Maurie Lord has a few things to say about his job as the head of theater company Genesis West.
“Doing a play is a giant pain in the butt. It’s hard, it’s expensive, it wrecks your health, you lose a lot of money, you lose friends. It’s a horrible, horrible experience to go through. It’s the worst thing a human being can ever do.”
Phrases and lines from Shakespeare’s Henry V have made their way into popular culture, no doubt spawned by film adaptations. “Once more unto the breach” gets referenced, while every Hollywood scriptwriter has to come up with his/her own version of Henry’s St. Crispin’s Day speech just before a battle scene. (See this year’s “Pacific Rim” and Idris Elba’s “Today, we are canceling the Apocalypse!” speech for one example.)
Likewise, Casey Caldwell’s “We Happy Few” quotes from the same text for his experimental play, opening tonight at the Public Library and then popping up at various venues around the county — at the Solvang Veterans’ Memorial Building and the Santa Barbara Veterans Building, at UCSB, and at the Unitarian Society. This time, the play will be sampled much more.
When Tim O’Brien’s short story collection about Vietnam “The Things They Carried” appeared in 1990, it was the end of a journey that started with select stories being printed in Esquire and its title work being selected for the 1987 anthology of Best American Short Stories. Another journey started afterwards. It went on to sell more than 2 million copies worldwide; nearly won a Pulitzer; and found its way onto the reading list of high schools across the country. It’s considered one of the best works of Vietnam-war fiction out there. So it was only a matter of time that our Public Library would choose it for their annual “Santa Barbara Reads” program. The surprise is that they have now teamed up with Speaking of Stories to turn some of their stories into a special event this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
It wasn’t originally a part of Maggie Mixsell’s “Speaking of” series when they announced this season. But the library reached out to Ms. Mixsell’s business partner, Center Stage Theater’s Teri Ball, and it sounded like a good match. Ms. Mixsell, having put on the series for half of the two-decades-long run, knows a good short story when she reads one.
It’s one of those roles that is so massive and large that it holds a lot of different actors,” says Derrick Lee Weeden, an actor himself. He’s talking about Cyrano de Bergerac, the famous lover and fighter with the long nose who pines for the beautiful Roxane. Despite his male bravery, he’s too self-conscious to declare his love. The classic French comedy opened last Sunday at PCPA in its Solvang theater and it runs through September 1.
“It’s like Hamlet,” he continues. “You have all these actors bringing something to it over the years.” But unlike Hamlet, it’s a role that Mr. Weeden hadn’t thought about playing until Roger DeLaurier offered it to him. Mr. Weeden sought his friends’ opinions on the matter and they all insisted on it, saying it was perfect for the actor who’s played Coriolanus, Othello, and other great classic roles. Now he’s taking on a character who many associate in its modern day remake with Steve Martin, or onstage with Derek Jacobi, Patrick Page, or Mark Harlick, and he hopes to find his place “in that river of de Bergerac as well.”
I love writers who dare and care to talk about the world we live in,” says Robert Egan, head of the Ojai Playwrights Conference, which starts its 16th annual event this coming Wednesday. “Sometimes those voices are not celebrated and nurtured because quite frankly, many theaters are afraid of those voices.”
Those voices will have nothing to fear at the conference. It’s a five-day event in which playwrights bring their new work, perform it or bring actors to do so, then sit in with the audience and fellow writers to hear feedback. Plays that started at the Conference have gone on to success in New York, Los Angeles, and cities in Europe. Playwrights have made breakthroughs. Careers have moved on to the next level. And everybody has been entertained.
While the Solstice Parade makes its way up State Street to spill into Alameda Park, the Funk Zone will be setting up its own celebration for the first time. Called Bohemia at the Beach it’s the brainchild of Funk Zone resident James O’Mahoney, owner of the Surf Museum of Helena Ave., creator of Skateboarder magazine, and collector of fantastic ephemera. Instead of a grand event under one roof, Bohemia at the Beach has asked Funk Zone tenants — from galleries and art studios to bars and wineries — to do something special on Saturday afternoon to continue the Solstice themes, but with more of a gypsy, bohemian, beatnik bent.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while,” says Mr. O’Mahoney as we sit up on his rooftop lounge that overlooks Helena Ave. and Cabrillo, with the lagoon, beach and wharf beyond. “You’ve got 60,000 people going up to the park. You’ve got your drum circle and you can hold a stick of patchouli. And it’s always hot, so why not come to the beach?”
Nearly a quarter-century old, Terrence McNally’s play “Frankie & Johnny in the Claire de Lune” has several difficulties for any director that don’t seem so prevalent now in modern theater. Two people in a room, with action that happens in real time, going from a one-night stand to something that looks like full-time commitment. And though it joshes with the ideas of pre-1940s romance, it’s unabashedly romantic, just unglamorous. It presents us with earnestness and asks us to take it seriously.
Fortunately Saundra McClain is up for this task and has delivered a fitting curtain call for the Ensemble’s most recent season and for the Alhecama Theater. The next production will open in the Victoria, so regardless of this review, realize this is your final chance to experience the cozy ambience of the Alhecama.
In 1987, director Saundra McClain was living in New York City in Manhattan Plaza, the “Miracle of 42nd Street,” the 45-floor artist housing complex. Across the street was a small theater where a two-person play, “Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune” opened. “I have no recollection of it. I just remember two people on stage.” (Those two people, by the way, were Kathy Bates and F. Murray Abraham). She’s not being glib, just a statement of fact and a life filled with playgoing.
And it helps to not remember anything particular when you wind up directing your own version, set to premiere Thursday at the Alhecama Theatre.
Boxtales Theatre Company has taken one of the main sections of the Popol Vuh, the scripture of the Quiche Maya people of Central America, and turned it into “The Hero Twins.” The play is in both English and Spanish and contains many features found in other creation myths: a tree of knowledge, a journey into the underworld, a defeat and a triumphant return. But instead of a snake, there’s a talking skull in the tree. And instead of war and battle, there’s a ball game — one of the first mentions of sport in ancient texts. There’s an immaculate conception, achieved in a very peculiar way. The crossovers, echoes, and variations make this perfect for Boxtales: They dive in with their masks on.
This is the first myth-based performance for Boxtales since 2009’s “Om,” a version of the Ramayana. “The Hero Twins” originated during 2011. “We were gearing up for the end of the Mayan calendar,” says cast member Matt Tavianini. He’s referring to the supposed “end of the world” that worrywarts supposed would happen at the finish of 2012. (Note: the world is still here.)
Writer/director Rod Lathim first premiered his new play as a one-act in 2012 as part of Dramatic Women’s evening of shorts. But, like the title suggests, “Unfinished Business” wasn’t done, not for the author.
“It was the first peek into that world, and I thought the last,” Mr. Lathim says with a laugh. “I thought it would see the light of day briefly and then move on. But this play really caught me off guard and continues to a year later.”