LOVE, ITALIAN STYLE

Visual wit shines in SCS' delightful 'Two Gentlemen of Verona'

A priest and his beaming altar boy, a winged mime on roller skates, a flock of nuns, and a bunch of guys in towels, walk onto a stage. No, it's not an old joke. It's the beginning of a sprightly, visually splendid new production of Shakespeare's early comedy, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, the third installment of Santa Cruz Shakespeare's 2017 summer season.    

The play's not necessarily the thing in this show. One of Shakespeare's earliest works, it's a romantic comedy about a youth, Proteus (Brian Smolin, always fun to watch), all too willing to betray his best friend, Valentine (an earnest Rowan Vickers), and forsake the woman he himself loves so he can woo the woman his friend has fallen in love with.

Adam Schroeder, Rowan Vickers: love is clueless

Grace Rao makes a plucky ingenue of Julia, the girl Proteus leaves behind, who dresses a a boy and follows the men to the court of Milan. Silvia (a wily, beauteous Tristan Cunningham) is the duke's daughter both men fall for, although she and Valentine have already pledged their love in secret.

There's a lot of funny comedy between these four characters and their servants, but the trick is to make this play appealing despite its dubious plotline.

This is where director Art Manke's ingenious production excels. Its many delights come from the visual wit of his staging on Annie Smart's core set of stone archways and catwalks (co-designed for this show with Chrissy Curl), in cahoots with B. Modern's absolutely fabulous, mid-century, Euro-chic costumes.

What's fun is the way Manke puts it all together. He envisions life at court as one lavish cocktail party, where the glitterati swill drinks and flourish cigarettes, while an army paparazzi snap their every move.

Brian Smolin (foreground), Tristan Cunninghan (3rd from left) & co: symphony in black and white

 Modern's extraordinary black, white, grey and silver costume palette is a symphony of stripes, checks, solids, and plaids, with an occasional striking zebra-print thrown in. Think Mad Men and Breakfast At Tiffany's crossed with the witty surrealism of a Federico Fellini movie (cited by Manke as his inspiration).

Gallagher and friend: Felliniesque

Valentine's servant, the aptly-named Speed, sports those wings and skates, and Adam Schroeder is terrific in the role, especially trying to explain to his clueless master the code by which Silvia is declaring her love for him.

His counterpart, Launce, servant to Proteus, is a female here, and Patty Gallagher plays her with plenty of slapstick, sad-clown brio. In her bowler hat and cane, she recalls the poignant heroine of Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits.

Gallagher also has the poise and charm to share the stage with a mellow black dog called Crab, who steals every scene he's in.

The nuns and priest on the margins suggest the idea of faith, in contrast to the faithlessness Proteus shows to, well, just about everybody.

That everyone so easily forgives Proteus is the mark of a dramatist not yet in full control of his art, but Manke, Modern, and company are in full control of this delicious production.

(Read more in this week's Good Times)

RUNNER'S HIGH

Smolin and Rao: mysterious

Santa Cruz Shakespeare kicks off season with uproarious 39 Steps

It's not exactly the Bard, but the 2017 season of Santa Cruz Shakespeare gets off to a ripping start with The 39 Steps.

Based on an adventure novel by John Buchan, famously made into Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1935 chase thriller movie, the story gets another makeover in director Paul Mullins' uproarious production — long on sly wit, short on logic, and absolutely irresistible.

This 2005 stage adaptation by English playwright Patrick Barlow is an exercise in comic audacity. All the parts are played by a cast of four — three men and one woman —in a variety of costumes, accents, and disguises.

Gilmore, Ryan, Smolin: strangers on a train

Barlow takes his inspiration mostly from the movie (especially in the '30s period setting), and nudge-nudge, wink-wink references to Hitchcock and his oeuvre pop up throughout.

You don't have to know the film to enjoy the play, but those familiar with the Hitchcock version will get a special kick out of the sheer chutzpah of this interpretation.

At its center is Richard Hannay (Brian Smolin), a bored young man puttering around his London flat one evening who decides to distract himself by "doing something mindless and utterly useless — I'll go to the theatre!" It's the first step on the road to disaster.

At a music hall performance by a mentalist called Mr. Memory (Allen Gilmore) and his partner/handler (Mike Ryan), Hannay meets Annabella (Grace Rao), a sexy dame with a ripe German accent, who begs to come home with him.

Stagecraft: Smolin falls from a (ladder) train trestle

In short order, the mystery woman is dead in his flat. The police suspect him, the sinister men who were following her are now following him, and Hannay is on the run. All he knows is she was trying to convey secret information about an international spy ring to a colleague in the wilds of Scotland, so he grabs a map and takes the train north, hoping to sort it all out before the police can arrest him for murder.

But who cares about the plot? All the fun is in the playing. Smolin, who won hearts and cracked funny bones in the title role of The Liar a couple of seasons back, is the only cast member to play only one character, and his Hannay anchors the show with his determination to be a good sport, his insinuating double-takes, and his acrobatic dexterity.

(It's a riot when he limbo-slides out of an armchair from under a dead body.) The subtle ways he preens while running in place onstage as police bulletins describe him in ever more flattering terms is also very funny.

Name that Hitchcock reference!

Rao is also terrific as the three principal women —Annabella, the femme fatale, Pamela, an innocent Scottish lass married to a parsimonious old farmer, and Margaret, an angry blonde who winds up handcuffed to Hannay in his trek across the Scottish moors.

She and Smolin get a lot of comic mileage out of those cuffs, trying to go over, no, under, no, around a wooden stile out in the country, or traversing a bog — played by Ryan.

Ryan and Gilmore (their parts are called Clown 1 and Clown 2), play everybody else, and they're both hilarious. Gilmore is especially memorable as the ferociously self-abnegating farmer saying grace, or an ancient staffer at a political rally attempting to set up a podium. Ryan brings down the house in the rally scene as an elderly speaker with a miniscule voice.

Rao and Smolin: comic mileage

A lot of the biggest laughs come from the Clowns missing their cues, or struggling to change costumes fast enough — like their virtuoso duet on a train platform, playing three parts simultaneously by feverishly switching hats.

Scenic designers Annie Smart and Justine Law's rolling staircase set cleverly adapts to every locale, from music hall to train station to manor house. Special kudos are due to properties designer/master M. Woods for transforming objects like crates, chairs, and a ladder into a train, a car, a railroad trestle, and the Scottish Highlands. (One door frame on wheels is particularly ingenious.) B. Modern's period costumes are deft and impeccable.

Clearly, everyone involved in this production is having a high old time, and the audience can't help but be swept along.

(Fabulous photos by Jana Marcus.)

AT WORDSPOINT

Onwumere and Smolin: lie coach

If you're one of those slightly benighted folks who think Santa Cruz Shakespeare would be so much fun, except for, you know, all that Shakespeare, then the current SCS production of The Liar is for you.

On the other hand, if you can't get enough of Shakespearean-style wit and wordplay, then The Liar is for you. In fact, if you're breathing, The Liar is for you.

Yes, it's a play you've never heard of, based on a French farce from (eek) 1643. Yes, the entire play is in verse. But this outrageously clever 2010 update by American playwright David Ives uses modern idioms and vernacular throughout (references to Twitter, etc.), to make sure that everyone gets all the jokes.

The farcical plot revolves around Dorante (Brian Smolin), a young man from the provinces on his first day in Paris who's quick to embroider the truth for the sake of expedience. He has no malicious intent; rather, say, he can't be bothered with the boring (or inconvenient) truth when a good lie, ingeniously crafted on the spot, is so much more satisfying.

Or, as Dorante puts it, in one of Ives' slyest lines, "the unimagined life is not worth living!"

Jolene and Cavett, with Smolin: effortlessly fun

 In short order, Dorante hires a manservant, Cliton (Toby Onwumere), unable to speak anything but the truth, falls instantly in love with one of two ladies (but mixes up their names), weasels out of a marriage plot arranged by his father, and fights a hilarious duel of words (which he narrates like an ESPN play-by-play), swords undrawn.

Did I mention the twin serving wenches (one lusty, one pious)? As soon as Dorante boasts to Cliton about his "Memory—keystone of the master liar!" you know he's heading for trouble.

A show that depends so completely on verbal dexterity needs an adroit cast, and SCS has put together an exceptional one. Toby Onwumere gets things off to a rollicking start before the show begins, as Cliton, wandering through the audience with a "Man for Hire" sign, offering to juggle fruit, sing songs or recite for pay. Onwumere is so powerful as the tragic but fierce Macduff in this season's production of Macbeth, it's great to see him shift gears in such a boisterously comic role.

Brian Smolin's Dorante is an utterly charming scapegrace, delighting himself (and us) with his extravagant fabrications, soaring to ever new heights on the addictive helium of his own tall tales. Smolin delivers his lines with clarity, precision, and impish glee, to match the flamboyant grace with which he prowls the stage; he's effortlessly fun in a demanding role.

Smolin and Parret: must be the lusty twin

The ladies, sassy Clarice (Mary Cavett) and quiet, but smoldering Lucrece (Sierra Jolene), keep the action hopping along, putting their suitors through their paces. Darek Riley scores as Alcippe, Clarice's other suitor (and Dorante's dueling/sparring partner in that great, er, wordfight scene). Allen Darby makes a droll impression as his friend, Philiste, and Kurt Meeker is the imposing voice of authority as Dorante's father.

Melina Parret is terrific fun as both twin servants, Isabelle and Sabine. SCS audiences may (or may not) recognize her from her other role this season as Lady Macbeth.

David Mickeklsen's vivid costumes vaguely recall the Musketeer era of the original French play (with a few cartoony/Commedia del'Arte flourishes), and Art Manke's smart direction is frisky, but never so frantic that we can't appreciate the jokes or the splendid performances.

This is probably the funniest play I've seen in the Glen since Danny Scheie's original production of A Comedy of Errors, back in the Stone Age. It's what live theatre is all about, and it only plays four more times through August 29, so get your tickets now.

Why are you still sitting there?