PUZZLE ME THIS

 

In the third week of April, 2018, James and I were getting ready for a trip back to the Chicago suburb of his boyhood for his mother's memorial. Far-flung family members were coming in from Sweden, the Virgin Islands, Wisconsin and California, for what was going to be an epic family reunion. We'd been saving the New York Times crossword puzzles out of the Sentinel for about a week, in preparation for the flight; James was eager to see everyone, but he hated being confined in the plane for 4 hours and needed something to do.

 

On the morning before the day we were supposed to leave, James wound up in the ICU at Stanford. Two days later, I had to let him go, and my world turned upside down. Although I have little memory of the details now, I somehow managed to send email dispatches back to the assembled Aschbachers every night. Three days later, the event that brought them all together became a memorial not only for my mother-in-law, but for James as well.

 

Among the many household chores that began to accrue for me in the days and weeks and months and years after I lost him were those crossword puzzles we used to do together over breakfast and lunch every day. My heart wasn't in it for a long time, but because I was trying to keep my life (ie: my routines) as normal as possible, I kept methodically separating out those puzzles to save for later. (Not every day, but Thursdays, because there's always something tricky in the theme or the structure; Fridays, because they have the answers to Thursday; and Sundays, because it's always a big, intricate feast of a puzzle!)

 

It wasn't nearly as much fun to do the puzzles alone; there was no one to impress when I suddenly had an aha! moment, charged eagerly downstairs, and filled in the last couple of squares that solved some obscure clue. Still, I managed to finish one occasionally, over a period of days, not hours. But I could never work enough of them to make much of a dent in the ones I kept obsessively saving, which began to stack up and up, expanding exponentially like the Blob. When one stack got too tall and tottery, I skimmed a few off the top and started another stack somewhere else.

 

Well, you know where this is going. Six years later, I have four stacks of puzzles — mostly pristine, but some partially filled in — taking up real estate in my house, three squirreled away between James' art table and his former office, plus the most recent ones I keep on the dining table. (Where I still complete one, once in awhile.) But with family visiting from overseas next week, I had to face the awful truth — it was time for a purge. 

 

28th Anniversary present from James!

It's not like I'm a hoarder. You don't need GPS, a guide dog, or a machete to navigate around my house. All the stuff acquired in our 40 years together is well organized and tidy, the Virgo in me believing that if everything can be stashed away in some appropriate place (preferably out of sight), then I won't have to deal with it for awhile — if ever. Everything but those stacks of puzzles, which have been migrating from one inappropriate surface to another, defying my attempts to corral them.

 

Well-meaning friends have offered to dump them in the recycle bin for me — problem solved! — yet I find myself strangely unwilling to agree. Over these past few years, I've sent my Art Boy's clothes to Good Will, donated his art books to the Tannery library, and his art supplies to the schools; I rehomed his collection of monster and sci-fi toys to a toy dealer, cleaned out his video closet, and had 4 of his 5 VCRs hauled off to Grey Bears.

 

So why is it so hard to give up the puzzles?

 

On one hand, it ought to be a too-painful reminder of losing him in media res, the last little project he was working on before he was struck down, all those empty little squares unfilled. But maybe that's part of the reason I still cling to them. That first little pile of saved puzzles was like his stake in the future — making the plane ride enjoyable, then the fun family reunion, and whatever adventures would come after. Any time I saw them sitting there where he left them, I felt momentarily transported back to that fateful day. As if the life we might have had, but for one split second of fate, had we packed up those puzzles, caught our flight, and gone off into our future, was still right there, within reach, as if that little pile of puzzles was a portal between the optimistic past, that still felt so immediate, and the unexpected and unpredictable future now unwinding before me.

 

Realistically, I know I'll never be able to access that portal — unless my life turns out to be a Twilight Zone episode, or a Neil Gaiman story. But it's also come to symbolize a turning point in my own identity, a dividing line between my past and present self. Past me, marching fearlessly out into the world with my Sweetie, vs. Present me, physically compromised, if still relatively functional, but emotionally rudderless on my own. Emotionally, I seem to need to keep those puzzles as the last little tangible link to our partnership, in crossword puzzles and everything else, eagerly filling in all of life's little squares together.

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.

INTO THE WOODS

Courtly Cousins: Munson and Takayo

SCS launches season with lively rustic comedy As You Like It

Art imitated life in Santa Cruz this weekend — or was it the other way around?

Santa Cruz Shakespeare launched it's 43rd(!) season under the theme Generations, in honor of former Artistic Director Mike Ryan handing over the festival reins to new Artistic Director Charles Pasternak. Within the same 48 hours, President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, "passing the torch" to Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming November election. As Pasternak writes in his program notes, this season "looks forward to the young inheriting the world."

As always, 400+ years later, Shakespeare's stories are as timely as ever!

The first production in this year's play cycle, Shakespeare's pastoral comedy As You Like It, is not about the transfer of political power, but rather the efforts of a younger generation to escape the dysfunctional family values of the past, reinvent themselves, and go boldly into the future.

The story turns on two sets of brothers in conflict. Conniving Duke Frederick has usurped the office of his benevolent brother, Duke Senior, who has fled with his loyal followers into the Forest of Arden, a wild, unspoiled refuge far from the rules and intrigues of the ducal court. Frederick's henchman, Oliver, a firstborn son, has inherited his nobleman father's title and lands, but refuses to provide for his younger brother, Orlando, leaving him to make his own way in the world without station, means, or recourse.

Although Senior is banished, his daughter, Rosalind, still lives at the palace with her beloved cousin, Celia, daughter of Frederick— until he banishes her, too. Disguising herself as a man, Rosalind flees into the forest with Celia, who dresses as a plain country lass. Pretty soon, Orlando also arrives in the forest to escape his murderous brother's wrath, and the stage is set for both a romantic comedy of dueling wits and the low comedy of courtly vs. country manners.

Sir Duke: Thompson as genial Duke Senior

Indeed, director Carey Perloff sets the action quite literally on a stage, or rather, the backstage area of a theater, amid stacks of prop boxes, rolling dress forms, and racks of costumes. It's ironic enough to construct a theatrical backstage to stand in for the Forest of Arden in the middle of an actual eucalyptus grove. But Perloff states she was inspired by the play's famous "All the world's a stage" speech to conceive of the forest as a kind of (literal) green room where the characters, like actors, try on various disguises and deceptions, and engage in philosophical and romantic banter while grooming themselves to return to the "real world" of court life.

But this thoughtful concept doesn't feel especially organic to the play, or justify why such a decidedly rustic story seems to be taking place indoors, particularly if one hasn't read Perloff's notes. She might have had more fun pushing the concept further with the actors obviously putting on a show for us as they work through the play's themes, slipping in and out of character and costumes in view of the audience, highlighting the idea that "all the men and women (are) merely players."

That said, the production skips along at a lively pace, buoyed up by its engaging cast. As Orlando, meeting Rosalind for the first time (they fall instantly in love, of course), Elliot Sagay is absolutely priceless in his inability to squeeze out one single word. Charlotte Munson delivers Rosalind's lines with bright, vivid clarity; when they encounter each other later in the forest, and Rosalind, in disguise, coaches Orlando how to woo, she seems amazed and delighted as each witty rejoinder pops into her head.

Forest Foolery: Tagatac, Rose, Gallagher, Sagay

Anna Takayo is fresh and charming as loyal Celia. The irrepressible Patty Gallagher exercises her gifts as both a physical clown and flinger of bawdy wit as the court fool, Touchstone, going native in the country to court lusty shepherdess Audrey (Jomar Tagatac). Paige Lindsey White is quietly compelling as "the melancholy Jacques," whose philosophical observations create a subtext of wistful reflection alongside the comedy.

The diminutive Chelsea Rose makes a big impression as feisty shepherdess Phoebe, who falls for the boy she believes Rosalind is while being pursued by Justin Juong's sweetly hapless shepherd, Silvius. As both rival dukes, the excellent Raphael Nash Thompson switches gears between the clipped, menacing severity of Frederick and the genial effusiveness of Senior. And Pasternak's Oliver, all bristling spite in the early scenes, makes a nifty transition into a reformed, good-hearted mensch by the last act.

Musical composer David Coulter sets Shakespeare's songs to glide in and out of the action, then wallops us with a showstopper of "What shall he have that kill'd the deer?" as an eerily aggressive rhythmic chant. Coulter also appears throughout in a little cubbyhole onstage, providing incidental music and sound effects.

Love, laughs, action and music — as the title suggests, As You Like It has something for everyone!


As You Like It plays in repertoire through September 1st in the Audrey Stanley Grove at Delaveaga Park.

BUTT IN THE CHAIR

Whenever anyone is fool enough to ask me for writing advice, I'm sure my responses are vague or cryptic at best. But having spent the last many (many) moons finally wrestling my next book into shape, I may have discovered a viable answer.

 

Get your Butt in the Chair.

 

Make time to get your butt in the chair every day. Even if you're only staring at a blank screen, even if your keyboard in encased in cobwebs, chances are, something is cooking in your subconscious — triggered by the mundane physical act of going into work mode. 

 

Ignore your email, social media, or whatever you forgot to take out of the freezer for dinner. This is your work time. Trust your inner writer to rise to the occasion.

 

Granted, it doesn't sound as sexy as the Narrative Curve Graph, or the 9-Box Plot Diagram, or some magic alchemical formula. Or voodoo. But it's an improvement over the Spaghetti Method (throw it on the wall and see if it sticks), which I realize is the way I tend to write my first few drafts.

 

Stephen King assures writers that nobody but you is ever going to read the first draft (nor should they), so you might as well throw in everything, including the kitchen sink, the whole enchilada, the kit and kaboodle, and any other stale cliche or ludicrous idea you can think of to get some semblance of an actual story up onscreen. Most of it will be (mercifully) deleted in the comb-out anyway.

 

You can pop a cork and do a happy dance as soon as you type The End on that first draft, but understand that the real work is just beginning.

 

 

This is no time to be like Mooch, the Cat, chilling out while waiting for inspiration to drop in. You can't stalk it, or bully it into submission, either. Inspiration is a fragile, often fleeting thing. You have to be ready at the keyboard with your doc open, your mouse in play (tinkering over this sentence or that parenthetical note to self, or some random snippet of dialogue), with the scope of the story simmering away in your subconscious, when that tiny idea glimmers briefly to life that's going to Make. It. Work.

 

But that the idea comes at all is absolutely the product of all those hours your butt has logged in the chair. Even when you're not writing actual prose, it's the busy work you do in the margins, Grasshopper, that empties out space in your brain for the next idea to be born.

BIO SPHERE

Graduation Day, 1974

In celebration of the (ack!) 50th anniversary of my graduation from UCSC, here's what I cobbled together for the online Alumni Reunion Profile pages.

 

As a junior transfer from Southern California, I graduated in 1974 from Porter (then called College V) with a BA in Aesthetic Studies. This coveted document got me a job selling popcorn at the UA Riverfront Cinemas on Front Street, followed by a stint in the textbook room at Bookshop Santa Cruz. 

 

As a lark, I answered an ad in a new 12-page throwaway publication called Good Times for a second string movie reviewer, which I thought would be a fun thing to do until I got a real job. This experiment in gap employment lasted 45 years.

 

I went through two owners, three publishers, at least 17 editors  (I lost count), five changes of venue for our physical offices, and an earthquake. Not to mention some two thousand movies, at the very least, and probably a couple hundred more. In 2017, my reviews started appearing on Rotten Tomatoes. I would still be at it if COVID-19 hadn't eaten my job in 2020. The theaters closed, and even though they've now reopened, people no longer consume movies in the same way; the massive amount of available "content" is too much for a weekly paper to keep up with.

 

In the meantime, I've had three novels published since 2001, with a fourth on the way. It was also my ridiculous good fortune to be married to artist James Aschbacher for 40 years, whose vibrant and playful murals (three of which we painted together) decorate public spaces and elementary schools all over Santa Cruz County.

 

 

My principal workplace for 45 years! 

 

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Although the Aesthetic Studies degree would soon be discontinued in favor of an actual discipline, what it meant to me in practical terms was I got to make up my own DIY major. Having completed all my science requirements at the community college level, I spent my two years at UCSC taking lit classes from Paul Skenazy and John Jordan, art classes from Doug McLellan, and Art History classes from the inimitable Jasper Rose.

 

Rose was so entertaining, my housemate (who wasn't even a student) used to come with me to sit in on his class. He would come swanning into the room trailing his slightly tattered black and scarlet Oxford robes, launch himself across the lectern, and greet us with an expansive, "Hello, duckies!" (My girlfriend and I call each other "Ducky" to this day!)

 

 And although I never studied to be a movie critic (it was strictly on-the-job training), I did take one terrific film course from Tim Hunter on Alfred Hitchcock. In those days of Pass-Fail grading, we could do pretty much whatever we wanted for a final, so I drew a storyboard for an imaginary murder sequence in an imaginary Hitchcock movie. "This is hot!" Hunter scrawled in the margin. Translation: Pass.

 

My favorite UCSC memory? A bunch of us were loitering in the hallway waiting for our lit professor to come open the classroom when Jasper Rose came gliding by and asked what we were up to. Someone said we were waiting for our Victorian Fiction class. To which Rose replied, "Oh, there is nothing more fascinating than Victorian Fiction! Unless, of course, it's Victorian fact!"

 

CLAY SERA SERA

Hey, folks, check out The Colour Room, now streaming on Amazon Prime. It's a drama about the early career of the wonderful Clarice Cliff, a working-class factory girl in the north of England who became one of the most renowned ceramic artists of the Art Deco '30s.

 

Her work is distinctive, not only for the vivid colors on her hand-painted pieces, but the abstract geometrical shapes she pioneered for everyday household items like cups, plates, teapots and creamers.

 

The movie is long on atmosphere — those giant kiln chimneys belching smoke into the sky day and night — and cheerworthy in the way the audacious young Clarice rises above her station painting pottery on an assembly line at the Wilkinson company to become one of the company's top designers. 

 

And while her work confounds most of the stodgy male board members, she perseveres by rallying her fellow "paintresses" to produce her line and market it to an enthusiastic demographic of women. (Not unlike the Girl Power motif of the Barbie movie!)

 

 But beyond that, the movie was nostalgic for me (or possibly triggering), since my first summer job out of high school was painting bisque ware on the line at the funky Metlox Potteries factory in Manhattan Beach. Company designs were stamped on the pieces, which we girls had to paint in, not only in preordained colors, but in a precise number of brush strokes. Mess up, and your work was relegated to the (dreaded) seconds store. 

Not all that creative, except that it prompted me to start drawing a comic strip about my adventures in the working world, which I just dug out to look at for the first time in (ahem) 50 years.

 

In the strip, I called it Hotbox Pottery because it was always sweltering in the workplace in summer, with the kiln roaring away. The paint room was a couple of rooms away, but the bisque grading department, where my mom worked, adjoined the kiln room and was blistering in all seasons; the foreman handed out daily rations of salt tablets to keep the work force up and running.

The owner's initials were ES (Evan Shaw, who had bought the company from its original founders), so we always referred to him as Ebenezer Scrooge for his miserly policies. But looking back, it wasn't such a bad place to start my working life, earning my own paycheck (such as it was ), and doing my own banking. Except for the heat, painting pottery was more fun than slinging burgers at McDonald's or any kind of retail job where I'd have to confront a cash register.

 

Sadly, nothing I painted is ever likely to turn up on Antiques Roadshow (unlike Clarice Cliff). We never got to paint any of the cool Atomic '50s designs; most of our work was the prosaic Rooster or Fruit Basket patterns. Still, newcomers were allowed to sign and keep their first successfully painted plate, which I still have. And in retrospect, I'm pleased to think I had some connection, however tenuous, to what I realize now was the fabled Mid-Century California art pottery scene. 

 

Who knew?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORD PLAY

 SCS stages smart, witty story of the actors who saved Shakespeare

You couldn't imagine a better production to capture the spirit of this pivotal Santa Cruz Shakespeare season than The Book of Will. Lauren Gunderson's contemporary play about the creation of the First Folio of Shakespeare's texts is all about the power of words — to inspire and excite, to celebrate and educate, to comfort and heal. And it provides the perfect vehicle for outgoing Artistic Director Mike Ryan to hand over the company reins to incoming AD Charles Pasternak, playing the two real-life actors whose persistence, against all odds, preserved Shakespeare's splendid words for all time.

Ryan and Pasternak play John Heminge and Henry Condell, two Elizabethan actors, friends and colleagues of the recently deceased Will, who hatch a scheme to collect and transcribe all the scribbled-down versions of Shakespeare's play texts they can find to produce a single, official volume of his work in print. This is no easy task. Complete playscripts were rare in this era; normally, actors only copied out their own parts to learn, partly to save on time and the expense of materials like parchment and ink, and partly to prevent other companies from stealing a complete script and producing their own versions. Not that it worked very well, as companies who only had a few scenes of a play to work with cheerfully made up the rest.
 

This point is made painfully clear in the very first scene as a young actor from a rival company (Mariana Garzon Toro) energetically murders Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech with some random improvised filler. Heminge and Condell, of the King's Men theatrical troupe, and celebrated actor Richard Burbage (played with bombastic verve by Rex Young) gather in a tavern run by Heminge's daughter, Alice (winsome and spirited Allie Pratt) to bemoan the evident deterioration of Shakespeare's plays in performance some seven years after the author's death. Some ardent players like Burbage have memorized entire plays as written, but their generation is aging out, to be replaced by their less-well-schooled heirs.

It's Condell who first proposes the crack-brained idea of collecting Will's plays into a single volume, in his own authentic words — while people still remember what they are. Heminge, who has also become the troupe's business manager, is more tentative, cost-wise. But the enthusiasm of not only Condell and Alice, but Condell's amiable wife, Elizabeth (Paige Lindsey White) and Heminge's own wry, stout-hearted wife, Rebecca (Amy Kim Waschke) convince him of the urgency of preserving Will's thrilling words.

It all comes home to Heminge in a deeply moving late-inning monologue about the power of words to express the inexpressible and give vent to the otherwise unbearable burden of heartbreak.

The supporting cast is terrific, as usual. Young doubles in the role of the publisher, Jaggard, who's been blithely profiting off  the sale of bastardized version of Shakespeare's plays. Ben Jonson (a suitably flamboyant David Kelly), Shakespeare's friend and rival, makes a guest appearance.

Director Laura Gordon is also an actor (she was Prospero in last season's The Tempest),  and her staging makes the most of all the comedy and dry wit, as well as the more subtle, poignant moments in the plot. And for us grumpy traditionalists who pine to see Shakespeare performed in Elizabethan-style dress once in awhile, B. Modern's costumes evoke the period while retaining an unfussy, lived-in aesthetic.

Believe it or not, this is the 10th anniversary of Santa Cruz Shakespeare (emerging phoenix-like from the ashes of the well-beloved Shakespeare Santa Cruz), and the company's 8th season in the lovely Audrey Stanley Grove up in Delaveaga Park. We have Mike Ryan to thank for shepherding the company through these most tumultuous times to bounce back stronger than ever, even now, when the pandemic and its ongoing aftermath continues to wreak havoc in the arts. With Charles Pasternak at the helm (who acted as co-Artistic Director with Ryan this season, before stepping into the job full time next year), we can expect the festival to continue to build on its impressive past while eagerly embracing the future.

Top photo: Kevin Lohman

Above: R. R. Jones

LOVE CRAFT

Complicity, not compliance, highlights spirited SCS offering

There's a telling moment near the end of Santa Cruz Shakespeare's current production of The Taming Of the Shrew. It occurs in the climactic speech by Kate, the designated "shrew," delivering her manifesto on the state of her consciousness after having been "tamed" by her new husband, Petruchio, and it involves the tiny alteration of one single word.

In the line that has given feminists fits at least since the "Women's Lib" '70s, Kate declares,  "I am ashamed that women are so simple." Except, here, director Robynn Rodriguez swaps out the word "women" and replaces it with "people," which, coupled with the rest of Shakespeare's verse, "To offer war when they should kneel for peace," seems less like a call for female subservience to men than an observation on the regrettable human instinct to lash out in the face of any perceived opposition. Kate advocates for the gentle art of compromise — in love, in marriage, in society in general — as a means of achieving one's goals. Which are, in the case of Kate and Petruchio, individually, and, finally, together, the subversion of social conformity in pursuit of a more authentic life.

This SCS production gives us an exhilarating pair of non-conformists on this collision course. Boisterous Petruchio (M. L.  Roberts) has come to town to snag himself a rich bride and expand his own substantial properties. Katarina (Kelly Rogers) is a caustic young woman whose wealthy father, Baptista (Derrick Lee Weeden) has decreed that his pretty and obedient youngest daughter, Bianca (Yael Jeshion-Nelson), can't be wooed or wed until her older sister, Kate, is married off. To this end, Bianca's many would-be suitors conspire with Petruchio to woo Kate and clear their path to Bianca.

 But what begins as a business proposition levels up as soon as Petruchio gets his first look at his quarry — and feels her first verbal sting.  In Kate, he recognizes a fellow iconoclast, despite their different approaches; he cheerfully flaunts the rules of polite society to declare his plan to "wive it wealthily in Padua," while she resorts to waspish sarcasm. Profoundly unhappy in her domestic role from which there is seemingly no escape, she's so used to being mocked for her sharp tongue and unvarnished opinions, she assumes Petruchio's attentions are another cruel joke and launches a preemptive verbal strike in self-defense.

Roberts gives us a roistering, irreverent Petruchio, antic enough to wear a suit of Harlequin motley to his own wedding, yet seriously delighted to find in Kate a temperament so well matched to his own. (Kudos to Pamela Rodriguez-Montero's costumes that aren't rooted in any particular time or place, but are consistently true to the comic and narrative undercurrents in any given scene.) Rogers' Kate is an uncut gem of wit and passion whose only outlet is anger. In sparring with Petruchio, she is not so much "tamed" as liberated from the habit of mistrust. Even his most ridiculous commands — his insistent that the sun is, in fact, the moon, for example — become a test not of Kate's compliance to his whims, but her complicity in his vision of a less conventional and more rewarding alliance. It takes her awhile to learn to trust the one person who understands and values her, but there's great fun and blossoming joy in her discovery that they are kindred spirits, and that their best escape from restrictive social conventions is each other.

Scene-stealing Patty Gallagher shows off her flair for physical slapstick as Petruchio's loyal servant, Grumio (in one scene, she stands, er, gallops in as his horse),  and Sofia K. Metcalf's Tranio is our stalwart guide, helping to keep track of the busy plot; he disguises himself as his scholarly young master, Lucentio, while the real Lucentio (Junior Nyong'o) disguises himself as a humble tutor to Bianca in order to court her in secret.

On the night I went, there was also a special guest appearance by Jewel Theatre Artistic Director and founder Julie James in a featured role as both a hapless tailor, and a scornful widow who foolishly attempts to match wits with Kate. The lively ensemble keeps the action fast and funny right through to the spirited finale that will have you cheering for the art and craft of love.

Photos by RR Jones

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
 

HE THOUGHT HE COULD

I was clearing out James' toy cabinet when, just like a box of Crackerjacks, I found a surprise inside. Tucked away behind the monster models, robots and ray guns was this unassuming little red story book from his childhood: The Little Engine That Could. 

 It wasn't something he picked up the flea market. Right there inside the front cover, somebody had written in, "Jimmy 1953." He'd had it since he was two years old. 

 I don't know if he brought it with him the first time he drove out west to California from Illinois, or whether he snagged it from his mom's things in storage when the family moved her into assisted living. I never really noticed it before, but what surprised me was that of all the storybooks he must have had as a child (and since he was the fourth of five siblings, the house must have been full of them), this was the one he decided to keep. It's about a train; there are no cute or funny animals, no spunky children, no magic, no whimsical trips into outer space. The illustrations aren't especially beguiling. Why this book? 

So I read it. And now I think I get it. 

To refresh, a train carrying toys and "wholesome food" to children waiting on the other side of a mountain suddenly breaks down. A snooty Shiny Passenger Engine and an arrogant Big Strong Freight Engine refuse to help, and a Kind Engine is too old and rusty. Then along comes a Little Blue Engine that has never been over the mountain and is only used for switching in the yard. But she hitches herself to the train and pulls it up the mountain, chugging along to the refrain, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . . ." 

 Consciously or not, I can see how my Art Boy might identify with that plucky Little Blue Engine. Consider the parallels! 

As an incoming college freshman, he declined his counselor's advice to start with introductory classes and signed up for advanced courses instead. Seemingly on a whim, he shocked his friends and family (who had lived in the same Chicago suburb for generations) by moving to California when his girlfriend at the time got accepted to UCSC. For a year, he made a living scouring the flea market for paperbacks to sell to his mail-order client list of collectors. Until he met singer, musician, and comics fan Joe Ferrara; together (with zero retail experience between the two of them), they decided to open a comic book store. 

A year after that, I met him, and a year after that, we were married. Four years later, when the landlord of our (two-bedroom, one bath, plus office and breakfast nook) rental house in Live Oak threatened to raise the rent from $400 a month to a whopping $500, James decided we should buy a house. He sold comic books. I wrote movie reviews. Interest rates were almost 20%. You'd think any self-respecting loan officer would laugh us right out of their cubicle. And yet, not only did we persist, we put on an addition, refinanced, and paid off the mortgage in six years.

 At which time, he decided to sell his half of the (now thriving) comic book business to Joe and become an artist. He wa 40 years old. He had no art training whatsoever. He was always the first to admit he didn't know how to draw; he had never even doodled in the margins. 

 He just thought he could. 

(Years later, people often asked me if I freaked out when he told me he was quitting his business to make art. I could honestly say, nope. It never even occurred to me to doubt him, given his track record for bucking the odds and making it work.) 

As an artist, he floundered around for awhile until he came up with the technique of layering acrylic paint over oil-based spray paint. Had he ever taken an art class, he would have been instructed that you can't mix oils with acrylics, but since he didn't know the rules, he was free to break them as he invented a style that was so distinctly his own. 

Ten years into his art career, he was commissioned to create his first public mural in Plaza Lane, in downtown Santa Cruz. He tried to hire a professional muralist to paint his design, but when he found out the muralist would charge as much as James himself was making on the project, he figured out a way to transfer the design himself, and employed a much cheaper crew — me — to help him paint it. A technique he perfected over the next ten years, painting murals at schools and public buildings all over the county. 

It's not that he had so much arrogant hubris that he couldn't even imagine failing. Rather, he had no fear of the possibility of failure. If one plan didn't work out, he figured he could always do something else; he had the confidence to adapt. He never paid any attention to people who told him he couldn't or shouldn't do something, so it never occurred to him not to try. 

He thought he could. And he did.