"Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play": ★★★

Sometimes, a moment in a play can be forgotten, as our memories rush to fill in plot details or mention standout acting or staging performances. For us, one of the concluding scenes in Keiko Green's "Exotic Deadly: Or The MSG Play" has stuck with us for days. This is when the excellent Anna Ming Bostwick-Singer, as the teenage daughter Ami, and Nicole Tung, as Ami's mother, stare into the audience and announce that all our ancestors are looking out for us at all times -- from the first row. The lights come up and there we all are - wait, am I one of these ancestors? Well, why not? I like these actors and I'll be happy to look out for them.

"The MSG Play" is fun and light-hearted, but it makes no bones about MSG, the flavor enhancer that has been shown to be harmless but for some years was trumpeted as the source of the deadly "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome," a claim based on bad science and anti-Asian propaganda. Ami's quest is to discover the original inventor of MSG. The plot thickens.

Francesca Fernandez plays the rebellious new girl, Exotic Deadly, with a lot of soul. Ami would love to be like her, but, you know, not really. 

The show is fun to watch, especially if you remember cultural references from the 90s, as everyone in the audience (except, perhaps two reviewers in the corner) appeared to. Do Ami and Exotic Deadly save the world? Well, look at the ingredients on a package of Instant Ramen. They seem to have succeeded. 

RATINGS ★★★

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division grants "Exotic Deadly: The MSG Play" Three Stars. We loved the energy of the show and the entire ensemble, plus the amazing job by director Jesca Prudencio. Fun and laughter are in short supply these days, but not at San Francisco Playhouse.

"Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG PLAY"

San Francisco Playhouse

450 Sutter Street (2d floor of Kensington Park Hotel), San Francisco

Through 3/8/25

$35-$135

Hershey Felder: Rachmaninoff and the Tsar: ★★★★

We have seen quite a few Hershey Felder solo shows in his Composer Series. There is always a grand piano in the middle of the stage and Felder thinks of a story pertaining to the composer's life, around which he can hang as many musical interludes as possible. He is a magician, one of a kind, a brilliant pianist and actor who has figured out how to play a complex piano repertoire while telling a story at the same time. This is a feat unmatched by anyone else.

Felder's latest show, "Rachmaninoff and the Tsar,"which had its Regional Premiere last night at Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, is a two-hander. It describes a fevered dream occurring to Sergei Rachmaninoff as he awaits his death from melanoma in his adopted home of Beverly Hills, CA. The year is 1944, and the composer looks back on his life which, in his mind, was uprooted by the unconscionable incompetence of Russia's last Tsar, Nikolai Romanov. Jonathan Silvestri plays the Tsar, who, though long dead, having been assassinated by Bolsheviks twenty-six years earlier, dialogues back and forth with Rachmaninoff, as the composer seeks to find a way to forgive the long-dead Russian leader.

The story is historical and accurate, since Felder never makes things up. OK, except for the Dead Tsar Walking.

Musically, Rachmaninoff's compositions shine, with melodies we have all loved whether or not we knew where they came from. If you can't hum the theme to Rachmaninoff's Rhapsodie on a Theme of Paganini -- DA DA DA DA DUMMM! then your hummer needs time in the shop. 

For us, we feel as we often feel as the curtain falls -- we wish we had seen a little less talk and a lot more music, less Hershey and more Sergei, less kvetching and more shpieling, as my grandmother, a Russian immigrant in Southern California herself, may have said. Don’t listen to the two aristocrats, Rachmaninoff and Tsar Nikolai, but dear old Gram, who always loved a good melody. 

RATINGS ★★★★

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division grants Four Stars to Hershey Felder's "Rachmaninoff and the Tsar." He gets one star each for writing, acting and playing, and another for what is now a tradition: the question/answer session at the end of the show. This gives us a real view into Felder as Felder, a brilliant, engaging guy, not anything like, say, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Liszt, Mozart, Beethoven or Irving Berlin. OK, we said it. Mr. Felder: please do Irving Berlin again?

Hershey Felder: "Rachmaninoff and the Tsar"

Mountain View Center for Performing Arts

500 Castro St., Mountain View

Through Feb. 9, 2025

$64-$114