Theater Review: The 39 Steps

                The four stars of "The 39 Steps"

Scripps Ranch Theatre does some interesting – if not downright weird –productions. I think this latest is the weirdest yet.

With only four actors, Patrick Barlow has rewritten a 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film script into a lickety-split theatrical action thriller that features more than 50 roles. You read that right, four actors, 50-plus roles and settings from London to Edinburgh to the Scottish moors and even the London Palladium. And all within a two-hour show with one intermission.

Directed by Phil Johnson and featuring many of SRT’s regulars on the production team, the show rocks and rolls through one craziness after another and just makes you wonder what could be coming next.

Does any of it make sense? What difference does it make? It’ll make you giggle and wonder what’s next, and isn’t that good enough?

Sure it is. Trust me.

Bravi to the four actors: clowns Katelyn Slater (of huge eyes and a bigger smile) and Chris Braden and two actual characters, one handsome guy played by Marley Bauer and three very different women played by Melanie Mino.

Bravi also to the production team, especially set designer Yi-Chien Lee, lighting by Michelle Miles, costumes by Caprice Shirley, props by Justin Magallanes and sound design by Patrick J Duffy.

“The 39 Steps” is perhaps a bit longer than necessary, but it never lacks for jokes, observable silliness or downright fun, and there’s a lot to be said for that.

 

Theater Review: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

                 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Wow, here’s a story to keep you guessing. Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella about those strange guys working in that lab and what does and doesn’t happen to them just keeps the suspense and excitement mounting until finally all hell breaks loose. Or maybe doesn’t, but you’ll be riveted the whole way.

Especially by one particular woman named Elizabeth Jelkes, played by Ciara Stroud and fascinating to all. Who is she really?

Director Shana Wride keeps the science and curiosity mounting, and NCRT’s resident set designer Marty Burnett keeps everyone’s interest with a succession of red doors here and there, another source of curiosity.

Never mind what does and doesn’t happen in the plot. Is Jekyll the problem, or is it his brother Hyde? Or neither? You can be the judge, and it won’t even matter whether you’re right or wrong. It’s getting there that’s all the fun.

The sterling cast includes Jacob Bruce*, Katie MacNichol*, Conner Marx*, Ciara Stroud*, Bruce Turk* and Christopher M. Williams*.

So sit back, relax and prepare for one of the most fascinating journeys of your theatrical lifetime.

The details

“Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” has been extended and now plays through November 19, 2023 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Dr. in 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. Seven new shows have been added on Wed., Nov. 15 at 2 and 7 p.m.; Thurs. Nov. 15 at 7 p.m.; Friday Nov. 17 at 8 p.m.; Saturday Nov. 18 at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 19 at 2 p.m.

Box office: (858) 481-1055 or boxoffice@northcoastrep.org

Theater Review: The Turn of the Screw

                     The Turn of the Screw

There’s Henry James. There’s Jeffrey Hatcher. There’s a play called “The Turn of the Screw.” 

Then there’s the Chalk Circle Collective, a group that at the moment is all and none of these things at the same time. 

Chalk Circle Collective  is currently performing at Hillcrest’s Diversionary Theatre in its version of Hatcher and James’ versions of the well-known play “The Turn of the Screw.”

But this is theater like no other you or I have ever seen. Rather than well-rehearsed lines, it rather emphasizes noises and sounds made on instruments well known for what we used to call music. Or simply made by the human voice in ways unfamiliar to most of us.

There’s a plot of sorts. The two characters are a governess (played by Megan Carmitchel) and “The Man,” unidentified by name but brilliantly (and sometimes scarily) performed by Michael Cusimano.

The governess appears to be younger than The Man, and she seems to be interested in him as a potential friend or even closer. He, on the other hand, appears to be in a different universe, and not a human one.

There is no adequate way to write a traditional review of this piece, and I’m not even going to try. Suffice it to say that the piece is fascinating, scary, sometimes funny and utterly absorbing in ways I never thought possible.

                            DOUBT

New Village Arts couldn’t have picked a better time to do this play than right now, when suspicion, distrust and downright hatred seem to be at their peak internationally.

Playwright John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt” takes place in a Catholic school in the Bronx where a new acolyte - a teacher named Sister James (Juliana Scheding) - begins to question the senior nun, the by-the-book Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Kym Pappas).

Also in the cast is beloved Father Brendan Flynn (Dr. AJ Knox), who has the nerve to request three spoonfuls of sugar in his tea and to note that “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” and even to suggest that “people should see us as members of the family rather than emissaries from Rome.”

Comments like those are distasteful to Sister Aloysius, who would like to find a way to remove him from her parish.

A new young student, Donald Muller, the parish’s first African-American, has been seen tasting the sacred wine at the altar. Sister Aloysius blames Father Flynn for this and demands he request a transfer to another parish. 

When Mrs. Muller (Sherrell M. Tyler) is told that Flynn may have touched her boy inappropriately, her response is simple: “His father don’t like him, and I bring him here, and you don’t like him.”

How can anyone survive in an environment like this? Will Sister Aloysius get her way or will saner heads prevail?

Playwright Shanley has fashioned a fascinating one-act play that seems to come and go in a flash, leaving playgoers with lots to talk about on the way home.

Kristianne Kurner has directed this fine cast impeccably, and the sets (Christopher Scott Murillo), costumes (Kevin La’Marr Coleman), lighting (Shelby Thach), sound design (Marcus Rio) and props (Sofia Cassidy) are excellent.

Do not miss this play. It runs through October 22.

Film Review: Cassandro

It’s hard work being a luchador. What’s that? A wrestler.

Imagine what it’s like being a gay luchador in Mexico. No easy task, but then neither is life, right? 

“Cassandro” tells the story of a skinny blond kid named Saúl (played by Gael García Bernal), who sees lucha and decides he wants to do that too. His dad is less than excited at the prospect, but mom Yocasta (played by Perla De La Rosa) is very supportive. 

A female luchadora named Sabrina (who fights under the name Lady Anarquía) sees Cassandro practicing one day and offers to train him. Many practice rounds later, she thinks he’s good enough and thinks he ought to fight as an “exótico." I’m guessing she figured out that he’s gay.

The short form of the rest of the story is that he succeeds as a luchadora, though does have to endure a lot of jeering from audiences at the getups he wears (flashy and some downright, shall I say it, feminine).

The point of the story is that you should pursue your dream, no matter what anyone says.

Gael García Bernal is excellent as the determined Cassandro, who doesn’t take no for an answer, but does learn to endure occasional failure.

Roberta Colindrez is convincing as Cassandro’s teacher, though I must admit it’s difficult for me to imagine women as luchadoras. I guess I’m just old fashioned.

Perla De La Rosa is a gem as Cassandro’s mother, supportive (and proud of her son) to the end.  

Raúl Castillo convinces as Cassandra’s boyfriend Gerardo. And Joaquín Cosio is fine as the shady wrestling promoter Lorenzo.

Director Roger Ross Williams keeps everything moving at a fast pace, and the soundtracks (“Seis Pistoleros”) adds to the emotional level.

I never thought I’d watch, much less write about wrestling, but I’m always up for something new, strange or startling. “Cassandro” qualifies on all counts. 

Film Review: A Haunting in Venice

You can’t get much better than Kenneth Branagh. He’s been one of my favorites as an actor and director for years. But he’s just as good at doing both at once, as he proves in “A Haunting in Venice,” for my money the best film of the year, at least so far.

“A Haunting in Venice” is the first time Agatha Christie’s 1969 novel “Hallowe’en Party” has been adapted for film. I hope it’s never done again. This one is better than any I could even imagine.

Here he plays Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot for the third time, but the first based on a Christie source not previously adapted for film. This script was written by Michael Green.

We meet the retired sleuth tending his garden, well, okay, his spiffy manse, when he reluctantly attends a seance. Among the other guests are some of my favorite actors, Michelle Yeoh, Tina Fey and Jamie Dornan among them. (That’s not to slight the rest of the fine cast: Dylan Corbet-Bader, Amir El-Masry, Riccardo Scamarcio and Fernando Piloni. I’m just not as familiar with them.)

But when strange and dark things start happening, Poirot is forced to put on his  sleuth hat and go to work. 

Yeoh plays Mrs. Reynolds, a psychic who quickly grows nervous as she senses evil in the room and sets out to determine what’s up. It’s murder and mayhem, of course, expertly directed and acted thanks to Branagh, and filmed brilliantly enough to scare even people like me, who tend to ho-hum this type of thing.

Tina Fey is wonderful fun as fellow writer Ariadne Oliver, a skeptic who quickly gets scared.

If you know the story, you don’t need me to tell you what happens. And if you don’t, I won’t ruin it for you. Be assured that you’ll be impressed, if not frightened out of your mind.

Don’t miss this cinematic masterpiece.

Theater Review: The Angel Next Door

I’m not often at a loss for words, but North Coast Rep’s strange “The Angel Next Door” left me close to that.

The piece, an NCRT commission, is a world premiere. The plot itself is an adaptation of Ferenc Molnár’s classic 1924 farce, “Play at the Castle,” which makes fun of characters attempting to navigate romance, misunderstandings and comical situations.

This plot gets around. A previous adaptation of the Molnár (“The Play’s the Thing”) was written by P.G. Wodehouse in 1926. Tom Stoppard wrote another adaptation called “Rough Crossing” (featuring actors on a ship trying to get to a job in Europe) in 1991. 

In the NCRT version (script by Paul Slade Smith), an actor named Oliver Adams (Taubert Nadalini) is smitten by – and pursuing – a lovely actress named Margot Bell (wonderfully played by Elinor Gunn).

He goes to find her in a fancy castle with too many doors (six, if I recall correctly). And hears too much noise that sounds like heavy breathing and encounters of the human kind. Could it be that Margot is with (gasp!) someone else?

You can probably guess what sort of thing will happen. 

The only thing that saves this silly script is a great cast that plays each character with the exaggeration required to make it seem funny.

Barbara E. Robertson plays Charlotte Sanders, an adult actress who is there with her actor husband Arthur Sanders (James Newcomb). They add what the few adult comments that are made.

Thomas Edward Daugherty plays Victor Pratt, the reigning king of romance, who also gets mixed up with these crazies.

But by far my favorite character is Olga Molnar (Erin Noel Grennan), who plays the maidservant who bustles in and out in black, bringing coffee and cake in the morning, frequently muttering “Theater people!”

There’s no reason to pay a lot of attention to the plot; just sit back, relax and watch these (expletive deleted) theater people at work.

The details

“The Angel Next Door” plays through October 1, 2023 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in 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 tickets.northcoastrep.org