Theater Review: Crime and Punishment, a Comedy

                  A few of the looks of "Crime & Punishment, A Comedy"
 

The world at large seemed to reflect the chaos we’d just left at the end of The Old Globe’s production of Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen’s “Crime and Punishment, a Comedy” when we crossed the bridge to our cars at the end of the show.

A beautiful crescent moon that we saw as we started across suddenly disappeared about halfway, and try as we would (and did) to see it again, it never reappeared. I think Dostoevsky would have approved.

The audience certainly approved of the wild and crazy production it had just seen: a 90-minute morality tale performed by five outrageously talented actors playing more than 50 zany characters, riffing on the famous 19th-century masterpiece involving Raskolnikov, an impoverished student who becomes a murderer in order to save his family. No, it’s not the story you read in high school, it’s much crazier and a delight for the eyes if not the memory.

You recall, it’s about the student I’ll call Rasky, who has just completed the course work for his law degree but has not received his diploma just yet. He is anxious to get it, partly because Mom is so, so proud but mainly because the family really needs the money Rasky will now be able to make. Meanwhile, the landlord is yelling for the rent and threatening eviction.

The problem is, how to get his hands on the diploma. When Rasky goes to the university’s bursar to ask, he’s told that he has a long-overdue library book that he’ll have to pay the fine on before he gets it. But of course, he doesn’t have the money. How to get the bursar to release that piece of paper?

Rasky also has a sister named Dunya (played by Juliet Brett), who likes to read Pushkin and feels the need to find (what else?) a husband, in order to take at least some of the pressure of supporting the family off Rasky.

While Rasky is trying to get the bursar to release his diploma so he can get a job, he bumps into the female owner of a bar named Sonya (played by Stephanie Gibson) and is quite infatuated with her. Could this develop into something?

In the course of his efforts, political ideas are floated, Rasky considers donating a kidney to a sick orphan and Rudy Giuliani turns up as a journalist. And of course, the local police will show up.

I told you it was wild and crazy. 

It’s not just the goofy story, it’s the presentation that’ll have you giggling. Wilson Chin’s set design uses stairways and set-level exits for entrances and exits, even the top of one stairway for the appearance of a spirit-like figure. Alejo Vietti’s costumes are a stitch (sorry), especially for the men when they’re switching sexes instantaneously. The women are luckier; they almost always get to look like women. 

Amanda Zieve’s lighting and Lindsay Jones’ sound designs add to the atmosphere as well.

But it’s the script that will have you guffawing. Greenberg and Rosen will be remembered by local audiences as the authors of a show done here annually at the Globe: “Ebenezer Scrooge’s BIG San Diego Christmas Show.”  This show has the same sensibility.

This show is a comic gem. Don’t miss it.

The details

“Crime and Punishment, a Comedy” plays through August 20, 2023 at The Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

Shows Tuesday and 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: (619) 234-5623

Theater Review: Is It Thursday Yet?

                            Jenn Freeman

Jenn Freeman shows us how, at the age of 3-1/2, she found dance and at last had a place she could be happy and learn to live with the disorder that wasn’t diagnosed until she was 33.

By then, she had become a dancer and learned how to express herself without the words that Autism Spectrum Disorder had denied her until then.

La Jolla Playhouse’s Weiss Theatre presents a riveting showcase for her frightening but ultimately hopeful story, “Is It Thursday Yet?”

The title refers to the dance class her mother and grandmother enrolled her in, at last giving her a way to express herself in movement what she could not in words. As we see her learning to arrange her life in the order that makes sense to her (stacking books in certain ways, for example), we can almost see the light going on in her head. 

The piece, created by Jenn and director/choreographer Sonya Tayeh, is presented in the darkness of an unlit theater, where we hear Jenn talking to the disembodied voices of her therapist, mother and grandmother. She is aided in this multimedia piece by an onstage setup with a backdrop including a screen where home movies of Jenn as a little girl are shown.

It’s in these movies that Jenn’s life is foreshadowed, as she struggles to get into a bathing suit or watches anxiously as her world unfolds in unpredictable ways. One of my favorite scenes has her grandmother with a nightshade on her head trying to teach Jenn how to skip.

Jenn is aided both sides of the stage by platforms: composer and musician Holland Andrews (who has a a glorious soprano voice) on one and fine percussionist Price McGuffey on the other.  

It is a graceful, often charming and very personal work, with Jenn dressing in red throughout, her dances going from graceful to intense and sometimes almost angry.

The final scene has clouds, friendly ones, moving overhead, giving the impression of a certain freedom and cooperation with nature.

In this world premiere, Jenn invites the audience to participate by getting us on our feet to dance with her for a couple of minutes. It’s a charming, hopeful moment, one of many.

I must also credit the Rachel Houck’s scenic design, Melanie Chen Cole’s sound design and the lighting and projections of Cha See and Joseph DiGiovanna, respectively.

Jenn dresses in red throughout, from child to adult, whether dancing or lying on the ground in a swimsuit.           

It is safe to say that you have never seen anything like this show before. Don’t miss your chance to see this extraordinary piece.

The details

“Is It Thursday Yet?” plays through August 6, 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: lajollaplayhouse.org or (858) 550-1010

 

Film Review: Blackberry

                         Blackberry's inventor and CEO

I’m old, and admit that I didn’t jump on cellular devices when they first appeared. I was busy trying to find information for the students I worked with the hard way, in books.

I didn’t buy a Blackberry when they first came out either, or anytime thereafter. I waited around for iPhones.

So Matt Johnson’s new film “Blackberry” is all news to me, and I found it quite fascinating as it shows the world “the story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone.”

It does show something that is still pretty common in business, though: the fraud and greed that can make innovators rush perhaps a bit too fast down the information superhighway.

Do geek inventors need a businessman to run the joint? Inventor Mike (Jay Barushel) doesn’t think so, but then again he doesn’t know how to sell stuff, only how to make it.

So along comes a businessman named Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), who will do all the boring stuff but insists on being named CEO.

You can probably imagine the rest, especially if you remember the old Blackberry. And if not, you can be amused by the arguments and glitches along the way to success and then failure for this company. 

It’s a good (or bad) old American story.

Theater Review: Cotton Patch Gospel

                          Cast of "Cotton Patch Gospel"

Sunday School class was never like this.

Coronado’s Lamb’s Players Theatre brings back a foot-stomping version of the gospels of Matthew and John in Clarence Jordan’s “Cotton Patch Gospel” through August 20. 

First performed as a one-man show, it had a successful off-Broadway run in 1981 with a book by Tom Key and Russell Treyz and added music and lyrics by Harry Chapin. Lamb’s was one of the first companies to do the show once it was released to the public.

Though you know going in that this is a Bible-centered story, the set looks like somebody’s garage, emphasizing the down-home atmosphere, especially in the first song: “Something’s Brewing in Gainesville.”

It seems that local girl Mary Clayton had a baby and laid him in an apple crate. Get it?

Three terrific singing actors – Bryan Barbarin, Michael Cusimano and Ernest Sauceda – play the Biblical characters God, Joseph and Jesus. 

They are backed up by four excellent musicians – Shawn Rolf, Greg Campbell, Oliver Shirley and Brandon Wallace – play band leader Jim-Bob, guitarist Nat, bass player Big Phil and acoustic and electric instrumentalist Andy, respectively. They are given leave to go to town from time to time, delighting all listeners.

The gang cavorts in its usual dual-level space, amusing with songs like “Ain’t No Busy Signals (on the hotline to God)” and “Spitball (me, Lord, over the home plate of God”). 

It’s another approach to the Biblical story, one that Lamb’s presents for the fourth time to delighted local audiences.

If you’re in the mood for a foot-stompin’ Biblical story, give “Cotton Patch Gospel” a whirl.

The details

“Cotton Patch Gospel” runs through August 20, 2023 at Lamb’s Players Theatre, 1142 Orange Avenue in Coronado.

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

Tickets: lambsplayers.org or (619) 437-6000

Theater Review: Passengers

"Passengers" at the Old Globe

I haven’t been to a circus (not even the world-famous Cirque du Soleil) in ages. Now the Old Globe show “Passengers” fixes that, thanks to the spectacular arts collective known as The 7 Fingers.

Founded in 2002 and centered in Montreal, the group's purpose was to strip down the well-known spectacle of circus to its thrilling essence, and to offer their expertise to international companies, offering everything from small one-man shows to large arena-style performances.

At the Globe, “Passengers” tells a story of nine cirque performers who happen to be on the same train. Each has a story to tell, each a spectacular expertise to demonstrate, and the result is a fascinating, thrilling and sometimes horrifying 110-minute show with no intermission but oodles of talent. 

The skills on view range from acrobat Kaisha D-W and gymnast Beto Freitas  to acrobat Nella Niva who does cartwheels and hangs upside down with apparent ease. Aerialist and contortionist Mandi Orozco works the trapeze gracefully, while Santiago Rivera Laugerud does juggling and hoop diving as well as working on the Chinese pole. Andrew Sumner’s skills are in gymnastics, trampoline and high diving, and Méliejade T. Bouchard works with hula hoops, (many at a time), and also does gymnastics.

Sometimes they work together, in a dance; sometimes a few at a time, now and then alone, but they always seem to know exactly what they’re doing and why.

The music, lyrics and arrangements by Colin Gagne underscore what you see onstage and pull you almost into the show. 

There’s a bit of a human backstory for each, as well; some are going  somewhere to meet someone, others hoping to, some trying to get away from a human situation. As one puts it, “Sometimes it’s not about being someplace but about being someplace else.”

But you won’t want to be anywhere else at all. You will be so knocked out at the talent, skill and derring-do on display that you’ll probably just sit there and gape, like I did. Then you will applaud loudly and long.

Do not, I repeat do NOT miss this show.

The details

“Passengers” runs through July 30, 2023 at The Old Globe’s Donald & Darlene Shiley Stage, 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

Shows Tuesday and 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: www.TheOldGlobe.org or (619) 234-5623

 

Theater Review: SIX

                                        SIX

Marrying a king sounds like a great career move, but historically there have been more than a few drawbacks for women who tried it.

Broadway San Diego presents the touring version of “Six, the Musical” through July 9 at downtown’s Civic Theatre.

England’s King Henry VIII ended up with six wives, their fates amusingly (to us) reported (in order) as “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”

Was he really that unfeeling? Probably, if we are to believe the Six, who tell us their side of the story.

Dressed in spiffy, sparkly costumes (by Gabriella Slade), these ladies cavort, show off, tell jokes, weep and generally just have a great time as they talk about their, shall we say, encounters with Henry.

Each of them gets plenty of time to sing, requiring six really fine voices, and these ladies deliver. Khaila Wilcoxon plays Catherine of Aragon (divorced); Storm Lever is Anne Boleyn (beheaded); Natalie Paris is Jane Seymour, who died shortly after childbirth; Olivia Donalson is Anna of Cleves (divorced); Courtney Mack is Katherine Howard (beheaded); and Gabriela Carrillo is Catherine Parr, who outlived the King.

As I say, all are excellent, though because I’ve never seen the show, I frequently wished the diction were a bit better and the band (keyboard, bass, guitars, drums) a bit quieter.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to marry a king, here’s your chance to find out.

The details

“Six” plays through July 9, 2023 at San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third and B Streets in downtown San Diego.

Shows Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Thursday at 2 and 7:30 p.m.; Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 1 and 6 p.m.

Tickets start at $35 and can be bought here:

https/www.broadwaysd.com/upcoming-events/six/

Film Review: Scarlet

 

Juliette (Juliette Jouan) in "Scarlet"

                      

Life is to be lived, enjoyed, shared or maybe just endured, depending on your lot and how you choose to live it.

Director/co-writer Pietro Marcello’s “Scarlet” takes place between 1919 and 1939, described as “a time of great inventions and great dreams.” It was also a time of difficulty, between world wars, a time of recovery and starting over for many.

At the beginning, old former soldier Raphael (Raphaël Thiéry) comes to a small French town in search of his wife Marie and a daughter he’s heard is his. He runs into Mme. Adeline (Noémie Lvovsky), a sort of mayor figure who seems to keep track of who’s who and what’s what in town. 

Mme. Adeline holds a crying baby and says “She’s your daughter. Her name is Juliette. She has Marie’s eyes. I hear you work with wood. I can’t pay you, but I can put you up.”

There are two other major characters in this film: “La magicienne” (Yolande Moreau) and Fernand (François Négrier), described by Mme. Adeline as “a bastard.” You can guess why.

Raphael, it turns out, is a wizard with wood. He can build anything out of wood, and decides to make a toy for Juliette.

Raphael is such a wizard with wood that he can build almost anything….except dreams. But Juliette, who plays piano, is a dreamer and says things like “I’d like to go away in the softness of clouds.”

One day Juliette meets Jean (Louis Garrel), a young stranger who owns and likes to fly airplanes. “I make my money with my plane,” he tells Juliette. 

“I think it’s beautiful,” she says. “I never saw one up close.”

Could this be the beginning of something wonderful?

You’ll have to see the film yourself. I recommend it highly. Though it is at times emotionally wrenching, it’s a lovely fairy tale. The acting is top-notch and Marcello’s directing brilliant.

It was also named one of the 12 best films of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

“Scarlet” opens July 30 at San Diego’s Digital Gym Cinema, 1100 Market Street.