"The Happy Ones" ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

Liam Craig is a great actor. He plays Walter Wells as if he has climbed inside his skin. At the start of the play, Wells proclaims that he, his wife and two kids, and his close friend Reverend Gary Stuart (Gabriel Marin) have the perfect lives. These Southern Californians are indeed the happy ones. But then the phone rings and Walter's world is turned upside down. For the rest of the play we see him attempting to climb out of an enormous emotional hole and he goes about it with class. Craig and author Julie Marie Myatt give Walter what we almost never see anymore -- a suburbanite with a soul. Walter's life has been challenged, but he is determined to get through it on terms that he and we can applaud.

Gabe Marin's Gary is the world's worst clergyman and he knows it. The pastor of the Universalist Unitarian Church, he is a wandering soul fatally attracted to divorcee Mary-Ellen Hughes (Marcia Pizzo). Gary and Mary-Ellen try to comfort Walter, but their efforts are as clumsy as everyone else's. We can safely tell you there is death involved, but this is not a story about death. When they wheel in Bao Ngo, played by the amazing Jomar Tagatac, a touching story begins, where anguish and mistrust lead slowly to friendship.

We cannot give Tagatac enough credit. His suffering has enveloped him, but he maintains a restraint that would, with a lesser actor, come across as unreal. Liam Craig's character drives the show, but Bao Ngo is the one we cannot forget.

Director Jonathan Moscone, and Scenic Designer Erik Flatmo have developed a pinpoint choreography with the stage crew to make many scene and prop changes occur flawlessly on the Magic's small stage. It's like a show within a show -- and they have to do it with the lights out.

There are memorable quotes, but they're all spoilers so we're not going to give you any. "The Happy Ones" is one of the best shows we've seen this year and you won't want to miss it.

RATINGS: ☼  ☼  ☼  ☼
The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "The Happy Ones" Four Stars. Acting, Directing, Staging and Writing all merit a full star each. We love how the plot turns with a big surprise in Act One, and we then set out on a great ride through to the end of Act Two, when the author pays us off and thanks us for our efforts.

It is also nice, as Producing Artistic Loretta Greco says at the outset, to have "a strange thing happen in the middle of the play: people get up and leave the theater. This is called an intermission." Intermissions are becoming as rare as lengthy attention spans in today's theater, often with good reason. Not here. We've got a lot to think about.

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"The Happy Ones"
The Magic Theatre, San Francisco
Fort Mason Center
Building D, Third Floor
Through April 21
$22-$62

"Reasons to Be Pretty" ☼ ☼ ☼

Lauren English (Steph) has The Stare. Greg (Craig Marker) can't stand up to it. Few can.

At the same time, one of Kurt Vonnegut's rules for writing good short stories is to always give your reader at least one character to root for. Perhaps this is the heart of our problem with Neil LaBute's "Reasons to Be Pretty." The Stare notwithstanding, LaBute has not given us anyone we feel like cheering.

The four person ensemble works hard. Steph and Kent (Patrick Russell) get to throw spectacular temper tantrums. In fact, Steph does it twice.

But we are asked to make sense out of her nuclear meltdown anger at her boy friend Greg for saying something that appears to have been, at worst, a silly comment by a silly boy. We are asked to have sympathy for Steph's friend Carly, the security guard (Jennifer Stuckert), who is a uniformed and uninformed shrew. Most of all, we have to keep putting off our strong desire to grasp Greg by his shoulders and shake him until he lets the air out of Kent's tires and change cities. 

In the terrific "Fat Pig," another work in LaBute's trilogy that deals with human foibles about personal beauty, we saw something vicious and uncomfortable. The author was angry. Here, though we like the acting and director Susi Damilano paces the show well, LaBute feels distant. Instead of venting he is lampooning.

FULL DISCLOSURE: A man is writing this column. He may be clueless. His wife thinks so. She says she knows why Steph reacts as strongly as she does. This puts her husband in a difficult position. He says he would never say something as stupid as what Greg said about Steph. He gets The Stare.

RATINGS: ☼  ☼  ☼

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Reasons to Be Pretty" Three Stars. It's all in the writing -- we want to know sooner why Steph goes so over the top, which is crucial to liking or being confused by the show. We have no idea until the end, and the final scene lasts a long time.

Bill English's set is spectacular -- you walk into the theater and run right into the wall of a giant white lunchroom. The new roundabout (a gift, by the way, from Berkeley Rep and "Chinglish") makes the set and some sharply executed scene changes possible. The production is a treat to watch.
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"Reasons to Be Pretty"
San Francisco Playhouse
450 Post Street (second floor of Kensington Park Hotel)
San Francisco
Through 5/11/13
$30-$70

"The Mountaintop" ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

Mmmm hmmm hmmm! After seeing the regional premiere of Katori Hall's brilliant "The Mountaintop," which runs at the Lucie Stern through April 7, we are asked not to divulge the secret which takes a lighthearted, humorous story and turns it into something you will not be able to stop talking about.

In that top photo you are looking at Martin Luther King (played by Adrian Roberts), standing at the door of Room 206 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, and the hotel's service employee Camae (Simone Missick), on her first night on the job, who has been sent up to bring Dr. King a cup of coffee.

Innocent enough. Dr. King wonders what has happened to his associate Ralph Abernathy, who has been sent to bring back a pack of cigarettes. Great sexual tension develops between Martin and Camae, enough that you are quite certain that this story will end up in one of those two motel beds.

Mmmm hmmm hmmm! Well, now.

Part of the tremendous power of this show revolves around us understanding what fate will befall Dr. King the next day, which means the author is free to dwell on historical backstories that we sometimes forget, such as the struggle between the violent and nonviolent wings of the civil rights movement, as well as the view that Dr. King had come to represent a more upper class of African American, while the down-home common man was far more ready to fight than talk.

When this show opened in New York, the leads were played by none other than Samuel Jackson and Angela Bassett. But the show got lukewarm reviews. Seeing Roberts and Missick, you wonder how these two parts could possibly be played any better. Missick, especially, is a show stopper. The ending -- well, we've said all we are allowed to, except this: please do not miss "The Mountaintop."

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "The Mountaintop" Four Stars. The two-person ensemble wins two of them, Anthony J. Haney's perfect direction wins another (We are already Haney fans, going back to his direction of Lynn Nottage's "Intimate Apparel"), and of course playwright Hall earns the fourth. When Dr. King says "...they hate so easily and we love too much..." we are both saddened and reminded of how far we've come and how high that mountaintop remains.

"The Mountain Top"
Lucie Stern Theater
1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto
Through April 7
$23-$73








Photo credit: T. Martin and M. Kitaoka

Kurt Bodden's "Steve Seabrook: Better than You" ☼ ☼ ☼

Kurt Bodden is the real-live actor and writer who becomes the self-absorbed Steve Seabrook, self-help guru, for 70 minutes a night. "Better Than You" is the name of Seabrook's would-be franchise, which currently includes workshops, bottled water and golf tips. Bodden must be more familiar than he would want us to know with the actualization industry.

We see two Seabrooks, one with the lights on speaking to his audience: "You can have everything you've ever wanted with very little effort!" and one backstage during breaks, where we see his inner confusions. Christopher Meyer's light changes help us identify which mode Seabrook is in, though the real tipoff is Steve Seabrook's heaven-inspired smile.

We know that smile. It makes us cringe. But it also feels real.

This may be the gorilla in "Better Than You"'s room -- Kurt Bodden is really good, but Steve Seabrook's seminar is not particularly convincing. We never see why anyone would pay $1147 for a weekend with this vacant man -- he doesn't give anyone a thing. Perhaps this is the point -- that these classes are worthless -- but it feels as if Bodden is searching for something deeper. Perhaps this could be driven home better with some kind of interaction with a fictional workshop participant? We would pay to see Kurt Bodden, because he is a terrific physical comedian, but we'd demand our money back in an instant from Steve Seabrook.

There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Our favorites are the paper boy and the dog story, and Seabrook's admonition to his class: "I have good news and bad news for you. People who are more successful than you are no better than you. That's the good news. The bad news is that people who are no better than you are more successful than you are."

He'll make you squirm, and that's good. Steve Seabrook right now is, down deep, a good guy. He probably could be a little less decent to start out, so we could watch him, along with his class, discover the "Little U in You."

RATINGS: ☼  ☼  ☼
The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Steve Seabrook: Better than You" Three Stars. Kurt Bodden gives you a fun evening and you don't have to spend $1147 to get it.

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Kurt Bodden's "Steve Seabrook: Better than You"

The Marsh
1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco

Friday and Saturday through March 30

$15-$35

"The Motherf#@ker with the Hat" ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG! BANG!

Stephen Adly Guirgis's "The Motherf#@ker with the Hat" is not only brilliant, it is motherf#@king hysterical. From Victoria and Jackie's first embrace, through 95 minutes of verbal and emotional mayhem, all the way down to Victoria's last heartrending sigh as she sits alone on her bed listening to Lionel Richie, we are catapulted into the world of five desperate people whose lives, amazingly, end up mattering a great deal to us.

How good is the cast of five? The audience cheered at the end of every single scene, that's how good.

Victoria is played by Isabelle Ortega, channeling Rosie Perez but only on the surface. With all her bravado, she's worried about her life. Her boyfriend, Jackie, is played by Gabriel Marin in a performance that seams together the best parts of all his past roles as a big, loveable doofus who cannot ever get out of his own way. It's a dream role for this marvelous actor, but then you meet Ralph, Jackie's AA sponsor, played by Carl Lumbly. Ralph might actually BE the owner of that motherf#@king hat, we're not sayin' so one way or the other, but, regardless, he surely is one righteously bad drug counselor.

Then there is Ralph's totally fed-up wife (Margo Hall ), no shrinking violet herself, and let's not even THINK about overlooking cousin Julio (Rudy Guerrero) who delivers the play's most memorable line as he links over to Fat Tessio in the Godfather ("...leave the gun. Take the empanada.")

There are so many lessons to be learned from this show. One, if you want to be a writer and you're going over the top, don't test the waters with your playwright's toe, motherf#@king jump in.

Two, if you want to be a great director, follow Bill English's advice: cast these five actors.

Three, if you want a successful show, start with a memorable #@ing title. 

From the audience's point of view, there's only one lesson here; do not miss this fabulous show.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG! BANG!

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division would have no problem whatsoever awarding "The Motherf#@ker with the Hat" its highest rating of Five Stars. But you can't have Five Stars along with BANGLES OF PRAISE. That would be like Santa Claus acquiring the Easter Bunny. It doesn't make sense.

So we are awarding Four Stars with Two BANGLES. This is very high praise and does not even include the miracle of finding a parking spot right on Powell Street only a few hundred feet from the theater.

The first ☼ is for the principals Ortega, Marin and Lumbly, with a second ☼ for Hall and Guerrero who do what supporting characters are not supposed to do: steal the show every chance they get. A third ☼ is for English's set design and precision lighting by Jordan Puckett, and a fourth ☼ for Guirgis's superb plot and dialogue.

As for BANGLES OF PRAISE, the first is for Ralph's commentary about friendship: "...anyone you meet before age 25? That's a friend. Anyone after that? That's an associate." How sadly true this is.

The second BANGLE is for Jackie's description about being in love with Victoria. We won't spoil it here, but it involves Jackie's genitals and Godzilla.

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"The Motherf#@ker with the Hat"

San Francisco Playhouse

450 Post St. (Second floor of Kensington Park Hotel)

San Francisco

Through March 16

$30-$70

"Our Practical Heaven" ☼ ☼ ☼ ?

In this Aurora Theater World Premiere of Anthony Clarvoe's "Our Practical Heaven," six women meet at the family getaway spot, a house on a beach somewhere on the East Coast. It is located where rising seas will before too long bury the property under water. This is the metaphor for the relationships between all six women, as tides shift, moons rise and relationships ebb and flow.

Our matriarch is Vera (Joy Carlin), who is clearly the family's guiding light. Her counterpart is the youngest member present, grand-daughter Leez (Adrienne Walters). Just finishing high school, Leez bonds with Vera as they are the two without best friends. Sasha (Anne Darragh) and Willa (Julia Brothers) are long time friends and "honorary sisters," as are Magz (Lauren Spencer) and Suze (Blythe Foster). Magz is Willa's daughter, Suze is Sasha's daughter from a first marriage and Leez is Sasha's daughter from the marriage that is breaking up now.

It's a World Premiere, after all, so Act One is still a little long. Though written by a man (who originally included several male characters but they have all been eliminated in this final version), "Heaven" may be what we call, with some trepidation, a "woman's show." Act One sets up all the shifting alliances and betrayals and on-again off-again turf squabbles between the six women. There is a lot of talk which doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but in Act Two the payoff arrives, in the form of Willa's attempts to save the property in the form of a refuge, which has several intended and unintended consequences. In the end, it is time for the older generation to hand the ball to the younger.

One interesting touch to the play is that the three young women are constantly texting each other, and the texts appear on screens surrounding the stage. The older women communicate with long, convoluted heart-rendering monologues and the younger women with "Where r u?" and "R u up?"

For us, the wonderful Joy Carlin may be a bit miscast here -- she is supposed to be weak and distraught, but it is not easy to even write "weak" and "Joy Carlin" in the same sentence.

Everybody has issues. Magz has pain issues. Suze has recognition issues. Daughters have issues with moms, moms with daughters. There are some sexual identity issues hinted at, as well as the larger themes of birdwatching and global warming, but these are minor. Clarvoe is talking about growing older and wiser, being faced with the unavoidable loss of your piece of paradise, and then sitting back on the sofa and letting the oceans rise.

RATINGS: ☼  ☼  ☼ ?

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards division awards "Our Practical Heaven" Three Stars with a Question Mark. One star is for the actors, particularly Julia Brothers, Anne Darragh and Adrienne Walters, though all six women have strong roles. A second star is for the concept -- the passing of time as evidenced by rising seas and lowering expectations. The third is because as this show gathers itself we believe there will be less talk and a little more walk. Each character must find her own self, instead of being simply part of an ensemble. This is particularly true for Suze and Magz, who are on different paths that we want to know more about.

The question mark is only for the title. What does "Our Practical Heaven" mean, anyway? We're sure Clarvoe can fish up something without the word "practical."
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"Our Practical Heaven"
Aurora Theatre
2081 Addison Street, Berkeley
Through March 3
$32-$50

"Se Llama Cristina" ☼ ☼ ☼ ?

Octavio Solis's "Se Llama Cristina" is a fascinating piece of playwriting without chronology. The audience is left to guess if what is happening on the stage is real, or a dream, or a fantasy, or happened already or will happen in the future. It is one of those pieces that critics love, because it has a lot of funny lines and is unlike other shows, but it is also gimmicky, and confusing -- not the kind of thing audiences usually take to quickly.

Sarah Nina Hayon and Sean San José wake out of a fog, in a cheap motel room with garbage strewn all over the floor. They seem to have been on a bender -- the bottle of Johnny Walker White Label and the needle still protruding from his arm are the clues. Also, they have no idea where they are -- they can't even remember their own names. Eventually we discover she is Vera and he is Miguel.

Rod Gnapp appears after awhile -- playing Abel, who might be Vera's husband, or her father, or even the suitor of her child, but the child might be her child or it might be her. We are big Rod Gnapp fans. He must work more than any other actor in the Bay Area, but this character with the menacing drawl is one he has done so many times it has become hard not see the actor instead of the character.

Karina Gutiérrez enters for a few minutes at the end of the show and brings some understanding to this hard-to-follow script. That she is not even listed as being in the show, because, one assumes, they have decided that we, the audience, shouldn't know whether she is real or not, is symbolic of the show-for-insiders approach author Solis and director Loretta Greco have taken with "Se Llama Cristina." 

As always, Solis has written some great lines. We loved the discussion about poetry, and the linking of undocumented aliens with poetry's undocumented words. San Franciscans will appreciate the short summary of Daly City. 

He gives us a lot to think about. But so much is unexplained, and we really aren't sure these locos make us care all that much. Is the chicken bone symbolic? Or is it just a piece of chicken? And nobody saw the baby under the chicken? 

RATINGS: ☼  ☼  ☼ ?

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Se Llama Cristina" Three Stars with a Question Mark.  The ? is for that chicken bone, part of the unexplained symbolism that diminishes the show's impact for us. On the other hand, we liked Sean San José and Sarah Nina Hayon, and Dave Maier, who did the fabulous fight choreography in "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" -- our favorite recent Rod Gnapp show -- is on hand here too. And the Santo and Johnny guitar at the end is great. Nice musical choice by sound designer Sara Huddleston.

We have seen most of Octavio Solis's shows and have enjoyed them all. We always end up rooting for his flawed characters. Perhaps, as the show moves forward, Vera and Miguel will make us care a little more.
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"Se Llama Cristina"
Magic Theatre
Building D, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
Through February 17
$22-$62