Theater Review: Neat

Charlayne Woodard is no stranger to San Diego theatergoers. She has performed six times at the La Jolla Playhouse, most recently in the two-hander “The Garden” in 2023.

Her latest show in the area is in the moving, absolutely astonishing two-hander “Neat,” which plays through April 16 at Scripps Ranch Theatre. This is a co-production between SRT and Loud Fridge Theatre Group.

Loud Fridge Theatre Group is committed to “using the performing arts to make noise in the San Diego theatre community, by amplifying voices that have a history of being silenced, by elevating stories that have historically been denied a platform and by creating an inclusive, intersectional environment for artists and patrons.”

“Neat” is an autobiographical drama about Woodard’s aunt Beneath, known as Neat. When Neat’s grandmother accidentally gave her camphor oil instead of cod liver oil, the girl suffered irreversible brain damage. But the play shows how the damage didn’t stop her from becoming the most beloved member of the family, and the one who taught the rest of the family how to cherish life and share love.

Kandace Crystal ends up playing several family members besides Neat. She is accompanied by Nicole Diaz-Pellot, a wonderful dancer who both helps to illustrate what Crystal is saying and joins her in demonstrating the joy Neat most often feels, as she grows up, experiences adulthood and first love, and comes to embrace Black pride and feminism.

The show alternates geographically between Savannah, Georgia and Albany, New York, and chronologically from 1943 to 1972 and the country experiences the beginnings of the drive toward social racial equality. There is talk here about the Black Student Association and the Black Panthers.

Claire Simba directs this amazing combination of spoken word, dance and visual arts told on a bare stage. Props also to Alyssa Kane, set dresser, Lindsay Alayne Stevens, lighting designer, Omar Ramos, sound designer, Leigh Akin, illustrations designer and Ted Leib for the projections.

There is so much to appreciate in “Neat” that it is impossible to describe it well enough. Suffice it to say that Woodard has another winner in this show that runs 90 minutes without intermission.

Don’t miss it.

Theater Review: The XIXTH

             Patrick Marron Ball, Biko Eisen-Martin and Korey Jackson

Everyone would like to think that sports – especially Olympic-level sports – are free of political contamination. But playwright Kemp Powers’s new play “The XIXTH,” just opened at The Old Globe, is here to show us otherwise.

The title refers to the 19th Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968, in which black American sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith each raised a black- gloved fist on the winner’s stand as the national anthem was played. John Carlos won that race and Smith came in third. But the systemic racism that drove that protest – and the price they paid for it – are still being played out.

The 1960s were tempestuous years for American blacks, who saw and/or participated in the Watts riots and Malcolm X’s murder in 1965, and later the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy.

Meanwhile, black American Olympic-level athletes were playing for the glory of a country that systematically denied them rights.

“The XIXTH” shows us in a series of fast-moving scenes what happened to two of them. John Carlos came from a farming family, and that his dad told him he could complete as long as he won. 

Tommie’s mother Dora (Kimberly Scott) was a nursemaid. Tommie met John Carlos when both were students at San Jose State University.

The play also goes back in time to feature American Jesse Owens, the first winner of four track and field gold medals in one Olympics (the 1936 Berlin games). Owens, the son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, also broke two world records.

But back to Juan Carlos and Tommie, who had a different outcome. They were suspended from the team and banned from the Olympic Village.

The play is a fast-moving, colorful and quite fascinating piece of theater, thanks in large part to the team assembled to make it. Bravo to Riw Rakkulchon for a malleable and colorful scenic design, and to Mika Eubanks for costumes that reflect the times. Allen Lee Hughes’ lighting and David R. Molina’s original music and sound design also contribute nicely to the atmosphere.

“The XIXTH” is both unusual theater and excellent (if sad) history. The U.S. still has a long way to go to get to racial equity.

Theater Review: Monsters of the American Cinema

 

There are monsters in movies and monsters in real life.

Diversionary Theatre, ever on the lookout for something different, takes us to their little room upstairs for Christian St. Croix’s “Monsters of the American Cinema,” which began as an idea here in San Diego and is now a play, on the boards through April 2.

That little room is now a drive-in movie where the walls are plastered with posters of classics like “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” “King Kong” and Karloff’s “The Mummy.”

Here we’ll meet Remy (Kirk Brown), both the black proprietor of his late husband’s drive-in and guardian of his straight, white teenage son Pup, aka Peter Diller (Nicholas Toscano).

Here the two will forge a bond out of shared sadness, and attempt to go on with their lives by working on their shared love of monster movies.

The conversation will soon get around to Pup’s female interest, a black girl named Mia who is “just a friend.” Pup has invited her to homecoming.

“What if she wants to dance?” says Remy, and he offers to show the boy how to dance.

Gradually the monsters in their lives seem to calm down, and they settle into a workable relationship.

Bravo to Director Desireé Clarke and her artistic team: scenic designer Yi-Chien Lee, costume designer Jasz Bulan, lighting director Maxx McCartney, sound designer Eliza Vedar and props designer Alyssa Kane.

“Monsters” is funny and sad, charming and not so, and makes for 90 intermissionless minutes of something you’ve never seen before. That alone makes it worth watching.

The details

“Monsters of the American Cinema” plays through April 2, 2023 at Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Blvd. #101 in University Heights.

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

Tickets: (619) 220-0097 or boxoffice@diversionary.org

Theater Review: gUnTOPIA

                        Cast of "gUnTOPIA"
 

Turn on the news on any given day and you’re likely to hear about deaths by gun violence.

Roustabouts Theatre Playwright Will Cooper noted this phenomenon four years ago, and wrote a play about it – “gUnTOPIA” – which was shut down on opening night due to COVID.

Now it’s back, and playing through April 2 at Moxie Theatre. This version is updated and co-directed by the mother-and-daughter team of Rosina Reynolds and Kate Rose Reynolds.

“gUnTOPIA” is satire. It’s funny, thought-provoking, and extremely strange, and it needs to be seen.

It’s about the Nelson family: Harry (Phil Johnson), his wife Mary (Kalie Karel) and their kids June (Elena Bertacchi) and Bobby (Eben Rosenzweig).

The Nelsons live in a place where everyone carries a firearm and no one thinks twice about pulling the trigger.

Did I say this was funny? Well, it provokes at least occasional nervous laughter.

It starts off with a bang (sorry, bad pun), when Bobby pulls his gun on sister June and shoots her. Dead. 

When dad Harry sees June on the floor, he says with a rueful smile, “Goodbye, sweetheart. Daddy loves you.”

Then he goes off to find Detective Rheingold (Walter Murray), to report the death.

When Harry and Mary decide to replace June, they talk to Consuela (Veronica Burgess), proprietor of the local home for homeless children. Consuela suggests Alice, a girl about June’s age who has proved difficult to place.

Alice seems not to be (Elena Bertacchi) interested in guns, to the point that Consuela has tried five times without success to place her. But she is sent to the Nelson family for another try. 

But what do you do when you’re gun-loving Americans stuck with a ballistophobe?

Bravo to all the excellent cast members, and to Tony Cucuzzella (set design), Michelle Miles (lighting design), Jon Fredette (sound design), Dan R. Cheatham II (Armorer), Alyssa Kane (props), Maya Aizenman (stage manager) and Nathan Waits (set construction).

How can this end? Well, you’ll have to go to Moxie and find out. And do go. You’ve never seen anything like this, I can guarantee that.

The details

“gUnTOPIA” plays through April 2, 2023 at Moxie Theatre, 6663 El Cajon Blvd., Suite N.

Shows Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Post-show talkbacks are scheduled for each performance.

Tickets: theroustabouts.org/guntopiatickets

Theater Review: The Cherry Orchard

 

                Ken Barton, Katie MacNichol, Bruce Turk, Amanda Evans

                                                                Photo by Ken Jacques

Oh, those Russians. Especially those turn-of-the-20th century ones, when the population was twittering between royalty, intellectuals, servants and slaves, and political systems to match. Oh, and women, a whole other category.

Chekhov’s last play, “The Cherry Orchard,” onstage through April 2 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, illustrates such a society, with characters demonstrating grief, envy, ambition and other human characteristics along the way.

The title refers to a piece of property that includes a real cherry orchard. The land, owned for years by Madame Lyubov Ranevskaya (Katie MacNichol), has fallen on hard times and is about to be put up for sale by the merchant Lopakhin (Richard Baird). Mme. Lyubov’s 17-year-old daughter Anya (Riley Osburn), meanwhile, has taken a liking to an “eternal student” named Trofimov (Michael Raver), an easy-to-identify left-winger whose ideas are antithetical to the authoritarian Czarist autocracy.

Mme. Ranevskaya has another, adopted daughter named Varya (Amanda Evans), who at 24 is at least efficient and keeps the place going.

Lyubov’s brother Leonid Gayev (Bruce Turk) talks a lot (mostly about billiards). He symbolizes the aristocracy’s decadent life of leisure. He wants to save the estate, but lacks the drive or the know-how to do so.

In the lower classes are Dunyasha, a chambermaid. She is pursued by the clumsy clerk Yepikhodov (Jackson Goldberg), but she is in love with the servant Yasha (Michael Louis Cusimano), the best-looking of the bunch, who represents the new Russian generation.

Then there’s the governess Charlotta Ivanovna (Sofia Jean Gomez), a sort of circus entertainer raised by Germans, who does card tricks and ventriloquism at parties.

And Firs (James Sutorius), an aged manservant, whose 87-year-old senility is a source of both amusement and poignancy.

Director David Ellenstein keeps the lengthy play moving nicely, and he gets very able assistance from every one of the cast members. Richard Baird, playing the merchant trying to broker the deal Lopakhin, is especially worth watching. 

Kudos also to set designer Marty Burnett, whose pieces can be moved and changed easily, costumer Elisa Benzoni (whose dresses for the women are delicious), Matt Novotny, whose lighting is lovely and Evan Eason, whose sometimes spooky sound design adds interest.

Chekhov tries to cover too much political and social territory in one piece for my comfort, but Ellenstein and company provide a fine showcase for it.

The details

“The Cherry Orchard” plays through April 2, 2023 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach.

Shows Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. A performance has been added at 2 pm. Wednesday, March 22. 

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

Theater review: God of Carnage

         

              Francis Gerke, Keiko Green, Jessica John and MJ Sieber                                     

I’ve never considered Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” a laugh riot, but then I’ve never seen it done by those wild and crazy guys at Backyard Renaissance, either.

But you can (and should) see their laugh-riot version now through March 25 at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center in downtown San Diego.

Here’s the setup: two eleven-year-old boys got into a fight, and one of them knocked out the two front teeth of the other. When the show starts, those two sets of parents meet to decide how to settle the matter.

High-powered corporate lawyer Alan (Francis Gerke) Raleigh and his wife Annette (Keiko Green) are the parents of the kid who knocked out the teeth. The victim’s parents are company wholesaler Michael (MJ Sieber) and Veronica (Jessica John) Novak. They meet at the Raleigh residence, where Veronica has set a coffee table with art books, and she brings clafoutis and offers drink.

Annette, the victim’s mother, is constantly on the verge of a panic attack, which she soon demonstrates by vomiting all over the table. After that, the evening quickly devolves into a name-calling session in which they all end up attacking each other.

Michael blames the kids: “Children consume our lives and then destroy them.”

Alliances change from parent sets to men vs. women, to which man is “better” or “smarter” and which woman is a proper female.

Okay, but when it gets to grabbing the tulips Veronica carefully placed in a vase and throwing Alan’s omnipresent cell phone into the vase, well, you can laugh or not. I found it hilarious.

Alan sums up the human condition this way: “Are we ever interested in anything but ourselves? You do what you can to save yourself.”

Kudos to everyone concerned with this show: set designer Yi Chien-Lee, lighting designer Chris Lynne, fight choreographer George Ye, costume designer Jessica John Gercke, technical director Chad Ryan and master electrician Kate Rose Reynolds. And especially to director Rob Lutfy.

Let’s face it, humans are not necessarily humane, especially when they want something, and this version is a comedic wonder in which glances, gestures and yes, often words create a hilarious (if sometimes horrifying) evening for the audience. Don’t miss it.

Theater Review: Slowgirl

                              Slowgirl

It’s hard enough to live in the Times That Are. Imagine the pain of having to live with the Times That Might Have Been.

Chula Vista’s Onstage Playhouse presents playwright Greg Pierce’s “Slowgirl,” a thought-provoking meditation on family, mistakes and what we missed out on, through April 2. OnStage’s artistic director James P. Darvas helms the show.

It takes place in Costa Rica, where middle-aged former attorney Sterling (Jason Heil) has settled in the jungle. He lives alone and loves it, spending his time cooking, rocking and reading in his hammock where he sees green nature all around and even hears birds tweet and iguanas slithering around on the roof.

Sterling hasn’t seen his niece Becky (Ava Smithmier) since she was nine, and is a bit surprised at a visit from this fast-talking teen who loves company. She’s been suspended from school because she (and others) encouraged a somewhat mentally slow student (the titular “Slowgirl”) named Marybeth to put on paper-maché “wings” as a joke. What they didn’t know was that Marybeth would climb out a second-story window and fall.

The day after Becky arrives, Sterling takes her into his rock garden, known as the Labyrinth. Here, ankle-high stones are arranged in 11 concentric circles, and it matters that they be in a particular order. Sterling tells her “I like doing it because it calms me down and straightens out my head.” Becky thinks it looks a bit too religious for her taste, but after they spend a while there in silence, she too begins to find it calming.

Sterling is in Costa Rica because his crook of a law partner got them into a shady deal in which money that was supposedly collected for Holocaust victims was stolen by the partner. Sterling didn’t know about it and was not prosecuted, but it still pains him to think about it.

Heil, a fine local actor/drama teacher, does a splendid job as the reclusive Sterling. Ms. Smithmier, a graduate of the USD Bachelor of Arts program in Theatre), is ebullient and fun to watch as Becky, about as opposite a personality as there could be to her uncle.

Bravo to Anthony Garcia and Kevin “Blax” Burroughs for the fine set and lighting designs, Estefania Ricalde for the effective sound design and Brad Dubois for the appropriate costumes.

Pierce’s piece makes you contemplate the sometimes murky boundary between guilt and innocence, and ponder what might have been if only….

The show is a 90-minute one-act, but plenty of food for thought is packed into those minutes.

The details

“Slowgirl” plays through April 2, 2023 at OnStage Playhouse, 291 Third Avenue in Chula Vista.

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

Tickets: www.onstageplayhouse.org

Theater Review: Anything Goes

                     Cast of SDMT's "Anything Goes"

Anything goes, all right, especially when your characters include kids named Snip and Dippy, several guys in priestly collars who are criminals, and a passel of mismatched lovers.

But never mind, this is Cole Porter and with songs like this, you can invent whatever stage craziness you want and it’s okay. In fact, it’s always fun and often hilarious. The singing is excellent all around, and the dancing (much of it tap, popular in 1934 when this show was written) sparkles.

Omri Schein directs San Diego Musical Theatre’s sparkling version of the musical through March 12. Better hurry and get those tickets.

It would take too long to mention all the outstanding performers, but a few really must be named. Anthony Michael Vacio plays young stowaway Billy Crocker, easy to look at and listen to, who is in nearly every scene. 

Local favorite Allison Spratt Pierce, who is beautiful and sings like an angel (and often something a bit more earthbound), owns the role of Reno. And the lady can dance.

Christianne Holly Santiago is lovely and charming as the put-upon young Hope Harcourt, ordered around by the nose (not quite literally) by her annoyingly autocratic mother Mrs. Evangeline Harcourt (brilliantly played by another local favorite, Wendy Waddell). 

Kara Tuckfield is a stitch as the ship’s Captain, who tries to keep things running on an even keel.

The show is quite long, something like 2-1/2 hours. l might have preferred to see just the first act, from which I emerged absolutely thrilled. The second, shorter act adds to the length but not the plot (unless you absolutely insist on knowing how everything turns out).

But this is a wonderful show.

Remaining shows: March 9 @ 7 p.m.; March 10 at 8 p.m.; March 11 at 3 and 8 p.m.; March 12 at 2 p.m.

Tickets: sdmt.na.ticketsearch.com 

Theater review: The Outsiders

The Greasers 

Being a teenager has always been a tough job, when expectations often don’t match wants and desires. It’s especially rough on kids of different social and economic backgrounds, who are in some ways worlds apart. And when those worlds collide, violence is often the result.

Author S.E. Hinton wrote about this in her 1967 book “The Outsiders.” She was sixteen at the time, and this first book was a huge success and made into a film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. “The Outsiders” is her observation of those days.

Now La Jolla Playhouse puts this famous story on the stage in a huge, brand-new musical format featuring 11 excellent young actors playing (and often dancing) the parts of two warring teenage factions, the poor “greasers” and the rich “Socs” (pronounced soshes”) in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Adam Rapp wrote the book, with hip-hop like music and lyrics by Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance (aka Jamestown Revival) and Justin Levine.

There’s so much activity going on that it’s sometimes difficult to concentrate on one thing at a time. The major story revolves around inseparable buddies (and greasers) Ponyboy Curtis (Brody Grant) and his friend Johnny Cade (Sky Lakota-Lynch). The greasers spend much of their time fixing old cars (onstage).

These two and the other greasers have an uneasy relationship with the fancier, much richer and better-dressed Socs, led by Bob (Kevin William Paul) and several others. The Socs also have two pretty girls in their orbit, Cherry (Piper Patterson) and Marcia (Kiki Lemieux).

The groups converge at “Friday Night at the Drive-in,” but of course don’t sit together. But they all appreciate (and would doubtless like to be) Paul Newman as “Cool Hand Luke.”

But when Cherry seems to take a liking to Ponyboy, the relationship between the gangs sours quickly and will end in a rumble. But not before you’ll see some fabulous choreography by Rick Kuperman and Jeff Superman. 

The whole show is a phenomenal presentation, with terrific lighting (Isabella Byrd), projections (Tal Yarden), special effects (Jeremy Chernick) and costumes (Sarafina Bush) and scenic design (AMP featuring Tatiana Kahvegian). And everyone of the actors is outstanding. The eight-member orchestra led by Conductor Matt Hinkley is also fine. Special kudos to director Tanya Taymor for holding it all together.

The show, which clocks in at about two and half hours, could, in truth, be a bit shorter. But it’s a show like no other.

The details

“The Outsiders” plays through April 2, 2023 at La Jolla Playhouse’s Weiss Theatre, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive in La Jolla.

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

Tickets: boxoffice@ljp.org  or (858) 550-1010

 

Film review: Champions

I think Woody Harrelson has saved my sanity. Well, to be sure, Woody and the amazing cast of “Champions,” who reminded me that there are such things as kindness, joy and positivity in the world. After the last four years, I was beginning to wonder.

Harrelson plays Marcus, a former minor league basketball coach dreaming of an NBA slot. But one night in Des Moines he gets into a minor collision with a police car and is sentenced to community service – coaching a team of kids with intellectual disabilities. 

It’s a diverse group. Benny lives on his own and works in a restaurant. Johnny never bathes, but has a gorgeous sister named Alex, played by Kaitlin Olson.  Marlon is colorblind. Another kid is a welder in a vocational school. Others have various speech and movement difficulties. Then there’s Cosentino, a girl who seems to know everything.

They call themselves The Friends, and they don’t play to win. The psychology of when and how to dribble, pass or shoot is unimportant to them; they just enjoy being together. 

You’ll see the team around town, playing on public courts and making more friends.

Marcus, meanwhile, has designs on Alex (who is a Shakespearean actress). How will that work out?

Meanwhile, Marcus can’t resist trying to instill a foreign sense of competition in the team and starts talking about going to tournaments and such. One such will be held in Winnipeg. Will they get there?

Director Bobby Farrelly has taken the story from the Spanish film “Campeones” and brought it to the English-speaking world in a delightful, funny, even thought-provoking piece that will leave you feeling much better about life than when you walked in. I guarantee it.