"The Trojan Women": ☼ ☼ ☼

No one knows today exactly where the fabled city of Troy actually was -- somewhere on the west coast of modern Turkey -- but the ancient legend, reported in Homer's Iliad, lives on. It is the tale of Helen of Troy, the most desirable woman in the world, whose beauty drove both the Greek and Trojan kings to madness and war, culminating with the famous Trojan Horse and the destruction of one of the finest cities of the ancient world. The year was 1184 BC.

But what happened next? The Professional World Premiere of Ellen McLaughlin's fine "The Trojan Women," running for four weeks at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, stops to consider not the victorious Greeks, but the plight of the Trojan wives, daughters and sisters, after their home has been destroyed and they are faced with death or slavery. It is a mesmerizing story, which forces us to realize that history has always dealt with victory, not with the despair, borne by the survivors, that follows defeat.



At first, Barbara Oliver's production feels over-emoted -- a stage filled with wailing women in modern dress -- but, as one gradually settles into the scope of the unfolding tragedy, one realizes there is plenty to wail about. "I dream of a city, my home," they repeat, as the sea god Poseidon, dressed like a sea captain, enjoins them to keep sleeping: "From the moment you wake until your deaths, you will all be exiled."

Standouts in the cast are Queen Hecuba (played by Carla Spindt), Cassandra (Sarah Nealis) and Helen herself (Nora el Samahy). Hecuba has most of the lines, but Helen, dressed in a red dress, full-length fur coat and high-heeled leather boots, is the most conflicted -- she caused the whole war, but knows she never asked for her beauty: "What I have, the Gods gave me."



Perhaps Andromache, Hecuba's daughter (Emilie Talbot), gives voice to the most unanswerable question, as she surveys her destroyed city, her lost husband and murdered child: "Where are the Gods who loved us?"

The Gods aren't talking. McLaughlin's play is based on Euripides' "The Trojan Women," first published in 415 BC. Times do not appear to have changed all that much since the Greeks first started writing about it.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "The Trojan Women" three stars. The cast as a whole earns one, but the short running time (one hour, no intermission) does not allow any one character to outshine the others; the playwright's excellent original dialog, written in the style of the Greeks, earns another star; the last is for having the sense to stop the despair just short of demanding the audience run out to the snack bar and ask for a glass of hemlock. If the show had run another fifteen minutes it may have become unbearable, but one hour is just fine. We exit the theater ready to sit down, drink strong coffee and talk about what we've just seen.

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"The Trojan Women"
Aurora Theatre
2081 Addison Street, Berkeley
Wed.-Sun. through May 11; $40-$42

"Romancing the Caveman": ☼ ☼ baub

It wasn't only the Iraq war that started in 1991. That same year, Rob Becker's "Romancing the Caveman" opened in New York. The difference between Iraq and the Caveman is that the war stopped for a few years. "Romancing the Caveman" moved to Broadway in 1995 and played for two and a half years, becoming the longest running solo performance in Broadway history. By 2008, cavemen are as ubiquitous as Seinfeld. The show has been peformed in fifteen different languages in countries around the globe. Apparently, Becker tapped into something that men (although they are all a**holes) can understand.

The set is simple: a faux stone easy chair, a faux stone TV set and stand and a faux stone laundry basket. Performer Isaac Lamb walks to stage front and for the next hour and a half expostulates on how man is a hunter and loves to return to his cave to relax, while woman is a gatherer and loves to decorate her cave, in the process stripping the man of his dignity and forcing him to keep his dirty (presumably stone) underwear in the faux stone laundry basket.

It's funny. There are laughs. The first time you hear "men are all a**holes" you laugh and the second time too and maybe the third. But this whole shmear was probably funnier in 1991, before every bad comic in America began to mine the same gender vein. It's hard to argue with success, though. Women now have Vagina Monologues and men have Romancing the Caveman and, unlike Iraq, both men and women can leave the theater smiling and go home.

RATINGS ☼ ☼ baub

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Romancing the Caveman" two stars. Isaac Lamb seemed a bit frazzled on opening night but there were happy shouts of "Right on, Brother!" heard periodically throughout the theater, particularly in Act One. There are no particular BANGLES of Praise, but the ending dragged on forever and earns a Bauble of Despair. It's up to you to decide whether or not you wish to spend $55 to hear comedy that hasn't been new since Saddam had a black mustache.

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"Romancing the Caveman"
Marines Memorial Theatre
609 Sutter Street, San Francisco
Wed.-Sun.; $55

"Monkey Room": ☼ ☼ BANG

AIDS research is not a frequently-discussed topic in film or on the live stage. There are probably any number of reasons, among them being 1) the subject matter is dry as burnt toast and 2) there are no happy endings -- yet. But playwright Kevin Fisher is a bona fide AIDS researcher as well as a writer, which gives him a unique window to observe what is going on inside the lab.

In "Monkey Room," having its World Premiere at the Magic Theater, the answer seems to be: the same things that are going on in the outside world. Professional jealousy, personal ambition and a drying-up cash flow threaten to scuttle an AIDS research lab's important work, even though four of the monkeys the lab is inoculating with possible AIDS antidotes appear to be coming through the treatment without getting sick.

Lauren Grace, as lead researcher Ava, gives an excellent performance. She is able to layer her character both with hard-driving personal ambition and honest love for her research. What is less clear is what she could possibly see in fellow researcher Zach (Kevin Rolston), who is duplicitous and does not appear to be motivated by anything but watching soccer. He is given to romantic lines like: "You love infectious diseases. You know you do."

Perhaps the problem is in the writing or perhaps it is simply casting, but -- don't want to give anything away here -- the couch scene. Facts don't add up. Needs further research.



Special notice needs to be given to the always-excellent Robert Parsons as the company man, sent to review Ava's research lab and either allow its work to continue or axe it forever. He has had his troubles too, but is the only one who seems to have his head out of the clouds.



In the end, Fisher's subject is an interesting one, and will perhaps evolve into a more entertaining play as time goes by. Right now our interest is piqued by the unique problems science researchers face. As science, we say yes. As theater: perhaps not quite yet.

RATINGS ☼ ☼ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Monkey Room" one star for the subject matter and another for fine performances by Grace and Parsons. A special Bangle of Praise goes to the Sound Design, led by Sara Huddleston, whose spot-on music accents each scene. Best of all is what plays as the audience files from the theater: "I'm a Believer" by the Monkees.

"Monkey Room" is sponsored by the Magic Theatre / Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Initiative.

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"Monkey Room"
Magic Theater, San Francisco
Fort Mason, Building D
Wed.-Sun. $20-$45

"Caroline, or Change": ☼ ☼ ☼ 1/2 BANG

The Awards Committee awarded "Caroline, or Change" one star before the show even started, when the live ten-piece orchestra was heard tuning up. A peek into the pit turned up zero (0) synthesizers. That's one star without saying a word. But it got even better.

Tony Kushner's first operatic libretto, written in the mid-1990s after his phenomenal success with "Angels in America," and first produced on stage in 2003, is a production that is, on the surface, a simple story: a young boy, Noah (the autobiographical Kushner), misses his deceased mother and attempts to find solace in his family's basement in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where the African-American maid, Caroline, spends most of her life doing family laundry.

But as Caroline sings in her opening: "Nothing ever happens underground in Louisiana. Because there is nothing underground in Louisiana. Only under water." Caroline is caught up in changing times (the year is 1963) and has little emotional space left over for Noah. We don't get a happy ending, or an unhappy ending, simply a pastiche of lives attempting to cross in a time when barriers were just beginning to fall.



You might love Jeanine Tesori's music, but you won't exit humming. The composer has obviously been required to fit her tunes around Kushner's thick dialogue, and it requires the audience's attention. It's not the Sound of Music, and it's not The Sound of Angels in America either. What it is, is a musical and intellectual journey, combining elements of blues and pop and gospel with Sondheim-like melodic reaches.

(Think 'Porgy and Bess,' but without 'I Loves You Porgy' or 'It Ain't Necessarily So.')



A critical decision was made when the show was first presented to New York Public Theatre director George C. Wolfe (who had directed 'Angels' on Broadway), to cast 'Caroline' not with operatic voices but with musical-theater actors. In this Theatreworks Production, we can see how important a decision that has been: the acting is superb. Wright and her show-daughter Emmie (Valisia LeKae) absolutely steal the show. Emmie has all the hopeful lines, and she delivers them with heart and passion. Plus, she can really sing -- actually, everyone in the cast can, and this includes the young actor Gabriel Hoffman, who was standing in as Noah for cast regular Julian Hornik.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ 1/2 BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Caroline, or Change" three stars to start: One for the involving live music, one for C. Kelly Wright and Valisia LeKae and one more for two other cast standouts: James Monroe Iglehart, who manages to play a clothes dryer, Caroline's ex-husband and a crosstown bus; and Allison Blackwell, who as Caroline's friend Dot is a needed voice of support and reason for Caroline. An extra half-star is awarded for the stunning contrast between Iglehart's "The Earth has Bled: The President is Dead," (as President Kennedy has just been shot) and Emmie's answer: "Some Old White Man."



One BANGLE of Praise goes out to the only terrific stab at humor in the score: 'Roosevelt Petrucius Cole Slaw,' sung by Emmie and her brothers. It's a nursery rhyme -- and one you can sing. It would have been nice to have a few more like it. Still, "Caroline, Or Change" is a novel show -- memoir, opera and social commentary all at once. It should not be missed.

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"Caroline, Or Change"
Theatreworks Production
Mountain View Center for Performing Arts
500 Castro Street, Mountain View CA
Tue-Sun through April 17
$25-$61

"The Government Inspector": ☼ ☼ ☼ baub

It's very funny, it's timely and it's only 172 years old. Nikolai Gogol's "The Government Inspector" is a satire on government, the relationship between the distant capital and the heartland, and a study of what can happen to good judgement when bureaucrats are afraid of getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Don't judge the production by the first fifteen minutes, which, with all its topsy turvy sets and slapstick dialogue seems staged and artificial; once Gregory Wallace hits the stage as the most fortunate Khlestakov, we are all in for a wild ride which does not diminish until the final curtain. Khlestakov is a petty bureaucrat from the national capital of Petersburg who has stopped in a small town for the night, on his way to a neighboring village where he can beg his father for more money. But he cannot leave the inn because he has run out of funds to pay the bill.

It just so happens that at that moment the Mayor of the town (Graham Beckel) has heard that a very important government inspector is on his way to the town. That inspector will uncover all the dirty doings of the town's leaders, unless these leaders can manage to bribe him with praise, favors and plenty of cash. Once Khlestakov is mistaken for the inspector...off we go.



RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ baub

The San Francisco Theater blog Awards Division awards "The Government Inspector" a star and a half for Gregory Wallace, all by himself. We have enjoyed him in many previous roles, but as Khlestakov Wallace allows us to watch his entire transformation from debt-ridden fey dandy from the big city to a big-enough fish in a small, slightly polluted pond. Once he discovers there is ample money and praise available, he is more than happy to swim out to get it.

Another half a star goes out for Graham Beckel's Mayor. He walks, talks and philosophizes a little too much like Tevye, but he earns half a star for reminding us we are not watching Fiddler on the Roof. There is no nostalgia for a lost world here, only the rude realization that life is not so different in the new world as in the old.



A half star is for Beaver Bauer's voluminous coats -- sometimes you're not sure there's an actor in there, just a coat, a hat and klunky boots; the last half star is for the priceless bribery scene, where all the big wigs in town line up to pay off the man they think is the inspector. How did Gogol know so much about us, anyway?

We must add one Bauble of Despair: the Snore of Death that continues during the entire intermission. Maybe that's why they decided to serve shots of vodka in the lobby. Turn it down, please, or you'd better keep pouring the vodka.

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The Government Inspector
American Conservatory Theater
405 Geary Street, San Francisco
Tue-Sun through April 20; $17-$82

"Tragedy: A Tragedy: " ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

The sun has gone down. Night has fallen. The Local Channel Three News Team is on location, attempting to cover the story. "We're staying on top of things, trying to get to the bottom of things," says news anchor Frank in the Studio, played to perfection by David Cromwell. He seems to be wearing Walter Cronkite's shirt.



Frank is communicating by telephone with Constance (Marquerite Stimpson), who is standing in front of a house where no one is home, trying to cull some meaning from the fact that it is dark outside and getting darker. "Whenever something happens, something does," she says.



Also on the story is John in the Field (Thomas Jay Ryan), who gets to mouth most of the show's best philosophical zingers. He appears to be having a stroke, but that doesn't stop Frank from asking: "Any thoughts, John?" "Not really."


The last field reporter is legal analyst Michael, played John Stewart Show-like by Max Gordon Moore. He mostly reports from the steps of city hall where he reads dispatches from the Governor. Those hand-written dispatches get crazier and crazier until the Governor abdicates his office by crawling out the window and sliding down a drainpipe ("Thank you for your confidence, which I will now betray.").

On the surface, Will Eno's "Tragedy: a Tragedy" is a satire on the vapidity of TV News, but that's just the funny part. The real issue is that there is no story to cover, which reveals how empty all the reporters' lives (and all of ours?) are. The longer these poor souls doggedly attempt to pull some meaning out of the fact that night has fallen, the more deeply they sink into their own personal angst.



Remember: "Tragedy: A Tragedy" is not a tragedy. It's a comedy, but it's carrying a knife. John in the field has the final say. Stumped for anything else to report, he decides to recite the alphabet: "A-B-C-D-E-F-G---but you all know how that turns out."

RATINGS: "Tragedy: A Tragedy" ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Tragedy: A Tragedy" a star for Will Eno's vision, another star for Antje Ellermann's very cool set, and a star for all the belly laughs. Belly laughs are worth a star all by themselves, even when you're the only one laughing. There are too many wonderful lines to single them all out, but a special BANGLE of Praise is awarded for the way John in the Field, blood running from his nose, sums up everyone's situation: "Why was I born to stand outside talking about people inside?"

And now, from a chair in an office somewhere in a dank writer's cavern in central San Francisco, this is me, with a message of hope for my readers: "Be brave. Go out and Loot."

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"Tragedy: A Tragedy"
Berkeley Repertory Theater, Thrust Stage
2025 Addison Street, Berkeley
Tue-Sun. through April 13; $33-$69

"Coronado": ☼ ☼ 1/2 BANG baub

So, you're saying that he...wait a minute, you mean the diamond was...hold on, Gwen and Gina were, stop, whose mother?

Dennis Lehane's "Coronado" is a play that you don't decipher until you're halfway home, and only if you live a good distance from SF Playhouse. On the surface, you've got three different stories taking place in a country bar dominated by a Budweiser sign. First to the stage are the two hot lovers ("I could spread you on a cracker and eat you whole"), soon to be joined by her husband.



Then we meet the more mature couple, one of whom is hot to trot and the other is her shrink...



Finally we run into the father and son who not only despise each other but are about to divulge a nasty little family secret.



Thus endeth Act One. Something is brewing: it's hard to say what. But it doesn't take more than a few minutes into Act Two to realize these three stories are not unrelated, and, in fact, in only a few minutes...well that's all we're going to say about the plot. If you're not sure what happens, ask your wife in the car.

Walking out of the theater, one audience member said: "God! That was so dark!" Well, it is, but it's also a fascinating exercise on playing with time. No one who saw Sean Penn in Lehane's "Mystic River" could be surpised by depressing characters; still, it has to be said that each of the nine actors in the cast are damned to Hell before they leave the green room. Nobody deserves to be saved; that anyone survives by the final curtain is probably only because Lehane ran out of printer paper.

Especially noteworthy in the cast are Chad Deverman as young Bobby, who plays him with a vulnerable scowl; Stacy Ross as older Gina, world-weary but with a reason, as we come to find out; and Will Springhorn, Junior, who changes from callow recipient of sexual favors to someone whose nastiness almost starts to make sense. Too bad his character ends up in the bottom of the, well, you know.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ 1/2 BANG baub

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Coronado" one entire star for not spoon feeding the audience, even when a little spoon or a tiny straw poking up out of the muck might have been helpful; one star for the way director Susi Damilano has managed to integrate three complex stories on a small stage; and an extra half star for the one truism voiced by author Lehane in the mouth of older Gina: "Without sacrifice, all we have is infatuation." Think about that one for a second.

One Bangle of Praise is awarded for the convincing way Springhorn turns to young Gina and says "Let's Kill Him." It sounds reasonable to us too. There is one Bauble of Despair also: how in the world does Bobby convince his bad-ass Papa to climb into the grave, holding nothing other than a knife the size of a Swiss Army Hangnail Clipper?

Two and a half stars BANG baub for "Coronado," and if it were a series we'd tune in for the next episode.

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"Coronado"
San Francisco Playhouse
533 Sutter Street San Francisco
Wed.-Sat. $38