"Julius Caesar": ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

There are certainly more renowned Shakespeare Companies than Marin Shakespeare and many finer venues than the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre at Dominican University, but there can't be a nicer place in Northern California to see Shakespeare in late August. Every seat is a good one, the nights are warm and gorgeous under a million stars and the actors and staging are terrific.

Through Sept. 26 you can see Barry Kraft in the underperformed "Julius Caesar." Kraft is a Shakespeare veteran and does an admirable job, but the historical tragedy is really about the relationship between Marc Antony, the victor, and Brutus and Cassius, the conspirators. Jay Karnes gives Brutus a brooding, patrician bearing, while Jack Powell's leering smile makes Cassius every bit as evil as Shakespeare intended. Marc Antony is harder to buttonhole -- William Elsman plays him as someone who truly loved Caesar, but is every bit as anxious as the others to become the new top dog in Rome. Karnes makes us trust Brutus, though he is a conspirator; Elsman, on the other hand is a bit too smarmy. Should we like him? Should we mistrust him?

"Julius Caesar" really should be performed more. This play is like your favorite "Greatest Hits" soundtrack, with famous speech after famous speech appearing one after the other.

Marc Antony, to the Roman people as he stands over Caesar's dead body:

"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him
The evil that men do lives after them
The good is oft interred with their bones
So let it be with Caesar."

Caesar says of Cassius:

"Let me have man about me that are fat
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o'nights.
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous."

Brutus encourages his fellow generals to strike, after Caesar's death:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves
Or lose our ventures."

Marc Antony eulogizes the dead Brutus:

"This was the noblest Roman of them all
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world: "This was a man!"

The senator Casca says:

"This is all Greek to me."

The soothsayer tries to warn Caesar:

"Beware the Ides of March."

One could go on and on, because Shakespeare does. Act One is fast paced, as all the plot points are outlined and characters introduced, but Act Two becomes bogged down in offstage battles, all of which lead to the suicide of one conspirator after another. This may have been the theatrical convention in Shakespeare's time, but today it tends to drag. Act One is worth its weight in gold; Act Two just makes you appreciate Act One.

Many theater goers bring picnic hampers, or you can buy nice-smelling dinners at the amphitheatre, to take down to your seat with your rented seat cushion (nice idea: hard wooden seats). Remember, however: Shakespeare is never in a hurry. The entire show takes two and one half hours with one intermission.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Julius Caesar" Three Stars with a BANGLE of Praise. Kraft, Karnes and Powell each earn a star for their ability to make us care a lot about a play none of us appreciated in High School English; the BANGLE of PRAISE is for the overall production, sets, costumes and all those stars overhead.

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"Julius Caesar"
Forest Meadow Amphitheatre, Dominican University, San Rafael
Fri - Sun through September 26
$15-$30

"East 14th Street": ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

Of the long list of one-man and one-woman show performers that have graced the stage at the Marsh over the last several years, perhaps no one else can make their face do what Don Reed's can. The cast of characters from his early life includes his buddy Steak Face, the sage pimp Trout Mouth, Little Donny's two brothers, one a player constantly dispensing awful advice and the other the toughest kid in the neighborhood, though so gay that he embarrasses other gay people. And let's not forget his father, though with Don Reed's dad it's not the face but the voice that makes us love this man. Of course, the story is centered around little Donny himself, known throughout his childhood as "Blinkie," for obvious reasons.



East 14th St. is the coming-of-age story of little Blinkie, as he moves from one end of Oakland's East 14th St. to the other, from the middle-class home of his mother and stepfather, where knocking on doors for the Jehovah's Witnesses is a way of life, to the heart of the ghetto, where his father lives, who just happens to be an excellent and efficient pimp. That's P.I.M.P., for "Put it In My Pocket."

Donnie doesn't realize his father is a pimp at first -- "I just thought he was really into hats." But it doesn't take him too long to realize that partying is a whole lot more fun than proselytizing for Jesus.

The arc of the show is the same as many other one-person shows where a comedian is the focal point -- early childhood, joke, joke, joke, a little older, joke, joke, joke, and looking back, joke, joke, joke. The form can feel dated at this point, especially the apparently-mandatory section towards the end where the performer chokes back tears before loosing another joke or two.



Don Reed overcomes the form by being funny, by nonstop motion and some really good dance steps. His audience is younger and blacker than most Marsh shows and the material feels a little like a profane sit-com, which makes sense since Reed got his start in television.

But it's all good. "East 14th St" offers a fun evening watching a terrific performer. There isn't a lot of meat on these bones but there is still plenty to chew on. We have to agree with Don Reed's father: "Can you dig it? It can be dug by me."

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "East 14th Street" Three Stars with a BANGLE of PRAISE. The material is good, Reed is a seasoned performer who knows how to please an audience and you just have to love Steak Face. The BANGLE of PRAISE is for the really funny segment where Donny is forced by his stepdad to knock on the door of his friend Steak Face's house, on whose sister Donny has a stuttering crush. Delivering the Word was never quite this embarrassing. It's one of several excellent moments as we travel up and down East 14th Street.


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"East 14th Street"
The Marsh
1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco
Fri-Sun, through October 10
$20-$35 sliding scale

"Rick Reynolds: Mid-Life At The Oasis": ☼ ☼ BANG BANG

There's something right about Rick Reynolds -- he's a seasoned performer with a lot of humorous bits, and his show "Mid-Life at the Oasis" strikes a lot of chords with the audience. He has gone through some tough times for sure, but appears to have come out standing on his own feet.

He emotes freely about his alcoholic mother and series of defective stepfathers ("As shitty as my childhood was, it was much better then what the adults had"), about social mores ("why did women have to wise up on our watch?"), about the n-word and the c-word, about depression and love. His show peaks with a hysterically funny bit about doing a comedy show at the maximum security prison in Vacaville.

But there's something wrong too. He's got that used car salesman look in his eye. This reviewer laughed a lot but kept an eye out for the fine print, which in this case means feigned sincerity. Reynolds says he's nervous and insecure but gives no sign of it, neither in the way he moves about the stage nor in his material. He utters many homilies, and they are indisputably true, and he is able to recite, in alphabetical order, a list of 100 reasons to go on living, which probably included baby birds and cute kitties, but thinking about his show afterwards you don't feel like inviting Rick Reynolds over to meet your sister.

Here is a comedian who says his finest moment would be the headline: "Rick Reynolds Found in a Pool of Blood." This would be a big improvement over "Comedian Found in a Pool of Blood." It's a funny bit. Most of the audience loved him. You may too.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ BANG BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Rick Reynolds: Mid-Life At The Oasis" Two Stars with a BANGLE of PRAISE. It might have been three stars, if he were easier to like. Stevie Wonder has been blind for 59 years. That's tragic. Rick Reynolds is 57 and hasn't had sex for six and a half years. Big deal.

The BANGLE of PRAISE is for that amazing performer's-nightmare story about having to insult all the rapists and serial killers in the prison, just to get a laugh. In fact, let's raise it up to two BANGLES for just that bit. It's a classic, and one you'll tell your friends about.

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Rick Reynolds: Mid-Life At The Oasis
The Marsh
1062 Valencia St., San Francisco
Through August 30, Sat 5pm, Sun 7pm.
$15-$22

Yes Sweet Can: ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

Yes Sweet Can! Yes Sweet Can! Say that ten times without taking a breath while standing on one leg balancing a tea cup on your nose and you start to get an idea what this talented young four person troupe is accomplishing. They say they are a cross between circus and theater, but really it's all circus, with individual acts segueing into each other with the help of a fascinating musical track by E. O.

So what is best? The tap dancing trash cans? Matt White's 'Fly Me to the Broom?' Natasha Kaluza's hula hooping? Kerri Kresinski's tissu aerial routine? These were all fabulous, but no better than Beth Clarke's slack rope workout. It's a short show (only 50 minutes) but so much is crammed into that time that by the time they are finished, you are too.



This viewer's only niggle would be that the opening newspaper routine seems to take a long time to develop, though there are terrific moments there too, such as when all four parade slowly under the umbrella before they remove their cloaks. And clearly, judging from the publicity photos, such as the one above where only three of the performers pictured actually appeared with the troupe in concert, there is some personnel juggling going on within the company. This is natural in an industry that demands the most treacherous balancing act of all: staying alive on on a shoestring budget.

One very nice feature of the Sweet Cans is that all four performers look like real people -- no prepubescent 25-year-old Rumanian acrobats here. And because of her endlessly appealing smile, you can't take your eyes off company co-founder Beth Clarke. If there is one lesson to be learned, aside from the result of hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice, it is that a big, honest smile is the quickest distance between audience and stage. Best of all, Clarke looks like she means it.



RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards 'Yes Sweet Can' Three Stars with a BANGLE of PRAISE. It's an evening of fun, it's inexpensive, it pumps your adrenaline and you get to be in a theater, for once, where the oldest person is...well, you. The Three Stars are for the production itself, while the BANGLE of PRAISE is for the interplay of music to performance. Of course, it would be better without the Eurobabble of taped voices singing in incomprehensible languages, but it appears that circuses brought that in when they pinkslipped the elephants. They all do it; there is little of that here. E.O. plays a mean trumpet to go along with the electronic tracks. Remember: When Sour Can't, Sweet Can.

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"Yes Sweet Can"
Mission Dance Theater
3316 24th Street, San Francisco
Sat-Sun, through July 19 ONLY
$15 or Pay What You Can

SF Mime Troupe: "Too Big to Fail": ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG BANG

Comedian Jimmy Walker used to have a bit about how he loved watermelon but refused to eat it because if he did someone would be sure to stick a camera in his face and the next day that picture of a black man eating a watermelon would be on the front page of the New York Daily News with the caption: Summer's Here!

Watermelon notwithstanding, for this reviewer Summer does not begin until the Fourth of July, when the San Francisco Mime Troupe opens at Dolores Park. 2009 is the troupe's Golden Anniversary, and for each of the last fifty years they have been taking the previous year's political and cultural events, filtering them through the Mime Troupe lens of Revolution mixed with Guerrilla Theater, and presenting us with an afternoon of onstage and offstage mayhem that we talk about for the rest of the year.



This year they've outdone themselves. "Too Big To Fail" is too good not to be seen by everyone. From the queens (with names like Reina Terror and Tammy Faye Bakersfield) giving goofy dedications at the outset, to the troupe taking its well-deserved bows at the end, this show always brings out our city at its weird and wacky best.

Pat Moran's songs are funny and good, with "More Money" and "Too Big To Fail" particular standouts. The band is terrific -- Moran has that catchy West African guitar style down pat. Keiko Shimosato's shark costume (as the evil shark devours all the smaller fish, one by one) has to be seen to be believed. As always, the show is so topical it hurts. It's a carnival atmosphere and it's free. Come on. How can anyone live anywhere in the Bay Area and not go to see the Mime Troupe?



Shall we not forget to mention how classic it is to revile the plutocrats one second and then raise the rack of exorbitantly priced Mime Troupe t-shirts and banners while extorting us to buy, buy, buy?

But, hey. Nothing ever makes sense in this city and the Mime Troupe doesn't either, except that they're brilliant and caustic and hysterical. Summer's here! If you don't go see "Too Big to Fail" you're a capitalist stooge who probably doesn't even like watermelon.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Too Big to Fail" Three Stars with Two BANGLES of PRAISE. Michael Gene Sullivan (who co-wrote the show with Ellen Callas), Velina Brown and Adrian Mejia are excellent, as well as the rest of the cast: Ed Holmes (who will always be Dick Cheney to us), Lisa Hori-Garcia and BW Gonzalez. One BANGLE of PRAISE is for that surreal shark dress (all the buzz in the crowd afterwards was about that dress); and the other is for the way the troupe involves the crowd with all the obvious lines: TROUPE: What is more important? The bloated plutocrats or the PEOPLE? CROWD ROARING: "THE PEOPLE!" It's so much fun to feel like we're part of this show year after year.



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San Francisco Mime Troupe: "Too Big to Fail."
Many Bay Area and Northern California locations
Through Sept. 27
FREE! (You heard me.) FREE!

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest": ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

Dale Wasserman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was a play before it was a hugely successful hit movie - originally Kirk Douglas had Jack Nicholson's part, Gene Wilder was Billy Bibbitt and, get this, Ed Ames played The Chief.

But the film version, in 1975, not only became one of only three films in American film history to ever sweep the Big Five at the Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay), but ingrained itself firmly on our consciousness. Can a remounting of the original play possibly have the power of that movie?



It sure can! "Cuckoo's Nest" is fantastic theater, giving us glimpses into characters that were de-emphasized in the movie. We spoke to SF Playhouse Artistic Director Bill English several months ago when they were beginning to talk about doing this show and his only reservation was: "Where will we find a seven-foot tall Indian?" No problem. Michael Torres gives a magnificent reading as Chief Brombden, managing to grab our hearts as he steals the show from the rest of a fantastic cast.

Hansford Prince gives Randall McMurphy a less manic than Nicholson but equally charged performance, and while Susi Damilano has little of Louise Fletcher's Academy-Award winning evil-to-the-core nature, Damilano makes it perfectly clear that she's the boss and that's the way it's gonna be, boys. The ensemble of patients on the ward is excellent to a man and woman, especially Louis Parnell as Harding and Patrick Alarpone as the frightened Billy Bibbitt who wakes up for one joy-filled moment, which turns out to be his last. Madeline H.D. Brown is the totally trashy Candy Starr who is surprisingly wholesome (she has 'Mom and Dad' tattooed on her arm, f'Gawd's sake).



You all know the story already: the ending will be no surprise. But keep your eyes on the Chief in his brilliant and moving soliloquies. If the Hollywood movie was about McMurphy, the arc of the play is all about the Chief. Michael Torres is fantastic: he's big, very big. "Cuckoo's Nest" turns out to be the Chief's redemption story and we can't wait for him to bust out through that window.



RATINGS ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG
The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" Four Stars with a BANGLE of PRAISE. If it seems that we are handing out Four Star reviews right and left, since the new rating system went into place (see explanation on right), it is simply because this has been a memorable season for San Francisco theater. Bill English's direction and set, the excellent ensemble acting performances and the power of Ken Kesey's original novel all make it an exciting evening of theater. The show shines in an intimate setting like SF Playhouse.

And the BANGLE OF PRAISE has to be for Michael Torres. We never knew The Chief had it in him. What a performance.



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"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
San Francisco Playhouse
533 Sutter Street, San Francisco
Through Sept. 5
$40

"Mauritius": ☼ ☼ ☼

As far as Theresa Rebeck's "Mauritius" goes, the worst job in show business must belong to the stage crew at the Magic Theatre. They have only 18 minutes between acts to clean up the set that Zoe Winters has just trashed, though it took no more than three minutes for Winters to strew the stage two inches deep with the contents of her late mother's apartment. Playing Jackie, the nice stepsister, her rage is understandable, because Mary, the evil stepsister (originally played by Arwen Anderson and now by Jessica Kitchens in the show's extension), is a first-class, self-serving no-goodnik.



But Jackie is not Cinderella. Though Mary seems to be all bad, Jackie is hardly the perfect angel, especially once she realizes she is in possession of her step-grandfather's priceless stamp collection, which just happens to contain the "One Cent and Two Cent Post Office" stamps from the nation of Mauritius -- the first postage stamps ever issued.

And handsome princes are hard to find. Enter three men, all bad guys, who want those stamps. A.C.T. veteran Rod Gnapp plays the worst villain, Sterling, who maybe wants to sell those stamps or maybe just exult in having them; Philip, played by Warren David Keith, who seems to be an aging sheep but is actually a cunning wolf; and then there is Dennis. Played by James Wagner, whom we recently saw portray a particularly chilling American officer in 'Betrayed,' Dennis can't decide if he's good or bad, if he's a villain or a comedian. You can't get too mad at him because he's too vapid but you can't like him much either.

Meanwhile, James K. Faerron's set is inventive, with the actors and stage hands scurrying in the dark to make elaborate scene changes; Sara Huddleston's rock and roll sound track makes those scene changes seem like part of the show; and Sarah Sidman's lights keep our attention where it ought to be.



But does the slipper really fit? Is Mauritius a comedy, or a commentary on damaged people? Although this Magic Theatre production of Mauritius has received much well-deserved praise, for this reviewer the bad guys aren't very bad, the good girl isn't very good and the plot is telegraphed a million miles away. Maybe it was just an off night at the post office.

RATINGS ☼ ☼ ☼

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards 'Mauritius' Three Stars. Zoe Winters's Jackie is a standout role and she does her best to bounce off a less than superlative supporting cast, but for an innocent girl Jackie certainly does warm up to a little larceny. Rod Knapp's Sterling gives an excellent and soulful reading of the joy of stamp collecting, along the lines of Paul Giamatti in 'Sideways' -- a guy whose life has not turned out perfectly but who still understands what really matters.

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"Mauritius"
The Magic Theatre
Fort Mason, San Francisco
Through June 28
$40-$45