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Your Connection To The Arts In San Diego
Funding for "Pat Launer, Center Stage", is provided by the Elaine Lipinsky Family Foundation.
Ooh la la! Hold onto your chapeau. In a frenetic French satire, you’d better listen up if you want to keep track of who beats, beds or bamboozles whom. “Écoutez bien!
It all starts with a patrician pair of identical twins. Hugo is a heartless, amoral, manipulative playboy, while Frederic is a decent, sensitive, milquetoast. Frederic loves Diana, the spoiled, rich-bitch daughter of a self-made billionaire with a fiery young mistress who’s having an affair with the businessman’s private secretary. Vicious rich-girl Diana is engaged to the nice twin, Frederic, but she really loves his nasty brother, Hugo. Hugo decides to derail the engagement, since he loves Diana but doesn’t really know it yet, believing himself incapable of any positive emotion. So, Hugo contrives an intricate plot. He hires a lowly but lovely dancer from the Paris Opera and transforms her, “My Fair Lady” style, into an aristocratic beauty, the belle of a ball thrown by the twins’ imperious, devious, wealthy and wheelchair-bound aunt. Isabelle, the dancer, arrives with her loquacious, pretentious mother in tow, as well as a middle-aged roué who has been directed by Hugo to claim Isabelle as his niece, though he’d prefer that she be his mistress. When the snooty aunt gets wind of Hugo’s scheme, she starts to pull a few manipulative strings of her own. And voilà! L’amour triumphs in the end. Whew. Got all that?
It all becomes hilariously clear in the fast-paced, 3-act, class-conscious satire, “Ring Round the Moon,” by Jean Anouilh, best known for his 1964 play, “Becket,” which was made into a stunning movie with Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole. “Ring Round the Moon” came a lot earlier, in 1947 and it manages to remain as wacky, madcap, acerbic and sophisticated a period piece as it was half a century ago.
What the whip-fast comedy demands is crackerjack timing and a stellar cast, since every one of the dozen or so characters is a polished little gem.
Moonlight Stage delivers a shimmering jewel of a production. Jason Heil’s sharp-edged direction sparkles, and the ensemble is scintillating, headed by Howard Bickle as the two wildly disparate brothers who make such rapid and imaginative exits and entrances, you almost believe they actually can be in the same place at the same time.
In a lovely winter garden, on a magical, moonlit spring night, fantasies, hypocrisies, busybodies, subterfuge, secrets and spilled beans abound. The forces of goodness and innocence are pitted against the calculated malevolence of people who take sport in controlling the lives of others, simply because they have the power or purse-strings to do so.
This is one delicious confection, flavored with a hint of spice and a soupçon of strychnine, served up as enchantment and romance. Bon appétit!
“Ring Round the Moon” runs through March 21 at the Avo Theatre in Vista.
© 2010 Pat Launer
Once upon a time, there was a benevolent but distracted Duke, whose kingdom was usurped by his evil brother. He was cruelly exiled, along with his infant daughter, dumped in a tiny boat and expected to drown in a storm. But miraculously, they landed safely on a distant island. The deposed duke used his magic to tame and master the resident monster and the sprites and spirits of the enchanted land. He and his daughter thrived, but he was just biding his time. Finally, twelve years later, vengeance was his. A boat carrying his enemies neared the island. He whipped up a huge storm, capsizing the vessel. Though he made sure that no one was killed or harmed, as the passengers washed ashore, the duke’s wizardry forced each of them to recognize their frailties and evil deeds. The son of his enemy fell in love with the duke’s daughter. The duke got his kingdom back and the island denizens got their freedom. No more magic, no more storms. Order was restored, and calm seas prevailed.
That is the beautiful fairy tale of “The Tempest,” considered to be Shakespeare’s last and most idealistic play, one in which, it’s thought, the writer, like the duke, gives up his creative magic. It’s a grandly fanciful invention, with glorious poetry, a passel of marvelous characters and myriad potential interpretations.
David Ellenstein, artistic director of North Coast Repertory Theatre, decided to make a little magic of his own. He teamed up with Mira Costa College for a co-production of the play, staged in the splendid theater space on the college’s Oceanside campus. The large stage, with flyspace above and trap below, provides a magnificent playground for professional designers and a stellar cast that combines students and pros. The result is enchanting.
There are no political angles here, no wild re-conceptions, just a solid telling of a bewitching tale. The production is radiant: the set is striking, the sound ethereal, the costumes fantastical.
Local Shakespeare veteran actor and teacher Jonathan McMurtry helms the cast as Prospero. During previews, he wasn’t quite set in his lines, which diminished the power and command of the character. But he cut a long-haired, wizardly figure. And he dazzled with his presentations of the textual set-pieces, the memorable, lyrical lines that are familiar to everyone. As Caliban and Ariel, Richard Baird and Christopher Williams are riveting; the rest of the cast is excellent, with the students acquitting themselves wonderfully well.
In this gorgeous story of illusion and reality, freedom and slavery, vengeance and forgiveness, pride, greed, envy and love, every character comes out of the experience with greater self-knowledge. It’s likely that you will, too.
“The Tempest” runs through March 14 on the Oceanside campus of Mira Costa College.
© 2010 Pat Launer
Don’t you love getting together with old friends? No matter how much time has gone by, it seems like only a moment has passed between visits. You slip right back into a comfortable and comforting interaction; the familiarity feels warm and embracing.
So, you’re going to savor your time with Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy… the Little Women created by Louisa May Alcott in 1868. The wildly popular novel was loosely based on the writer’s own homelife with her three sisters. Their destitute conditions in Concord, Mass. are what drove Alcott to write, to help support the family. Clearly, her irrepressible creation, Jo, the energetic tomboy, budding feminist, imaginative fantasist and emerging writer, is the author’s stand-in.
Two years ago, North Coast Repertory Theatre commissioned playwright Jacqueline Goldfinger to create an adaptation of the beloved classic. Now, the world premiere has arrived, and it’s a delightful sojourn with cherished acquaintances. The novel was originally published in two parts, and the play covers many of the episodes in part one, framed within one year, from Christmas to Christmas. That’s enough time for the girls to meet their wealthy neighbor, Laurie, who’s a wonderfully vigorous and inventive companion to Jo. It’s sufficient time for Laurie’s tutor to fall for Meg, for Father to become seriously ill while serving in the Civil War; for Amy to go off to study art in Paris; and for one of the sisters to die. Did I ruin it for you? I hope not. That’s one of the most unforgettable moments in the book.
The play’s focus is on love and family, and the power of good works and heavy doses of imagination. But it’s not all sweetness and sentimental treacle. There’s jealousy and competition, the girls fight and yell at each other; and, I was happy to see, even the eternally stalwart and upbeat Marmee confesses her own barely-controlled anger problem. Each of the March girls struggles with a major character flaw: Meg’s pride and envy, Jo’s volatility and temper, Beth’s debilitating shyness and Amy’s vanity and selfishness. In this outstanding ensemble, each of the actors crafts a clear portrait and each is endearing in her own way. The men are excellent, too.
The production is superb. The comfy but threadbare parlor, nicely lit, rotates to create varied playing spaces. The costumes are lovely. And it’s all expertly directed by Kirsten Brandt, former artistic director of Sledgehammer Theatre. A few scenes feel a trifle rushed, but the overall effect is both nostalgic and timeless. War-time, hard times, sibling rivalry, family unity. We’ll always have a soft-spot in our hearts for our Little Women.
“Little Women” continues through 3/14 at North Coast Repertory Theatre.
© 2010 Pat Launer
Picture this. You’re at home with your family for an intimate celebration. Your daughter has just become engaged. She’s giddy and radiant. Your son has had a bit too much to drink. The young fiancé is a catch, already a wealthy businessman. Everything is going swimmingly – and then the doorbell rings.
In shuffles an investigator who tells you he’s just come from the morgue, where a poor young girl was lying on the slab, after having taken her own life. Insistently and systematically, he questions each and every member of the family, peeling away layers of secrecy and superciliousness, and implicating everyone – directly or indirectly – in the girl’s demise.
It’s not a matter of Whodunit, but who contributed to it. Something of a lesson in collective guilt and social responsibility. Which brings to mind the dire admonition of the ghost of Jacob Marley to his former partner, Ebenezer Scrooge: “Mankind is your business!”
A psychological thriller written by J. B. Priestley in 1945, “An Inspector Calls” is set in a fictitious Yorkshire, England, industrial town just before the first World War. Despite the work’s immense and long-lasting popularity, the playwright-journalist was accused of wrapping his morality tale in socialist trappings (or perhaps more aptly, liberal humanist garb), including heinous considerations like class inequity, hypocrisy, social conscience and community responsibility. The message may come through as a tad didactic, but it’s no less relevant than it was 65 years ago. Fashions may have changed in the interim, but not human nature.
For a long time, the play had fallen out of favor. But then, in 1993, it was re-conceived in London and then New York, and became a theatrical darling on both sides of the pond, winning 20 prestigious awards.
Lamb’s Players Theatre was ahead of that curve, airing out the old warhorse in 1989. And now, they feel the time is ripe for a revisit. They’ve made the play leaner and sleeker, trimmed down from 3 acts to one relentless, intermissionless, nail-biting interrogation. Of course, there’s a twist at the end, which leaves audiences a bit dazed and a little puzzled. In some ways, you have to work it all out for yourself. The enigmatic aspect can be unnerving, even a little annoying. But the play still packs its wallop, and its message never goes out of style, especially in this era of unchecked greed and materialism, when the great divide between rich and poor seems wider than ever.
The Lamb’s production is very attractive, the performances first-rate. The lovely, detailed drawing room set has one peculiar feature: the floor is packed soil. Metaphorical, you might say, for digging up the dirt on every arrogant, condescending character. You’re guaranteed to be gobsmacked at the end.
“An Inspector Calls” continues through March 21 at Lamb’s Players Theatre.
© 2010 Pat Launer
For an archive of all of Pat's reviews, going back to 1990, use the 'search' function at www.PatteProductions.com.
