WISH FULFILLMENT

Don't believe in fairy tales? You may change your mind when you see Into The Woods, the second production of the summer season at Cabrillo Stage.

While the show itself takes a somewhat sardonic view of the flip side of "happily ever after," and cautions us to be careful what we wish for, the Cabrillo production is so teeming with the magic of live theater, it'll make a believer out of anyone.

The blockbuster musical from Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine is a fairy tale mashup that examines the tropes of the genre — true love, quests of honor, virtue rewarded — before and after the tales' traditional happily-ever-after conclusions.

It's a gift of a show, but also a challenge, from Sondheim's fiendishly clever and intricate (but often tongue-twisting) lyrics to creating the necessary magical mood by means of stagecraft alone. Fortunately, director and choreographer Janie Scott and her intrepid team are up to the task in this beautifully sung, wonderfully atmospheric production.

"Once upon a time . . . ." intones the onstage Narrator to start things off. Andrew Ceglio is a formidable presence throughout in the role, observing the action with cool aplomb — until he's sucked into it much later. (He also plays the Mysterious Man running loose in the woods with unhinged glee.)

Against a gorgeous, eerie, cleverly functional forest backdrop from scenic designer Skip Epperson, the principal characters are introduced.

Young Jack (played with eager innocence by Jackson Brivic) lives with his exasperated mother (Alice Christine Hughes) and his best friend, their cow, Milky White.

(Okay, it's a guy in a cow suit, but Isai Centeno brings humor and a touch of genuine pathos to the pantomime role.) They wish they weren't so poor they have to sell the cow.

Cinderella (Ashley Rae Little) rakes ashes out of the grate for her mean, social-climbing stepmother (Melanie Olivia Camras) and vain, twittery step-sisters (the fractious comedy duet of Kassandra Escamilla and Ryann Liljenstolpe) and wishes she could go to the Prince's festival.

Little captures Cinderella's feisty fortitude, and possesses perhaps the loveliest, most ethereal voice in a cast of strong singers.

The hard-working village Baker (Ian Leonard) and the loyal Baker's Wife (Melissa Harrison) wish more than anything for a child. But they can't produce one, because the Witch next door (Kristen Hermosillo) once visited a curse on the Baker's long-gone father.

This salt-of-the-earth couple grounds the more fantastical elements in the show, with Harrison an especially strong presence in what may be the most demanding and pivotal role.

But the curse may be lifted if they obtain for the conniving Witch some magical objects, which quest sets the rest of the plot in motion. Into their orbit skips gluttonous, reckless Red (a very funny Brittney Mignano) with her basket of goodies for Granny. Rapunzel (Amy Young) is imprisoned in her tower by the doting Witch, who longs to be her surrogate mother.

The Prince who discovers her (Michael Stahl), and the smitten Prince who doggedly pursues Cinderella after the festival (David Jackson) turn out to be brothers, equally fickle in their romantic attachments. ("I was raised to be charming, not sincere," explains Cinderella's Prince.)

The Princes' ironic duet, "Agony," is a highlight of the show.

So is the dueling wordplay of Cinderella's Prince and the Baker's Wife in "Any Moment," deep in the woods.

Jackson is also great fun as the slinky wolf with designs on Red.

Maria Crush's costumes are storybook-perfect. Kyle Grant's lighting design is effective throughout, from the way the treetops overhanging the stage are lit to create depth, to the sudden blackout inside Granny's cottage when things get too gruesome.

Scott has imaginative staging solutions for tricky elements, like the arrival of a Giant (well, part of her), or a carriage full of revelers, complete with prancing horse.

When it's time for Cinderella to ride off with her Prince, they glide offstage together on an ornate carousel pony.

Scott conjures a winsome, witty production out of this tale of bittersweet enchantment. It's everything an audience could wish for.

Just for fun, I thought I'd post this image I found this on the Cabrillo Stage Instagram account. It's a photo of the working 3-D model for Epperson's set design. Pretty cool, huh? Just add color and volume to grow it into a stage full of theatre magic!

HIVE MIND

Women of '60s rock celebrated in Cabrillo Stage's Beehive

The '60s are having a moment right now, at least, the music of the '60. Besides the just-opened, Beatles-themed movie Yesterday  and the ironic use of some choice '60s anthems on the soundtrack of The Last Black Man In San Francisco, along comes the Cabrillo Stage season opener, Beehive.

Subtitled "The 60s Musical," the name suggests an homage to the girl groups of that era, which is certainly a major part of the show, especially in its first half. But Beehive also aspires to celebrate a diverse slate of women rockers, from Connie Francis to the Supremes to Aretha to Janis Joplin.

The show was created in 1985 by Larry Gallagher as a nightclub revue, which explains why it's a bit short on book. When the performers talk onstage, it's usually in brief snippets of narration setting up the context in which the playlist unspools.

More than 30 tunes are performed with gusto by the six-woman cast: Kiana Hamzehi, Jennifer Taylor Daniels, Lindsey Chester, Jessica Pierini, Sadie Rose, and Catarina Contini.

Lindsey Chester delivers a knockout set of Janis Joplin tunes

Director Gary John La Rosa also did the choreography — from demure girl-group syncopation to the butt-shaking gymnastics of Tina Turner. Skip Epperson's single, functional set consists of vinyl-inspired discs in all colors hanging down from the rafters, and a large, round record-shaped portal draped in shiny fringe through which the performers enter and exit.

A six-piece combo appears on a balcony upstage, led by Musical Director Jon Nordgren. The effect is like a giant, sparkly juke box with live performers providing your hit parade — no quarters necessary.

At times, the costumes and wigs don’t correctly match the era of the song being performed. (The opening number references girl groups of the early ’60s, but the women are dressed in Swinging London outfits from mid-decade.)  

But all these performers can sing up a storm. Should you feel compelled to join in (and believe me, you will), audience participation is strongly encouraged!
(Read more)

Photos by Jana Marcus

LOVE WINS

Romance survives tech glitches in Cabrillo Stage's 'Beauty and the Beast'

Staging Disney's Beauty and the Beast for live theater is a massive undertaking. Along with the usual lavish musical production numbers, this show has magical spells, onstage transformations, aerial effects, video projections, and, not one, but two savage wolf pack attacks.

Just getting this unwieldy thing up onstage, with live actors and no CGI effects, is not a task for the faint-hearted. The trick is to make all these intricate components work and not overwhelm the love story at the show's heart.

The ambitious new production at Cabrillo Stage works hard to maintain this delicate balance, and is reasonably successful. There were bound to be a few technical difficulties on opening night, but that's the great thing about live theater: every new performance is a fresh start!

The good news in director-choreographer Janie Scott's production is a trio of strong performances at its heart — Mathew Taylor as Beast, Emily Mairi Marsilia as Belle, and Carmichael James Blankenship as the narcissistic villain, Gaston. There are many other noteworthy performers in the ensemble, but it's up to these three to sell the story.

Marsililia and Blankenship: no way, Lout

If they don't, all the effects in the world won't help. But if they do — as they did with gusto on opening night — then the glitches don't matter so much.

As the title implies, this is the Disney version of the 300-year-old fairy tale, based on the studio's hit 1991 cartoon feature. In Linda Woolverton's book (she also scripted the movie), Belle is considered "odd" in her French country village for reading books and not being married.

Gaston, a preening, muscle-bound lout, means to wed her because she's "the prettiest girl in the village" — while keeping up his dalliances with the other fawning village girls. Vain, pompous, belligerent Gaston is a horrible character, but a great role. And Blankenship is perfect, with his outsized, comic stage presence and powerhouse singing voice.

When Belle's adored father gets lost in the forest and stumbles into the castle occupied by Beast, Belle braves the forest to get him released — which Beast only agrees to if she takes her father's place.

Taylor and Marsilia: Beastie Boy Meets Girl

Marsilia (last seen at CS as Mary Poppins) plays Belle as an independent young spinster; she has a beautiful voice and her emotions are true. But Taylor's ferocious Beast anchors the emotional story, spitting out his lines with husky menace, or throwing an unexpectedly hilarious hissy-fit. He matures into rumbling nobility with a couple of powerful solos.

Nick Rodrigues is completely charming as chipper candlestick Lumiere, especially leading the ensemble of singing, dancing tableware and furniture in the rousing "Be Our Guest" production number.

Most opening-night glitches were from mics being smacked during the action, and some sketchy wire work. I guess the idea of using wires during the second wolf attack is so that Beast, in his fury, can hurl one wolf across the stage, but it's a cartoony idea that doesn't translate well; the choreography might work better without wires.

On the other hand, while the audience held its collective breath in the finale, with Beast spinning precariously above the stage, his transformation was triumphant. (Or not, if, like me, you don't want  soulful Beast to turn back into the handsome prince.)

(Read more in this week's Good Times)

Seeing this production (and the live-action Disney version earlier this year) reminds me again of how Disney has co-opted the tale. Belle's father doesn't steal a rose from the castle garden in this version; Beast throws him in the dungeon for no apparent reason.

Gaston is a complete Disney fabrication, a cartoon villain to replace the more subtle maneuverings of Belle/Beauty's imperious, conniving sisters.

(Although actors always have a great time in the role. Check out Gaston alums Hugh Jackman and Luke Evans in a Gaston sing-off on the Jonathan Ross show.)

And the idea that all the human servants were changed into objects in the same witch's curse that turned their selfish master into Beast takes some of the fizz out of the love story. The curse can only be lifted if Beast falls in love with a woman and earns her love back, so from the minute Belle wanders in, the entire corps of objects are ganging up on Beast to woo and win her — for all their sakes.

The problem is, this set-up doesn't give Beast and Beauty a chance to fall in love on their own — unlike most traditional tellings of the tale, in which they are all alone in the castle and develop feelings for each other honestly.

Of course, Disney is slavishly faithful to the bit about turning Beast back into the Prince. There's a touching moment in the Cabrillo production when Taylor's Beast, feeling his humanity slip away, mourns, "There's so little left of me." Completely ignoring the fact that the "me" he used to be was kind of a jerk.

But, you already know how I feel about that!

HIGH SPIRITS

Ghouls just wanna have fun in Cabrillo Stage's funny 'Addams Family'

The summer theatre season gets off to a boisterous start with The Addams Family, the first of this year's musical productions from Cabrillo Stage.

Although it seems odd to apply words like "lively" and "exuberant" to characters so famous for their morbidity and ghoulishness, you can expect to have an, er, spirited time at this handsomely produced, enormously good-hearted, family-friendly show.

Crook and Saucedo: darkly funny

This is a relatively new property that opened on Broadway in 2010 and ran through the end of 2011. Written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, it is, of course, inspired by the macabre, darkly funny single-panel cartoons by Charles Addams that ran in The New Yorker for decades.

The classic TV sitcom from the 1960s, and a couple of more recent theatrical films, have kept these characters in the public eye since then, but the writers here cook up an original storyline that mostly takes its cues from the cartoons.

Director Bobby Marchessault gets us in the mood right off, inviting us to feast our eyes on William "Skip" Epperson's splendid proscenium arch decorated with skulls, dagger-shaped supports, and cobwebs above a row of headstones.

Fittingly enough, the show begins in a graveyard, where the entire Addams clan — led by proud patriarch, Gomez (Adam Saucedo) and his slinky wife, Morticia (a seductively deadpan Danielle Crook) — arrives for its annual celebration of the dear departed.

Calling forth various ghosts of Addamses past, from different eras (a flapper, a conquistador, etc.) they all sing a funny paean to their ghoulish life in "When You're An Addams." (These silvery-grey ghosts, called Ancestors, in cheeky but elaborate historical costumes by Chiara Cola, also serve as chorus line and stagehands throughout the rest of the show.)

Wednesday, Gomez, as Chas Addams drew them

The plot kicks in with the show's biggest departure from the source material: little daughter Wednesday, usually portrayed as a middle-grade moppet, is now a teenager (Gabrielle Filloux) in the throes of her first love.

Filloux makes droll teen angst out of her struggle to reconcile the joys of love with the family credo of gloom. The problem is, her boyfriend, Lucas (Ryland Gordon), is "normal."

But, of course, the point of the show is observing the Addamses at play. John G. Bridges all but steals the show as a delightfully sweet and goofy Uncle Fester. (Fasten your seatbelts for the funky, yet utterly beguiling bit of stagecraft when he flies up to cavort with the moon.)
   
t's a running gag that Wednesday routinely tortures kid brother, Pugsley (Michael Navarro), on a rack — and how much he loves it. Deborah McArthur can't do much with the underwritten part of screechy, witchy Grandma.

Astin as Gomez: Latin lover

But David Murphy's zombified butler, Lurch, always in slo-mo, provides the show's biggest, best surprise.

Lippa's songs are consistently clever, and the book is very funny. ("Wednesday's growing up," sighs Gomez. "She'll be Thursday before you know it!")

I'm pretty sure the concept of Gomez as a Latin lover originated with the delightful John Astin in the TV show (ably continued by Raul Julia in the movies) — beginning with that name.

(In Addams' cartoons, the characters are unnamed. If the patriarch, as drawn, resembles anybody, it's Peter Lorre, or, possibly, the Hunchback of Notre Dame.)

But whatever the character's origins, Saucedo plays Gomez with gusto, geniality, and a terrific singing voice. He couldn't be any better.


(Read more in this week's Good Times.)

UNMATCHED

Robust: Adam Campbell as Tevye

Soaring performances, production, fuel Cabrillo Stage's 'Fiddler on the Roof'

Back in 2012, the Cabrillo Stage summer musical series mounted one of its most successful productions, Anything Goes. It was a frothy 1930s period piece built around vintage Cole Porter songs, and featuring what may be the single most electrifying production number in CS history, a massive syncopated tap extravaganza to the title tune, in which everyone but the orchestra was onstage dancing.

That show was directed and choreographed by Kikau Alvaro, making his CS debut. And now Alvaro is back in the same capacity for the second production of the company's current season, Fiddler On the Roof.

True, there are few opportunities for ensemble tap dancing in this enduring tale about the denizens of a poor Jewish shtetl in a remote area of Russia toward the end of Tsarist rule. But Alvaro still delivers a wonderful production of this classic musical, vividly imagined in the design and dance departments, and blessed by a knockout centerpiece performance by Adam Campbell in the central role of Tevye, the dairyman.

The original 1964 production was directed and choreographed by the great dance maestro, Jerome Robbins (whose choreography Alvaro reproduces here, according to the credits). And while the dancing is terrific, this is not a show that depends on dancing; rather, it's a moving tale of life, love, family, and, of course, tradition, in an era of changing values.

Tevye is the engine that makes this show go. Campbell's great singing voice can be big and expressive, or soft and sweet, and his wry demeanor is irresistible, whether conversing with God, or in his robust rendition of Tevye's signature song, "If I Were a Rich Man."

Upholding "Tradition"

 A poor dairyman whose assets amount to one milk cow and a lame horse, Teyve and his wife, Golde (Marianne Thompson, another fine singer) have five daughters to see settled, with the help of village matchmaker, Yente (Alice Hughes). A staunch upholder of "Tradition" (as laid out in the rousing opening number), Tevye's worldview is challenged as, one by one, his three eldest daughters choose their own husbands for love, rather than submitting to arranged matches.

In terms of production and performance, this Fiddler is rich indeed. (Read more)

LIFT-OFF

New musical, 'Lunch,' launches at Cabrillo Stage

You can't get much further off-Broadway than Cabrillo Stage, at least geographically. Yet CS may be instrumental in launching a new musical on the road with its spirited production of Lunch. Instead of its usual year-end holiday production, CS opted this season for a new year's show, a modern urban fable about life, love, answered prayers, and second chances—a subject the authors know something about.

With a book by Emmy-winning TV writer Rick Hawkins, and songs by award-winning composer Steve Dorff and lyricist John Bettis, Lunch was first produced in 1994, when it went on a five-city national tour. Its collaborators moved on to other things until a series of serendipitous events—including a request from CS Artistic Director Jon Nordgren—led them all to reconvene in 2013 to revamp the show. This CS production of Lunch has a rewritten and updated book, ten new songs, and a hard-working cast directed with verve and chutzpah by CS veteran Andrew Ceglio.

When conductor Nordgren raises his baton in the pit, we hear not the expected musical overture, but a montage of city sounds—footsteps, bits of conversation, traffic, a hot dog vendor, screeching brakes. The curtain rises on a scrim of heavenly clouds and an ornate gate which admits a confused Mackenzie Richards (the affable and reliable Max Bennett-Parker) into a reception area presided over by chain-smoking, unflappable Mona (a very funny Samantha Pistoresi).

Mackenzie, who's just met his untimely demise via hot dog cart, finds himself knocking on Heaven's door, but given his line of work as a Wall Street player, he'll be fast-tracked straight to Hell unless he can prove himself worthy. He has one hour, from noon to 1 p.m. (the "Lunch Shift"), to answer the prayers of four random people in downtown Manhattan. (Read more)

I confess, I had some problems with the book. The "prayers" were often so nebulous and unformed, I wasn't always sure how or if they were being answered. Since this is the central premise of the show, some clarification is in order. But this is a great cast featuring such CS stalwarts as the scene-stealing Nicholas Ceglio and Ashley Rae Little, with her big, powerhouse voice. They give Lunch a hearty and heartfelt lift-off.

UNCAGED

Dance, diversity shine in Cabrillo Stage's fizzy, if uneven 'La Cage aux Folles'

In celebration of the end of DOMA, and the repeal of Prop 8, Cabrillo Stage launches its 2013 summer musical season with a lavish, light-hearted production of La Cage aux Folles. Based on the groundbreaking 1978 French film comedy, one of the earliest depictions in modern pop culture of a sympathetic gay couple in a long-term domestic relationship, the show was first produced in 1983 with a book by Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by the legendary Jerry Herman.

The Cabrillo production is directed and choreographed by CS veteran Janie Scott for maximum crowd-pleasing. The story is set in and around a popular drag nightclub in St. Tropez in the south of France, so there's plenty of opportunity for big, elaborate dance numbers, which is where this production shines. Some other aspects of the production can be a bit uneven, but as long as the eight-man (plus one anatomically correct female) troupe of chorus "girls," called Les Cagelles, are onstage, the show is great fizzy fun.

On the French Riviera sits the famed nightclub, La Cage aux Folles. It's owner/proprietor and emcee is Georges (dapper Curt Denham, who has a great singing voice and an easy, affable onstage presence), whose longtime companion is the club's star attraction, Albin, performing under the stage name, Zaza (Tony Panighetti, in a game, heartfelt performance). Suave Georges and the more flamboyant Albin have been together for 20-plus years, and are well known and loved in their community.

The plot involves the impending marriage of Georges' 24-year-old son (by a youthful, one-night indiscretion) who desperately wants the couple who raised him to act "normal" for one day to meet his fiancee's right-wing, bigoted parents. Fortunately. this plot doesn't interfere much with the entertaining production numbers onstage at the club, especially in the show's more dynamic first half.

Sammy Lopez makes a fun, campy feast out of the role of houseboy and wannabe showgirl Jacob. But the play's trump card is its portrait of tender affection between an aging couple who have been together for a long time. The touching relationship between Georges and Albin is the foundation from which this lively production takes flight. (Read more)

ON THEIR MARX

If a person had never seen a Marx Brother movie before, it's hard to imagine what she might think of A Night At The Nutcracker, Cabrillo Stage's merrily Marxist new holiday musical. But for the initiated, those of us who revel in the gleeful anarchy perpetrated by Groucho, Chico, and Harpo in a series of classic movie comedies in the 1930s and '40s, this new Nutcracker is a welcome holiday treat.

Scripted by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore, with original music by Ed Alton, the play (this production is its West Coast premiere) is an entertaining pastiche of one-liners, sight-gags and silliness that follows the plotline of a typical Marx Bros movie: three goofballs are turned loose in some sector of normal society—in this case, a staging of the holiday ballet, The Nutcracker. Mayhem ensues.

Company stalwart Max Bennett-Parker makes with the Italianate jokes and even plays piano as Chico surrogate, Pepponi; Matt Dunn is sweetly nutty as the scene-stealing Harpo character, Pinchie, the silent clown with his arsenal of horns. Both are somehow installed in the household of the Margaret Dumont character, frosty society dame Mrs. Stuffington (a formidable Lizz Hodgin), who is funding a holiday production of The Nutcracker ballet starring egotistical Russian dancer Rasputin (a funny Kevin Johnston).

There are young lovers (David Jackson and the ever-winsome Ariel Buck) singing schmaltzy love ballads, a con-man called Ratchette (well-played by Adam J. Saucedo) angling for Mrs. S's fortune, and his blonde, sexpot accomplice (a spirited Eleanor Hunter).

Best of all, there's Nicholas Ceglio as Groucho surrogate Felix T. Filibuster, private eye. Ceglio has Groucho's eyebrow-wiggling, cigar-flicking, hip-swiveling mannerisms down to the proverbial T, and he's great fun wisecracking his way through a Groucho-like repertoire of one-liners. ("These steps were given to me by Nijinsky—and, boy, was he glad to get rid of 'em!")

If the production lacks a little of the zing and snap of the original Marxes, it's not surprising; after all, they had decades together on the vaudeville circuit and Broadway perfecting their routines before they ever even made their first film.  The cool thing is how well Andrew Ceglio's production (he directed and choreographed) stays true to the irreverent spirit of the Marx Brothers.

Inspired too are the snippets of the ballet itself we see at the end of the second act, when all the elements come together. Performed by the characters in the story (after the professional dancers have walked out), Ceglio and company offer some very funny takes on the familiar music we all know—from the hilarious dancing of Dunn's Pinchie (on his knees, arms in pant legs) in the overture, to the staging of the Russian Dance as a duel between Groucho and Ratchette, each crescendo of the music accompanying a punch or kick.

The only drawback to the ballet finale is we don't get to hear any more of Groucho's jokes Otherwise, it's an upbeat finish to a refreshingly non-traditional holiday show.

(A Night At The Nutcaracker plays through Dec. 30. Click here for tickets and info.)

Btw, here are the real Marx Bros in action in Duck Soup (1933), possibly the funniest movie ever made, and probably in my Top 5 films of all time!

REAL GONE

Andrew Ceglio (L) and Briana Michaud rock the boat

 Anything Goes one of Cabrillo Stage's all-time best

 Time is running out to catch up with Cabrillo Stage's excellent production of Anything Goes at the Crocker Theater. Only five more shows are scheduled for this absolutely fabulous all-singing, all-dancing musical extravaganza; some happy exiting theater patrons at last night's performance (okay, it was Art Boy) were heard to utter that this is the best musical production CS has ever mounted.

High praise indeed, and well-deserved. Everything works in this energetic production. Songs? An entire score of Cole Porter classics, from "I Get A Kick Out of You", "You're the Top," "It's De-Lovely," "Friendship", and, of course, the sly title tune.

Style? To die for. The lighter-than-air story takes place on an ocean liner ca. 1934 (when the show was originally produced on Broadway), and Skip Epperson and his design team have created a fantasia of Art Deco delight, from the image of a ship on a foaming sea painted on the scrim downstage to the split-level deck and staterooms on board; even the jail bars in the brig have a Deco-Moderne design. Costumer Maria Crush's wardrobe of gowns, tuxes, showgirl costumes, sailor suits, and satiny tap-pants add another layer of Deco gorgeousness.

Performers? Outstanding. As sassy nightclub hostess Reno Sweeney, the centerpiece of the show, Briana Michaud brings down the house—over and over again. Basically, every time she appears onstage, it's a showstopper. Michaud has a great big, vibrant voice, an easy, earthy style onstage, and she dances up a storm. Reno Sweeney was an early starmaking role for Ethel Merman; Michaud's voice is almost as big, but much more musical, pliable and interesting.

Andrew Ceglio, CS's one-man secret weapon, notches up another terific turn as Billy Crocker, the impromptu stowaway trying to get the girl. He sings, he dances, he mugs like a pro, and he's a pleasure to watch throughout. His duet with Michaud on "You're the Top" is irresistible. Kudos as well to Max Bennett-Parker as affable gangster Moonface Martin, an endearing Robert Coverdell as a goofy young British aristocrat (studying the arcana of American English idioms like Margaret Mead among the Samoans), and Anethra Moura as a cheeky gangster's moll.

And the dancing? In a word: OMG. Director and choreographer Kikau Alvaro has the company dancing through every singe number, whether duets, quartets, or ensembles, and never more impressively than in massive production number for "Anything Goes" at the end of Act 1. It's a synchronized tap extravaganza for the entire company, performed on every level of the stage, and it's just astoundingly great! It is, by far, the single most virtuoso production number in the history of Cabrillo Stage.

Anything Goes will only play five more shows, through Sunday, August 19, so don't you dare miss it! Call (831) 479-6154, or visit Cabrillo Stage online for tickets.

Why are you still sitting there?

THEY WALK THE LINE

It's back-to-basics in Cabrillo Stage's vivid, heartfelt 'Chorus Line'


Talk about a singular sensation.

When A Chorus Line debuted in 1975, it broke all the rules for what a Broadway musical is supposed to be. There are no elaborate sets or scene changes; it all takes place on a bare rehearsal stage with one mirrored wall. Playing out in more or less real time, with no intermission, the storyline—you couldn't call it a plot, exactly—concerns a score of young dancers auditioning for the chorus of a Broadway show. Costumes? The kind of practice clothes every dancer has in his or her wardrobe. It also presents various gay and ethnically diverse characters in frankly sympathetic terms.

But everything that was supposed to be wrong with the show was evidently right on—it won nine Tonys, numerous Drama Desk and Obie Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. It also ran on Broadway for 19 years.

Cabrillo Stage veteran Janie Scott was a young dancer in 1977 when she won a place in one of the first touring companies of A Chorus Line, cast by the show's original director and choreographer, the legendary Michael Bennett. And now she recaptures the stripped-down, no-frills, emotionally exposed vibe of the original show as director-choreographer of her own vivid production of A Chorus Line, the flagship event in the 2012 Cabrillo Stage summer musical season. (Read more)

(Photo: Jana Marcus)

CABRILLO STAGE LOVES NEW YORK

Cabrillo Stage is getting into a New York state of mind for its upcoming 2012 musical theater season. On deck for summer are two musical classics and one exciting world premiere, each with a connection to the Big Apple.

If you've been eating up Smash on TV, you'll love A Chorus Line, the much-lauded Marvin Hamlisch musical about a bunch of Broadway ''gypsies" (singers and dancers looking for their big break) auditioning for the chorus of a new Broadway show. Cabrillo veteran Janie Scott directs the show, opening July 13.

Anything Goes is an updated revival of a classic Cole Porter musical from the '30s. The frothy plot about a mismatched group of New Yorkers setting sail for madcap comedy and romance on board a luxury ocean liner bound for England is the merest sketch on which to hang such vivid Porter tunes as "It's De-Lovely," "You're the Top," and "Let's Misbehave," as well as the title song. This production will feature the book from the Tony-winning 1987 revival. Directed and choreographed by Kikau Alvaro, it opens July 27.

The world premiere comes from none other than Santa Cruz's own restaurateur, caterer, and foodie gadabout, Joe Ortiz. Testing his chops as composer, author, and co-librettist, Ortiz presents Escaping Queens, an autobiographical musical memoir about a boy growing up in an immigrant Puerto Rican-Italian family in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge. Greg Fritsch is director-choreographer on this one, which launches August 10 with a gala kickoff party; of course, there's food involved, provided by Gayle's Bakery and Rosticceria. Watch this space for further details.

Further down the road, Cabrillo's holiday show will be A Night at The Nutcracker, a modern musical based on classic Marx Brothers comedies in which zany characters inspired by Grouch, Harpo, and Chico invade a ballet company at Christmastime. Cabrillo's secret weapon, the irrepressible Andrew Ceglio, has the helm for this one, and I can't wait!

So it should be quite the season. Click here for more info.

AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER

The winning streak continues at Cabrillo Stage with its new production of "The Last Five Years," the second offering in the company's 30th Anniversary season. More of a song cycle than a conventional musical play, the show is a tightrope duet that takes its two performers through an entire romance, from joyous beginnings to bitter end. The songs won't be familiar to most audiences, and the staging is intense: two people onstage in the intimate Black Box Theater for an hour and a half, without an intermission. But as a showcase for two terrific Cabrillo Stage veterans, Andrew Ceglio and Ariel Buck, it's a knockout.

Written and composed by Jason Robert Brown, the story-songs in "The Last Five Years" touch on every aspect of love and romance (goofy jubilation to disenchantment, rage, and poignant regret) in the five-year relationship of Jamie Wellerstein (Ceglio), a young novelist on his way up, and Cathy Hiatt (Buck), an aspiring actress whose career has stalled. In the show's high-concept structure, Cathy sings her story starting at the end of their marriage, going backward in time, while Jamie moves forward through their relationship from beginning to end.

While both characters are onstage throughout, they rarely participate in the same song together; their opposing viewpoints (one always looking backward with regret, the other looking forward with hope) play in counterpoint to each other. (Read more)

And speaking of Cabrillo Stage, this weekend is your last chance to catch up with their insanely fun and frisky production of The Full Monty. I loved this show to pieces, so don't you dare miss it! (Click here for details.)

FULL DISCLOSURE

Cabrillo Stage's fun, raucous 'Full Monty' delivers the goods

As a property, The Full Monty is not for the fainthearted. A live stage musical based on the 1997 film about laid-off factory workers who produce a full frontal male strip act to raise some cash and reclaim their manhood, it's peppered with profanity, features various degrees of nudity, and demands plenty of singing, dancing and chutzpah from its actors. Any company that dares to put this show on the boards had better have the goods to back it up.

Fortunately, Cabrillo Stage makes all the right moves in its ambitious and entertaining production of The Full Monty, the first of three shows in its 30th Anniversary summer season. An ingratiating cast, er, rises to the occasion in every respect, under the bold and thoughtful direction of Dustin Leonard. Andrew Ceglio's choreography maintains a level of breezy audacity in the bump-and-grind numbers, but also creates specific movement for each character that helps define their personalities over the course of the show.

With a smart book by veteran playwright Terrence McNally and buoyant pop songs by David Yazbek, the stage production relocates the film story from the depressed north of England to depressed Buffalo, NY, where laid-off workers are scrambling to pay their bills and cling to their self-esteem after months of unemployment. Chief among these is Jerry Lukowski, played with caustic humor and heart by the dynamic Kyle Payne. (Read more)

Recommended for mature audiences, due to language and live flesh, The Full Monty is an outrageously funny show, one of the most successful productions in Cabrillo Stage history. It's also a terific rebound from the company's disappointing holiday offering of the, erm, limp Leslie Bricusse musical, Scrooge, based on A Christmas Carol. They're all troupers over at Cabrillo Stage; this show proves that with the right material, they can, well, knock your socks off.

CHRISTMAS CHESTNUTS

I don't know about you, but I have an inexhaustible appetite for A Christmas Carol. For one thing, Charles Dickens is probably my favorite author, and I consider Carol to be the perfect story. It's humorous, dramatically punchy, and fiercely moral, ghostly and Gothic, innovative in its use of magic realism, and brilliant in the simplicity of its concept. It even obeys the classical unities of time, place and action. So I was overjoyed last year when Cabrillo Stage inaugurated a winter season with an annual holiday production of "Scrooge."

Dickens' modest little Christmas ghost story has spawned hundreds of versions on stage, film, video, and TV, over the centuries, and I've lapped 'em up like a steaming bowl of punch. There’s hardly anything even a faintly competent adaptation can do to ruin it — except sing.

It's not that I don't love musicals. But "Scrooge" (which opens again tonight for a two-week run) is a stage version of the old 70s movie musical starring Albert Finney, with indifferent songs by Leslie Bricusse. Last year, the stout-hearted Cabrillo players, dancers and chorus poured their hearts into it; Joseph Ribeiro was an excellent Scrooge, and Benjamin Holck a robust and irresistible Ghost of Christmas Present. But there are some properties that simply do not benefit from the addition of show tunes. At least not these tunes, remarkable in how undistinguished they are. Sample titles: "I Hate People." "I Love Life." "I'll Begin Again." Yawn...

If they MUST do the Carol as a musical, why doesn’t some enterprising person adapt the book from "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol," the musical cartoon version that used to run on TV every Christmas? Sure, you'd probably have to cut out the bracketing story featuring Magoo himself, but the Carol-within-the-cartoon is perfectly viable in its own right. Yes, the vintage-1962 TV animation is cheap and tacky, but THOSE were songs! The Jule Styne/Bob Merrill numbers include the lyrical "Winter Was Warm," (sung by young Scrooge's heartbroken cast-off fiancee;) the hilarious "We're Despicable," sung by a trio of grotesques—the charwoman, the laundress, and the rag-and-bone man—cackling over the late Scrooge's effects (a pivotal scene that isn't even in the Bricusse version); and the haunting "All Alone in the World" sung by the boy Scrooge, left behind after all the other schoolboys go home for the holiday. (I'm in tears just thinking about it. But don't take my word for it: see for yourself.)

These songs really enhance the action, rather than stopping it dead in its tracks.

Cabrillo's "Scrooge" is better than no Carol at all. Last year, I especially liked the festive touch of old-fashioned sweets for sale out in the courtyard and strolling carolers in Victorian dress to sing us inside. But now's the time to start sniffing out the rights to the Magoo version for 2011…

Of course, the godfather of all Christmas Carol adaptations is the 1951 British version starring the incomparable Alistair Sim as the scroogiest possible Scrooge. Shot in brooding black-and-white, it's both an unsettlingly spooky and foreboding ghost story and a dazzling celebration of Dickensian Yuletide revelry. Stream it, TiVo it, or put it in your queue, but don't miss it; Christmas just isn't as merry without it.

Speaking of durable Christmas chestnuts, the good folks over at the Aptos Cinema Weekend Classics series are getting into the spirit with special daily holiday schedules and programming. Starting this weekend, matinees will play every day through New Year's Eve. And after the fabulous Philadelphia Story (Sat-Mon), things get seasonal. Starting Tuesday, it's Miracle on 34th Street. Liberate Santa from the small screen and see him in all his plus-size glory in this 1947 family classic. Jolly old elf Edmund Gwenn stars as a Macy's department store Santa out to convince disbelieving child Natalie Wood (and her disenchanted single working mom, Maureen O'Hara) that he's the real deal. Matinees play through Friday, Dec 24, 11 a.m.


Starting Christmas Day, the venerable White Christmas takes over for a special three-day run. Bing Crosby (crooning you-know-what), Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen star. Yeah, yeah, we've all seen it six dozen times on TV, but hands up, everyone who's ever seen it on a big screen. I thought not! Trust me, 1954-vintage Technicolor makes those velvet reds and spruce greens pop on a giant screen. And that first snowfall in Vermont is truly magical in wide-screen VistaVision —especially for little California kids in the audience who may have never experienced the real thing. Plays Saturday-Monday, Dec 25 through 27, 11 a.m.

Finishing up the series is a less traditional Yuletide story, The Apartment. Jack Lemmon wants to get ahead in business during the holiday season by loaning out his apartment to boss Fred MacMurray for his adulterous trysts with a wistful Shirley MacLaine in Billy Wilder's incisive, Oscar-winning 1960 comedy. It's in from Tuesday, Dec 28 to Friday, Dec 31, 11 a.m.

In the meantime, gather up the little ones and check out an encore holiday performance of Toy Story 3D, this Saturday (Dec 18) at the Del Mar, 10 a.m., a benefit for the Second Harvest Food Bank. I'm not the world's biggest cheerleader for 3D, as you know if you read my recent column, but you might as well experience it as God intended, in the 1936 Art Deco splendor of the Del Mar's Grand Auditorium with its spanking new state-of-the-art 3D equipment. And what better vehicle than the latest Toy Story, where the lovable toy heroes from Andy's room come back as fresh, funny, and irresistible as ever. And here's the best part: admission is FREE with donation of a non-perishable food item. Talk about the holiday spirit!