Theatre – Page 13

Keeping the Holmes Fire Burning : Circle Bar B opens season with ‘Sherlock’s Last Case’

April 2, 2010May 26, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Does director Jim Cook like mystery and murder, or do murder and mystery seek out Jim Cook? Only last season at the Circle Bar B Theatre, Cook investigated “The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940.” Kicking off this season, he walks in with the master detective of 221B Baker Street and “Sherlock’s Last Case.”

“Susie (Couch, the owner and producer of Circle Bar B) picks the shows, and I’m like, another murder mystery? OK,” jokes Cook. “And it’s not really what the show’s about. It’s more the creativity and the working with actors onstage and creating a believable world in which this takes place.”

When the Enemy is the Good Guy — Henrik Ibsen’s drama (by way of Arthur Miller) ‘An Enemy of the People’ still topical after all these years

March 19, 2010May 14, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Short-term profit or long-term gain? Jobs for now or healthy environments for our children? The topics of Henrik Ibsen’s play, “An Enemy of the People,” could come ripped from today’s headlines, as they say. But the ripping already started some 128 years ago, and those headlines were in Norway. In Carey McKinnon’s Valley Community Theatre production, those issues return once again to resonate in the present. The play opens tonight and features a large cast, drawing from the Valley community.

“Enemy of the People” concerns Dr. Thomas Stockmann (Jim Farnum), who becomes concerned when he learns the healing waters of a popular local spa are polluted by runoff from the tanneries. Speaking out means financial ruin for the town, whose mayor is Stockmann’s older brother (Jeff McKinnon, Carey’s husband). The truth, as we find out, will not set Stockmann free. Instead, it will make him the most hated man around. “Enemy” asks how far we would go, and what we would risk, for the sake of the truth.

Arts and ‘Letters’; Four couples, four weekends, one famous play at Ojai

March 19, 2010May 14, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

The four real couples who are bringing their own unique interpretation to "Love Letters" and the weekend they are doing so are (clockwise from top left): Tracey Williams and Cecil Sutton (March 19-21); Tree Bernstein and Buddy Wilds (March 26-28); Suz Montgomery and John Hankins (April 9-11) and Lynn Van Emmerik and Bill Spellman (April 2-4). — The four real couples who are bringing their own unique interpretation to “Love Letters” and the weekend they are doing so are (clockwise from top left): Tracey Williams and Cecil Sutton (March 19-21); Tree Bernstein and Buddy Wilds (March 26-28); Suz Montgomery and John Hankins (April 9-11) and Lynn Van Emmerik and Bill Spellman (April 2-4).

Like an ideal child’s toy at Christmas, A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters” requires very little assemblage, has only two movable parts, and has easy-to-follow instructions. This table read through of a couple’s love letters — from childhood mash notes to old-age epistles — has grown from a little bit of theater to a worldwide hit. Its original 1989 production featured a cast that changed weekly, with big name stars (William Hurt, Marsha Mason, et al) taking on the roles. There’s been foreign adaptations — one rewritten in Urdu for Indian culture — and even a performance by Gov. Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria Shriver.

The revolving cast is part of what keeps the play going — and Ojai ACT offers four different versions this month for the price of one. See all four or choose one.

MORTAL COILS : SBCC offers a speedy runthrough of a rare Russian play

March 16, 2010May 14, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Nova Ropp as Cleopatra and James Stenger as Senya in SBCC Theatre Arts Department's production of "The Suicide" by Nikolai Erdman. RICK MOKLER PHOTO — Nova Ropp as Cleopatra and James Stenger as Senya in SBCC Theatre Arts Department’s production of “The Suicide” by Nikolai Erdman.
RICK MOKLER PHOTO

If there were theater awards for making one’s own professional life difficult, SBCC’s Katie Laris should get some sort of nomination for putting on Nikolai Erdman’s 1928 farce “The Suicide.” When her first choice of a play became unavailable in January, did she look at her schedule and think “let’s fill the small Interim Theater with 18 actors instead, all playing characters with long Russian names?” One wonders.

“The Suicide” is not well-known, even among fans of theater. Banned in its lifetime, resurrected in the 1960s and performed occasionally ever since, Erdman’s play courses the woes of post-revolutionary Russia and a pointed critique of groupthink. It also overflows with a Brueghel-esque cast of characters and/or caricatures. It’s a history piece, no doubt. Is there enough between the lines to sustain a night at the theater?

Death Wish — Dark, Soviet and comical, ‘The Suicide’ comes to SBCC Theatre

March 12, 2010May 19, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

All Semyon Semyonovich wants is a late-night snack of liverwurst. Yes, he’s duly upset when he realizes his career as a concert tuba player can’t start because he can’t afford the piano to tune it. And yes, he’s been unemployed for a year. Somehow, though, his thoughts turn to suicide, and that’s where his real troubles begin.

Nikolai Erdman’s dark farce “The Suicide” has a history as troubled as its protagonist. Written in 1928, the Soviet author’s play ran afoul of authorities over its subject matter (and cracks against Marx), leading to its decades-long ban. Toeing party line, Erdman never again took on such weighty issues, opting instead to write children’s comedies.

Death Wish — Dark, soviet and comical, ‘The Suicide’ comes to SBCC

March 5, 2010May 19, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Nikolai Erdman’s dark farce “The Suicide” has a history as troubled as its protagonist. Written in 1928, the Soviet author’s play ran afoul of authorities over its subject matter (and cracks against Marx), leading it to be banned for decades. Towing party line, Erdman never took on such weighty issues again, opting instead to write children’s comedies.

THE FIFTH ELEMENT: Sir George Martin premieres new work at a special Beatles evening at The Granada

February 13, 2010May 10, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Above, George Martin speaks before Friday evening's "Love, Love, Love" rehearsal at the Granada Theatre. Below, Sir Martin talks to guests at the event. MATT WIER / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS — Above, George Martin speaks before Friday evening’s “Love, Love, Love” rehearsal at the Granada Theatre. Below, Sir Martin talks to guests at the event.
MATT WIER / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS

Sir George Martin, the “Fifth Beatle,” the producer of nearly all of the Beatles songs, as well as a composer and musician in his own right, made a rare visit to Santa Barbara on Friday.

Mr. Martin was at The Granada to promote the world premiere of his own “The Mission Chorales” with the Santa Barbara Choral Society and Orchestra. He conducts the orchestra on both Saturday and Sunday.

This man can move: Savion Glover at Lobero

November 18, 2003August 21, 2014 tedmills Leave a comment

Tap-dancing wonder Savion Glover brings out his dancing art from somewhere deep within his thin frame. Like a Rasta shaman, he conjures multilayered syncopation, pushing and pulling the beat, compressing and exploding over and over into showers of rapid-fire foot movements. At nearly 90 minutes of dancing with only a short break, Mr. Glover thrilled the Lobero audience on Sunday night in a personal, packed show.

He has been amazing theatergoers since he was 12, and his tour brings a four-piece jazz ensemble along with a young protégé called Cartier for a deep examination of tap-dancing. Whereas traditional tap-dancers coast along on top of the music, with gaps left by the band for the dancer to fill, Mr. Glover is the fifth instrument.

Home of the Brave: “Wit” Pits Poetry Against Cancer

October 28, 2003August 25, 2014 tedmills Leave a comment

Mention people and cancer and the adjective “brave” pops up immediately. And in “Wit,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning first play from Margaret Edson, much bravery-of the theatrical kind-is on display. The playwright has decided to focus on a woman dying of cancer, spending the play in a medical center, allowing few supporting characters other than doctors, nurses, and interns. The actor (Allison Coutts-Jordan) portraying the woman Vivian Bearing, a professor in English specializing in John Donne, must achieve a delicate balance between dignity and debasement, between harshness and sentimentality. And because this terminal illness attacks such a stern taskmaster without, as we soon learn, a husband, children, friends, or loving students, the temptation for Edson to use the illness as a sort of punishment-repent, Ebenezer Scrooge!-must be resisted.

This performance, to run until Nov. 8 at SBCC’s Garvin Theater, pulls all the above off perfectly. Director Rick Mokler certainly took a chance with the play, with its many grim scenes likely to repel a number of people. Mr. Mokler also has invested in a play that relegates much of its time to a hospital bed set back in the stage. Fortunately, Ms. Coutts-Jordan handles everything with confidence-she is called on to carry the play and does so because there is no room in the character’s world for anybody else. She relishes the part and the audience is with her all the way.

‘Beyond Therapy’ needs a dose of speed

October 22, 2003August 25, 2014 tedmills Leave a comment

There’s an attraction for directors to Christopher Durang’s “Beyond Therapy.”

Its lampooning of psychobabbling me-generation members and profundity of rude language give it an edgy surface. It’s like a coarser, more farcical Woody Allen. It’s also incredibly dated.

Mr. Durang packs his dialogue with cultural reference that may have been funny when they were fresh out the oven. Prudence, the female lead in this romantic farce, says at one point that she thinks Shaun Cassidy’s cute, but “he’s too young for me.”

Not even 20 coats of irony can save that line from disappearing into the sinkhole. Plenty of other names and pop culture-isms get dropped, from Peter Schaffer’s “Equus” to Dyan Cannon, and they hit the ground, brick-like.