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. 

Theater Review: Tartuffe

                Bruce Turk & Melanie Lora (on table); Bo Foxworth
 

There’s nothing like religion to create dissonance and – if you’re as good a writer as Molière - hilarity.

North Coast Repertory Theatre capitalizes on this fact in its wonderfully funny version of Molière’s “Tartuffe,” which plays through April 7.

NCRT doesn’t fool around. They got Richard Baird to direct Richard Wilbur’s translation of the play, and you can’t get better than that. Baird knows about timing and how to get the most laughs per line.

The setting is 16th century France, in the house of Orgon (Bo Foxworth) and his wife Elmire (Melanie Lora*). The two of them have a few daughters, one of whom is Mariane (Shanté DeLoach), who is in love with Valere (Jared Van Heel*). The feeling is mutual, and they are about to make wedding plans when we meet Tartuffe (Bruce Turk*), a useless, greedy phony who has managed to impress Orgon and intends to make it with Mariane (to her horror). But her disdain doesn’t stop Tartuffe; he continues to stay in Orgon’a good graces with his phony version of piety.

The play offers many laughs, and the theater offers more with great costumes (by Elisa Benzoni), sets by Marty Burnett and acting by the whole cast. And don’t forget that the word tartuffe means “truffle,” but here it’s not the chocolate kind. Here it’s a hypocrite who feigns virtue, especially religious virtue, and this is a play that plays with everything and makes fun of just about everyone.

But it’s Bruce Turk as Tartuffe who’ll have you laughing all the way home.

“Tartuffe” wasn’t censored after one show for nothing. Don’t miss this production.

The details

Molière’s Tartuffe plays through April 7, 2024 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Suite D, Solana Beach.

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

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

* denotes a member of Actors’ Equity

Theater Review: Hand to God

 

Puppets have never been a thing for me, especially not extremely vulgar ones that seem to go out of their way to be obnoxious. 

But if that’s your thing, have I got a play for you. It’s Robert Askins’ “Hand to God,” about a supposedly Christian community run by Pastor Greg (Dave Rivas), where nasty and vulgar puppets seem to rule the day, or at any rate talk a lot and appear to have sex on the mind most of the time.

The Roustabouts Theatre Company, headed by Phil Johnson, presents “Hand to God” through March 31 at Hillcrest’s Diversionary Theatre.

Is Askins telling us that religion is bunk, or that people are, or that maybe neither is true but treating both with disdain is the only way to survive in a place like this?

I’m not sure, but it’s clear that Johnson had a wonderful time directing the show and many audience members seemed to think it funny as well.

Me? Not so much, but I will give credit where it’s due: the actors (Rebecca Crigler, Adam Daniel, Samantha Ginn and Devin Wade, in addition to the aforemtioned Rivas) obviously put a lot of effort into making those puppets cavort, often amusingly and always vulgarly for the audience.

Look, humans are fallible and often do, say and think the “wrong” things, or at least things that don’t improve either their lives or anyone else’s who has heard/watched/helped them blow off puppet steam.

There’s history in puppets. I’ve been told on good authority that puppets were used as teachers in the Middle Ages in Europe and Asia.

And let’s face it, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are not foreign to Europeans, nor is the choice between ego and id, and we all know that people have both sides and can choose one over the other.

That’s the real point of this show, and if it has to do it with vulgar puppets, well, so be it.

The details

“Hand to God” plays through March 31,  2024 at Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Boulevard #101 in San Diego.

Ticket price: $45. Call (619) 569-5800  or www.theroustabouts.org.

Shows Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Theater Review: How I Learned to Drive

The program for this show tells us that Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company prides itself on its “art to the gut sensibility” and “believes that exceptional storytelling is rooted in a sense of joyful play, human connection and gutsy intensity.”

In its latest production, Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive,” which plays through March 16 at downtown’s Tenth Avenue Arts Center, it’s the gutsy intensity that will both enthrall (and perhaps even exhaust) you.

Directed by Anthony Methvin, this two-hour nonstop play (winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) illustrates a strained relationship between a young teenage girl and an adult man who finds her sexually interesting. The girl, named Li’l Bit and played magnificently by Megan Carmitchel, thinks her admirer Robert (Francis Gercke) is just weird  and a possible child abuser until he offers to teach her something she wants to know: how to drive. But driving isn’t even half of what this show is about. 

Also in the show are three other fine actors – William Huffaker, Karson St. John and Emilee Zuniga, (called Male Greek Chorus, Female Greek Chorus and Teenage Greek Chorus in the program) who each play a multitude of other characters who swirl around Li’l Bit and Robert.

Three of the other women also play Li’l Bit’s mother, aunt and grandmother at different times, and also many other characters (that’s why all except Li’l

Bit and Robert are called “Greek Chorus” (one each: male, female, teenage). The women continue the general plot about man’s relation to woman in general, often amusingly.

Kudos to director Methvin for keeping things both moving and intriguing, and to the other designers. Yi-Chien Lee does a fine job with the set and props designs. 

Jessica John Gercke’s costume designs also deserve kudos. 

Curtis Mueller’s lighting and George Ye’s sound designs call attention to the right people and places at the right times, as does Chad Ryan’s technical direction.

I advise that you enter this show with no expectations about what you might see, because they will likely be smashed very quickly anyway. If you’re an adventurous theatergoer, this is for you. 

Thanks to Methvin and his sterling cast, the show will at least intrigue you, if not send you away smiling about how much fun it was.

Recommend it to likeminded people you know.

“How I Learned To Drive” plays through March 16, 2024 at downtown’s  Tenth Avenue Arts Center, 930 Tenth Avenue (where 163 hits Tenth Avenue).

Shows Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday at 3 p.m. Industry night is Monday, March 11 at 7 p.m. 

Prices: General admission, $40; Seniors and military, $35; Dogtag members $30 (must have access code) and Students, $18 (with student ID)