by all Americans.

Film Review: Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile

                  Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile

Most kids are probably familiar with Bernard Waber’s book series about Lyle, the singing crocodile. Now Sony offers the world a chance to meet the musical reptile on the screen, in a movie about finding your voice and your family. Canadian Shawn Mendes provides Lyle’s beautiful singing voice. 

But first the plot: Most kids like animals, but hardly any bump into a singing crocodile in the attic of the New York City apartment they’ve just moved into with mom and dad. But 8-year-old Josh Primm (Winslow Fegley) does just that. The green critter doesn’t speak but does have a sign around his neck that says “Please take care of him. He is my most prized possession.”

Imagine telling your parents – especially dad, the math teacher (Scoot McNairy) –  about this.

It seems a previous tenant, ebullient vaudevillian Hector P. Valenti (Javier Bardem) has been trying to make a buck in the acting game, but hasn’t had a lot of success. He has, in fact, gotten himself in debt and now finds it necessary to go on the road in hopes of making a buck. But before he goes, he stumbles into a pet store and finds a cute crocodile named Lyle that (ready for this?) sings. Lyle doesn’t talk, just sings, and only when he feels like it. But Valenti wants to make that work onstage when he gets back from fattening his empty bank account. So he puts Lyle in the attic with tapes, in hopes he’ll practice. But he does have to learn to sing on cue. Mmm-hmm. 

Back to the present. Josh has other problems: getting used to a new school, which for a shy kid is never easy. He drags mom (Constance Wu) on the subway with him that first day, which does not cheer her.

There are other neighbor problems, most especially Mr. Grumps (Brett Gelman) and his scowl-faced white Persian cat Loretta. Mr. G thinks Lyle belongs in the zoo. Loretta seems to agree.

There’s nothing new or particularly fascinating about the presentation here: the songs (from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul of “Dear Evan Hansen” and “The Greatest Showman” fame) are forgettable as are many of the characters, though all the actors are working hard. Fegley’s Josh and of course Bardem are the real exceptions: Hector is desperate to make a living; Josh desperate to fit in and make friends in this new situation.

“Lyle, Lyle Crocodile” will appeal to kids (at least the kids in our audience), and Bardem will certainly give adults a giggle or two. I enjoyed the film, but didn’t love it. 

Film Review: Bros

                          Bros                    

It’s a neat trick to make a comedy that effectively covers social problems, romance, interpersonal relationships and chocolate making while being really, really funny – especially if it’s about gay guys.

I’m talking about “Bros,” written by Billy Eichner (who also stars) and Nicholas Stoller, and the general topic is whether two commitment-phobic gay guys can become a rom-com item under any circumstances.

Cranky gay take-charge Jewish business type Bobby Leiber (Billy Eichner) is a podcaster who has just gotten involved with the establishment of a new museum about LGBTQ+ folk in New York. He can do business stuff (and is named head of this museum), but as he puts it, “I’ve never been in love, so I’m not the one to talk about love.”

But you know how it is….one night on Grindr he bumps into a cute younger guy named Aaron Shepard (Luke Macfarlane), to whom he sends the requested naked-butt photo. They go to a movie and end up in a foursome at a “gender-reveal orgy.” 

And before you know it, you find yourself watching the first-ever gay rom-com.

Are they compatible? Sometimes, but in the hands of these writers and this sterling cast, they are always funny, except when they’re actually making a point about interpersonal relationships, gay or straight, or about some other social issue.

The straight world intrudes when Aaron mentions that his parents are coming for Christmas. Take-charge Bobby jumps all over that and sets up a tour of New York for the straight-laced out-of-towners. Mom teaches second grade, but Bobby keeps blathering on about teaching tolerance even to little kids, causing predictable and unnecessary strain.

Can the relationship survive? Come now, this is a rom-com and there are many more funny scenes to be enjoyed. And topics to touch on.

One is the place of white cisgender gay men like Bobby. We’re told that his podcast, called “The 11th Brick at Stonewall” earned him an award for Cis White Gay Man of the Year. Another is making chocolates, something Aaron has always had a hankering to try.

Take from it what you will, “Bros” is guaranteed to amuse and likely to leave you with food for thought as well. 

Theater Review: Little Shop of Horrors

                      Cast of "Little Shop of Horrors"

How do you fix a flower shop with no customers? That’s the problem that confronts Mushnik’s shop on New York’s Skid Row. It’s gotten so bad that Mushnik (Eliott Goretsky) is just about to close up shop for good.

But that will put not just him but employees Seymour (Ramiro Garcia, Jr.) and Audrey (Lena Ceja) out of work, creating more poverty on Skid Row and taking Audrey out of his life forever. He’s sweet on the girl, but she’s hanging around with a “semi-sadist” dentist named Orin (played with gleeful meanness by Colden Lamb), whose occupational sadism mirrors the abuse he heaps on Audrey.

Nerdy Seymour comes up with a solution: put an interesting plant in the store’s window, which will create traffic and perhaps result in flower sales. He has just the plant: a variation on the Venus Flytrap, a green, spiny little number that’s nothing if not interesting to look at.

The experiment works in the extreme, giving Seymour and Audrey more phone calls for flowers than they can answer. Meanwhile, the plant’s gaping red mouth keeps growing and making that bloodthirsty, incessant “Feed Me!” demand.

Yep, it’s the Howard Ashman/Alan Menken camp musical “Little Shop of Horrors,” back on the boards in a fine production through Oct. 30 at San Diego Musical Theatre. Kandace Crystal directs the 40th anniversary production of this crazy musical, but she’s taken the social aspects of the show: class disparities, domestic abuse and poverty a bit more seriously than some productions I’ve seen.

The show is held together by a Supremes-like trio named Chiffon (Tyrah Hunter), Crystal (Shanyeyah White) and Ronnette (Carjanae), who serve as a sort of Greek chorus. These three are particularly fine, sing almost the whole time, and must be exhausted at the end of each show.

Ceja’s Audrey is adorable, though why she’s been putting up with that sadistic boyfriend is anybody’s guess.

Ramiro Garcia Jr.’s Seymour is fun to watch, as he tries to placate Mushnik and impress Audrey, as well as keeping Audrey II happy with all those bloody pin-pricks.

Goretsky’s Mushnik is a hoot as Seymour’s suggestion changes his flower shop from near-bankruptcy to a flourishing operation.

Lamb’s sadistic dentist is about as over-the-top as any character here, but he’s a hoot to watch (as long as he’s not your dentist).

Special kudos to Domo D’Dante, who gives us the greedy (and blood-thirsty) Voice of Audrey II, and to puppeteer Luis Flores Torres, who manipulates the plant.

Kudos also to choreographer Luke H. Jacobs, costumer Janet Pitcher, lighting designer Michelle Miles and sound designer Brandon Boomizad.

“Little Shop of Horrors” delivers the goods with its inspired silliness. Don’t miss it.

The details

“Little Shop of Horrors” plays through October 30, 2022 at San Diego Musical Theatre, 4640 Mercury Street, San Diego 92111.

Showtimes: Wednesday and Thursday at 7 p.m.; Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m.

Tickets ($40-$75): 858-560-5740 or www.sdmt.org