DANE OF THRONES

All systems are 'go' in Hamlet, the centerpiece production of this year's Santa Cruz Shakespeare season. The acting is impressive at every level, and the action trots along with clarity, focus and feeling. Director Susan Dalian updates the famous tale of political murder, moral corruption, and generational angst into the post-assassination JFK/Mad Men era, which makes enough sense to complement, not distract from the drama.

To recap: The King of Denmark has died suddenly, and his brother, Claudius, has assumed the king's throne and married the king's wife, Queen Gertrude. The royal son, Prince Hamlet, home from school abroad for his father's funeral, is already shocked by his mother's hasty marriage to his uncle when the ghost of his father tells Hamlet he was murdered by Claudius and demands vengeance. 

Much of the play revolves around Hamlet's soul-searching, as he grapples with grief and rage: must he avenge his father's murder? What happens if he does? Can he live with himself if he does not? Is life worth living at all? Meanwhile, he pretends to be mad, spouting wordplay and foolery, hoping to throw the plotters off-guard and learn the truth about his father's death — and decide what to do about it. 

As Hamlet, incoming SCS Artistic Director Charles Pasternak makes a grand, rampaging feast of the part. Roaring in outrage, heartfelt in despair, he can shift in an instant into nimble verbal dancing and witty asides, baiting the pompous and the less intellectually adroit. It's a Herculean, often riveting  performance that never quite loses its grounding in life-sized human emotion. 

Mike Ryan plays the treacherous Claudius with glib, glad-handing duplicity. As Gertrude, Marion Adler seems hopefully pragmatic at first, trying to restore peace to her recently disrupted court, but gradually descends into aching remorse the "crazier" and more reproachful her son becomes. There's more collateral damage in Ophelia, Hamlet's paramour, daughter of the king's counselor, Polonius. Allie Pratt plays her as a fragile, innocent flower child driven genuinely out of her mind by Hamlet's pretended lunacy. 

By far the most arresting supporting character in this production in Polonius, gender-switched from a befuddled, cliche-spouting, out-of-touch doddering father, as the role is usually played, into a socially scheming mother. The remarkable Paige Lindsey White gives us an interfering mother of dynamic, aggressive cluelessness, eager to enforce the romantic and social protocols of her own bygone era, and thus prove worthy to meddle in the schemes of her royal in-laws-to-be. White's Polonius is a vividly entertaining comic figure, right up to the moment she's undone by her own hubris, daring to believe (mistakenly, as it turns out) that she's sly enough to match wits with the pros in ruthless court politics. 

Jono Eiland and Elliot Sagay are pleasantly accommodating as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (not necessarily in that order, although no one is ever quite sure), Hamlet's school friends recruited by Claudius to spy on his antagonistic step-son. Charlotte Munson is effective as Horatio, Hamlet's confidant, and the play's moral and rational center, and the ever exuberant Patty Gallagher pops up as the Player King, head of a troupe of actors hired by Hamlet to stage an incendiary drama about regicide. Raphael Nash Thompson brings his sonorous voice and formidable presence to the vengeful Ghost. 

Austin Blake Conlee's costumes run toward relaxed mens' suits and chic linen dress ensembles in popsicle pastel colors, accompanied by wigmistress Jessica Carter's extravagant mid-60s bouffants. Luke Shepherd's smart, subtle, insinuating sound design enhances the action at every turn. 

This is the fourth production of Hamlet mounted by the company since its original inception as Shakespeare Santa Cruz in 1981. The first production of the play, way back in 1985, starred a young Brit recently imported from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Paul Whitworth, in the title role. 

Incidental characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were played by Danny Scheie and Jack Zerbe, who also got to star in a concurrent production of Tom Stoppard's hilarious existential comedy, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which played on alternate nights with Hamlet throughout the season. 

This was momentous casting for the company, since both Scheie and then Whitworth would go on to serve tenures as Artistic Director. 

Me, I loved both productions so much, I channeled my inner Al Hirschfield and drew this cartoon, commemorating the season! 

 

Hamlet plays in repertoire through August 31st in the Audrey Stanley Grove at Delaveaga Park.

KING of FOOLS

Shakespeare season is now in full swing in Santa Cruz, with the premiere of King Lear last week joining The Taming of the Shrew and The Book Of Will in repertory at Santa Cruz Shakespeare (through August 27).

This is a milestone season for the entity formerly known as Shakespeare Santa Cruz, celebrating ten years since it re-emerged, phoenix-like, in the Audrey Stanley Grove at DeLaveaga Park, under the stewardship of Artistic Director Mike Ryan. It's also a milestone production of Lear. As the rampaging old king driven mad by his duplicitous, ungrateful daughters, longtime SSC Artistic Director Paul Whitworth is making his debut on the Grove stage. It's interesting to note that way back in 1995, when the company was still Shakespeare Santa Cruz, it mounted a production of Lear with Whitworth in the small but plummy featured role of the king's Fool. So it's fascinating to see how Whitworth has aged into the role of Lear in real time, almost 30 years later.

Whitworth brings his entire range of vocal acrobatics to the part; he's particularly effective in the first act, shamelessly wheedling empty flattery out of his two eldest, false-hearted daughters, and in the mad scene in the second half, his wits flown, barefoot, dragging around a few meagre possessions in a cart, vocally caressing each antic observation.

In this production, the philosophical young Fool banished from court with the mad old king is played with tremulous wit and tenderness by Sofia K. Metcalf. In a parallel story of parental foolishness, the Duke of Gloucester's scheming bastard son, Edmund, convinces him that his legitimate son, Edgar, is plotting to kill him, so Edgar flees into the wild with a price on his head, disguising himself as raggedy madman Tom O'Bedlam. Junior Nyong'o is terrific as Edgar/Tom, his madcap exuberance layered over a foundation of aching nobility. 

 

Metcalf, Nyong'o, Whitworth, Gallagher: heart and soul

 

The ever-reliable Patty Gallagher pops up as Kent, the loyal courtier who disguises herself as a rustic to tend to Lear in his wandering exile. This quartet of the keenly observant Fool, the king sliding into madness, the pretend lunatic, and the stubbornly sensible shepherd of this mismatched flock is the heart and soul of this production. Derrick Lee Weeden deserves honorable mention not only for his formidable presence and pathos as the duped and repentant Gloucester, but for having the most majestic and commanding voice in the Grove.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I attended the first pre-premiere performance of Lear at a 2pm matinee, which I do not recommend. The production was not lacking in luster, quality or intensity, but if ever a Shakespearean play needed to be staged and seen at night, it's Lear, with its raging midnight storm mirroring the imploding disintegration of the old king's wits at the betrayal of his daughters and his own foolishness.

Watching it in full, simmering sunshine is an entirely different experience — especially when the characters onstage complain about the bitter cold. Yes, awnings erected at the Grove for matinees provide intermittent shade for the audience as the sun moves, but the shifting sun and absence of stage lighting for daylight performances leaves some key scenes to play out in shadow onstage that would likely be spotlighted in the dark of night.

Still, even if I wasn't getting the optimum viewing experience, most of the upcoming performances of King Lear are at night, where dark and possible fog and chill will complement the action onstage. While audiences are unlikely to experience an actual thunderstorm in the Grove in August (although the way the weather has been acting out this year, who knows?), this production generates its own atmospheric river of dramatic turbulence.

Photos by RR Jones
 

GROWTH SPURT

Loss, redemption, maturity fuel family healing in witty Coming of Age

Patrons of the Jewel Theatre Company may fondly recall its production of a play by Santa Cruz author Kate Hawley back in 2015. That excellent play, Complications From A Fall, is a kind of companion piece to Hawley' newest work, Coming Of Age, "a serious comedy" now having its world premiere at JTC.

Both plays deal with the theme of aging parents and their effect on the lives of their middle-aged children.

Hawley is particularly incisive in exploring the radical idea that parents may have once had —or continue to have — separate, and interesting lives outside the box into which their children have always confined them.

Coming Of Age is less overtly comic than its predecessor, although it still has plenty of witty dialogue. Protagonist, Ian (the entertaining Mike Ryan), author of literary novels, drops in to the family home in upstate New York to visit his father, John (J. Michael Flynn), an acclaimed university professor, now retired, and recently widowed.

They've been setting up this visit for weeks, but John is surprised to see him, and doesn't seem too eager to have his son stick around. Ian finds out why with the arrival of Deirdre (Martha Brigham). Once a bedazzled student of John's, nearly 40 years younger than he is, Deirdre has become a fixture in the household.

As discreet as she is in person, her presence chips new fissures into the already tense father-son relationship.

Flynn, Brigham, Ryan: Menage a trois

Director Paul Whitworth keeps the action unobtrusively fluid — especially in the dynamic second half when Hawley's focus becomes sharper; all of the characters get a chance to express their own feelings and motivations in Hawley's simple, eloquent dialogue.

Flynn's portrait of John as a cranky oldster betrayed by time is tempered by flashes of the magnificent lion he must have once been.

And, as usual with JTC, tech work is first-class, especially Kent Dorsey's outstanding Craftsman-style set. You will want to live here!
(Read more)

GEM at the JEWEL

Dueling sibs: Mike Ryan and Julie James

Sharp writing, great cast, highlight JTC's 'Complications From a Fall'

For the fourth production of its Tenth Anniversary season, Jewel Theatre Company has plucked out a plum. Santa Cruz's own Kate Hawley bestows a gift on JTC and its lucky patrons with her new play, Complications From A Fall. This is the World Premiere of Hawley's play, a witty, often breezy comedy about a  serious subject—aging parents, and the grown children reluctantly deputized to care for them.

The play has everything to recommend it to theatre companies large and small. It can be staged on a single set (with a few inventive flourishes, like those dreamed up for the JTC production by director Paul Whitworth). The cast is small, consisting of four terrific acting parts. And the subject matter is universal—parent-child relationships, sibling friction, family secrets, and memories, lost and found. Hawley skillfully mines this material for life-sized humor, without resorting to farce, or cheapening the drama of the situation.

An agitated Helen (Julie James), a spinster-ish university professor, is fuming in the house of her elderly, bedridden mother. She's awaiting the arrival of her younger brother, Teddy (Mike Ryan), a scruffy musician in an obscure rock band that's perpetually on the road. Helen has been their mother's caretaker since the older woman took a fall awhile back, but she has a scholarly conference to attend so Teddy has to come home for a few days to help out.

Teddy faces his first hurdle when his mother (infuriating, yet beguiling Nada Rowand) wakes up; she recognizes him as her beloved son, but keeps calling for the previous hired caregiver, Lucy. His sister has told Teddy she let Lucy go because pieces of their mother's jewelry kept disappearing, but Mom becomes so distressed, Teddy calls in Lucy (an engaging Audrey Rumsby) for back-up.

Everything works, from B. Modern's effective costumes and Kate Edmunds’ smart set design (its walls covered with the handwritten script of old letters), to the wartime-era pop songs that play between scenes in this thoughtful and entertaining production. (Read more)

RIP-ROARING

'Zounds, this Friday is William Shakespeare's birthday, and I didn't even send a card. But never mind; there'll be festivties aplenty this summer when Shakespeare Santa Cruz presents its ambitious 30th Anniversary Season. Artistic Director Marco Barricelli has a full slate in store for local theatregoers: three plays in repertory (Henry IV, Part 1, The Comedy Of Errors, and The Three Musketeers), plus a Fringe production this summer (July 19-August 28), a special fall benefit show in November (Bard Babes), and the return of the beloved Holiday Musical (A Year With Frog & Toad).

It's a swashbuckling lineup. The mayhem is comic in Comedy, a knockabout farce of mistaken identities where two pairs of identical male twins cause havoc for wives, lovers, servants, and each other. SSC had a huge hit with Danny Scheie's riotous Laugh-In-style staging of the play in 1988 (re-mounted in 1993), possibly the single most entertaining SSC production ever. And since Scheie is such a tough act to follow, Scheie himself will be back in the director's chair, reprising, reinventing, and updating the material for the new season.

(Btw, the summer's Fringe production will be The Brothers Menaechmus, the orginal Roman comedy by Plautus that inspired Shakespeare's Comedy, directed by Patty Galagher and performed by the company's intrepid acting interns.)

HVP1 is a testosterone-infused adventure in which roistering slacker Prince Hal breaks the spell of genial old reprobate Falstaff, his mentor in vice, and starts embracing his inner king-to-be. The last time it was staged at SSC, in 1984, local audiences were introduced to a young actor fresh from the Royal Shakespeare Company as Prince Hal: Paul Whitworth. Done up in long hair and Cleopatra eye makeup, Boy George-style (hey, it was the '80s), he made his first entrance on a motorcycle, hoisting a six-pack of brewskis. (That's Paul and his Falstaff, Tony Church, in an excellent photo by maestro Shmuel Thaler.) This new production will be directed by fan favorite Scott Wentworth (he has recently played Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Brutus in Julius Caesar). It's to be the first in the "Henriad" trilogy that SSC plans to tackle in toto, Henry IV, Part Two coming in 2012, and Henry V in 2013.

And the roistering continues in The Three Musketeers, one of my all-time favorite swashbuckling properties. I adore the Dumas novel, and I never miss a movie version (more about that in a future blog), but I've never seen it live, onstage, and I am so stoked! Best of all, director Art Manke is staging it outside in the Festival Glen, so there'll be plenty of room for clashing blades, scandalous seductions, and boisterous bonhomie. I don't know about you, but I can't wait.

Read all about the season on the SSC website. Season Tickets & Group Tickets are on sale as we speak; Single Tickets to individual plays go on sale May 17. In the meantime, brush up your Shakespeare, sharpen your blades, and get ready for some rip-roaring summer theatre.