City Lights: Alabama Story

Left to right: Karen DeHart, Steve Lambert, Erik Gandolfi. Photo courtesy Taylor Sanders and CLTC.

Kenneth Jones’ Alabama Story is in many ways the second coming of the classic play Inherit The Wind: A heartwarming narrative, based on a true story, about reason and togetherness emerging victorious over the evils of hate in a Deep South town. City Lights’ San Jose production, a West Coast premiere, is a play as uplifting as the children’s book about which it is written.

Alabama Story’s most overt theme is racial integration and the fight over a children’s book that – at least according to Alabama’s white supremacist element – implicitly supported interracial marriage. The burgeoning Civil Rights movement and the actions of early protesters like Rosa Parks drives much of the action of the play. However, existing alongside the play’s message of tolerance is a subtler theme of the power of literature to touch anyone’s heart. The main character, veteran librarian Emily Reed (Karen DeHart), defends The Rabbits’ Wedding on the basis that books shouldn’t be censored. Even the antagonist, segregationist senator E.W. Higgins (Erik Gandolfi), continues to fund the library during the fight out of a childhood love of Tom Sawyer. Books in Alabama Story are the most important ideological boundary, and nobody in the play disrespects the boundary enough to truly step over it.

City Lights’ cast brings the play to life. Gandolfi’s E.W. Higgins is the very picture of a Southern politician, employing a stentorian voice, Sunday morning delivery, and a passive-aggressive method of enforcing his will. DeHart’s Reed, on the other hand, stands opposite in every way: She displays a powerful inner strength while remaining humble and neutral. This emphasizes the clash not only between these characters’ values, but how they fight for them. Steve Lambert takes on a variety of roles, but the best is the elderly politician Bobby Crone, which he portrays with a mix of practicality and force of will. Jeremy Ryan plays Reed’s charming assistant Thomas Franklin with innocence, charm, and well-meaning righteous anger. Meanwhile, Bezachin Jifar and Maria Giere Marquis portray star-crossed lovers Joshua and Lily; their chemistry is evident whether they’re sharing small talk or reckoning the reality of a Jim Crow South.   

While some plays benefit from a wild technical approach, the design team of Alabama Story wisely knew when to experiment and when not to. Standing out most is scenic designer Ron Gasparinetti’s proscenium archway of book-shaped projector screens: Though they’re noticeable while the audience gets settled and awaits the show, it’s employed subtly so it doesn’t draw focus away from the actors. The tiered floor of the set also serves, along with Mia Kumamoto’s insightful, economic lighting work, to define the multiple plotlines that run simultaneously during the show.

Alabama Story at City Lights is a comforting tale of the triumph of knowledge over ignorance and a future classic. Lovers of Twelve Angry Men and, as mentioned, Inherit the Wind, will especially enjoy the play’s timeless themes and well-defined characters.

Theatreworks: The Prince of Egypt

Left to right: Jason Gotay, Diluckshan Jeyaratnam. Photo courtesy Kevin Berne and TheatreWorks.

Dreamworks’ 1998 movie The Prince of Egypt, an adaptation of the story of Exodus, thrilled audiences with its superb animation and Stephen Schwartz-composed music. The film’s lynchpin song, “When You Believe,” won Schwartz an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Theatreworks’ world premiere adaptation, directed by Scott Schwartz and featuring a selection of new music, translates the majesty of the original work in a way that can only be expressed on the stage.

Central to the work are Moses (Diluckshan Jeyaratnam) and his brother Ramses (Jason Gotay), crown prince of Egypt. Jeyaratnam’s Moses is mischievous, emotional, and tormented by the actions he has to take as God’s chosen one. This human interpretation of Moses is an interesting departure from the Moses-as-inscrutable-prophet version in the public perception. Meanwhile, Gotay portrays Ramses not as a force of evil, but a pitiful figure crushed by the expectations held of him. Though he is responsible for the continual enslavement of the Hebrews, it stems more from weakness than malice. Ramses’ confrontation with Moses is as inevitable as it was in Exodus, but in this production, Gotay gives us a sense of tragedy on both sides.

The rest of the cast delivers equally stellar performances. Brennyn Lark’s Tzipporah ventures into romance with Moses without losing the fiery independence at the core of her character. Tom Nelis approaches the role of old pharaoh Seti like one would approach Shakespeare’s Caesar, weighing down the younger characters with his gravitas even after his death. High priest Hotep (Will Mann) is elevated from a goofy minor antagonist in the film to a force of authority responsible for many of Ramses’ worst decisions; Mann’s balance of sinister power and cartoony outrage is perfect for the role.

The songs in the musical are a combination of the award-winning soundtrack from the movie and new work made specifically for the stage adaptation. The opening song “Deliver Us” retains its overwhelming grandeur, setting the stage for the great scope of the story as a whole. Moses’ new song “Footprints on the Sand” prefaces his journey through his desire to accomplish something meaningful, not just to live in luxury. “One of Us”, another new number at the beginning of the second act, uses a jaunty tune and fun rhymes to lighten the mood before the Exodus truly begins.

Because the movie made frequent use of expensive artistic elements, one would expect the stage adaptation to do the same. Instead, the technical elements are restrained, making use of minimal props and sets to tell its story. Much of the musical’s visual aesthetic is created through the work of choreographer Sean Cheeseman; a talented ensemble uses dance to construct such set pieces as the wall of an Egyptian palace or the fire through which God speaks to Moses. What can’t be represented through human motion is created through Shawn Sagady’s projection work or set designer Kevin Depinet’s multipurpose stone blocks. This technical work avoids the long shadow created by the musical’s predecessor, creating a visual spectacle that can only be achieved by live theatre.

The Prince of Egypt at Theatreworks is more of a reinterpretation of both the original film and the story of Exodus than a retelling. Not only are the structure and characterization different, but even major story components like Ramses drowning in the Red Sea are changed. Even if you’ve seen the film, the stage adaptation creates a fresh perspective through a talented cast delivering new takes on familiar characters and a visual style that makes use of the theatre’s ability to represent through movement.

San Leandro Players: Arsenic and Old Lace

Left to right: James Michael Gregory, Maya Rath, Paul Petersen. Photo courtesy San Leandro Players.

As one of the quintessential American comedies, Arsenic and Old Lace, with its blend of macabre humor and farce, withstands the test of time and remains hilarious to this day. As the San Leandro Players navigate this play, the small, gutsy company uses its intimate space to bring the physical humor out into the audience.

The headlining characters of the show are Abby and Martha Brewster (played by Jessi Lee and Terry Guillory, respectively), a pair of aunts who delight in euthanizing lonely old men with poisoned wine. The pair functions as a two-person comedy unit that charms the audience despite their deadly hobby. Lee and Guillory shine as the Brewsters through a combination of neighborly charm, well-meaning nosiness, and naiveté over their crimes.

Many other characters add to the over-the-top nonsense of Arsenic and Old Lace. Robyn Werk towers over early scenes as Teddy “Roosevelt” Brewster: Her mixture of childish glee and faux-Presidential outrage generates an entertaining performance. Contributing genuine danger to the play are Boris Karloff lookalike Jonathan Brewster (Paul Pedersen) and his partner-in-crime Dr. Einstein (Maya Rath). Pedersen does a great job channeling Karloff’s sinister horror work as he menaces the rest of the cast, while Rath lends a surprising amount of empathy to an ostensibly insane plastic surgeon.

The San Leandro Players also do an interesting job in implementing the play’s foils –serious characters with no real quirks that exist to react to the others’ wackiness. James Paul Gregory plays the story’s ostensible protagonist, Mortimer; he is the standard model of foil that attempts to control the increasingly ludicrous antics of the play. Gregory manifests his role with splendid physical comedy work, leaping maniacally from set piece to set piece. Meanwhile, love interest Elaine (Natalie Moisa) serves as a foil to the foil: As she has no idea what’s happening, even Mortimer’s actions seem ridiculous to her. Moisa’s interpretation is charged with a justifiable impatience; the dual foils provide a fascinatingly multilayered style of comedy not seen in most farces.

Michael Guillory’s set work is standard for the play – the aunts’ old-fashioned house, with doors aplenty for farcical antics – but it not only accommodates, but takes advantage of, the limitations of the San Leandro Players’ stage, which is very narrow and close to the audience. Objects like the corpse-storing window seat are placed at a diagonal, giving the actors more room to maneuver. Some set pieces are actually in front of the stage, so the action merges into the audience. Director Mark O’Neill extends the action across the horizontally oriented space, maintaining the actors’ visibility.

San Leandro Players’ production of Arsenic and Old Lace does justice to the evergreen American classic. The morbid jokes and slapstick comedy are just as funny as they were when the play premiered nearly 80 years ago, and the ensemble cast lends energy and talent to Joseph Kesselring’s script.

Note: Natalie Moisa, who portrayed Elaine in this production, is a personal friend.

Arsenic and Old Lace runs until August 13th.

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Theatreworks: Hershey Felder, Beethoven

Hershey Felder. Photo courtesy Christopher Ash.

Ludwig van Beethoven has left perhaps the largest legacy of any classical musician, with such seminal works as Für Elise, Moonlight Sonata, and the famous “Da-da-da-DUN” of his Fifth Symphony. And yet we mostly see Beethoven as a marble bust upon a shelf, a machine who created beautiful music, instead of the flawed, tormented human he really was. Pianist/actor/playwright Hershey Felder illustrates the struggle between joy and misery within the composer in his one-man show Hershey Felder, Beethoven, which brings to life a person whom most of us have known only as a distant legend.

Hershey Felder, Beethoven is not approached from Beethoven’s perspective: Perhaps Felder thought an outside look would better illustrate Beethoven’s complexities, or that Beethoven’s inner struggles were too complicated to be retold truthfully from his view. What we get instead is fragments of Beethoven’s life, death, and struggle with deafness, from the perspective of Gerhard von Breuning, his former caretaker. This framing is a more honest way of discussing a historical figure about whom little is known; the audience leaves the theatre still asking questions that may never be answered.

Felder’s acting dwells at two extremes: His portrayal of von Breuning is clipped and composed, calmly asking the audience to hear his side, while his portrayal of Beethoven is wild, driven to paroxysms of joy and rage. We don’t get tired of either character because Felder switches between them so often, and, in fact, discover new facets of their personalities every time we return to them. Other incidental characters, such as the point-of-view character’s father, are portrayed with delicacy and nuance.

Unlike most one-person shows, Hershey Felder, Beethoven is interspersed with Felder’s emotionally charged piano performances of some of Beethoven’s best-known work. This is vital for the performance, as it shows, not tells, the sheer impact of the music and allows us to experience for ourselves its timeless power. Interspersed between the music, Felder points out Beethoven’s love for composing in C minor, Beethoven’s melody speaking to us above the rhythmic base in the Moonlight Sonata, and many other insights into Beethoven’s legacy, which allows us to appreciate his music on a higher level.

Hershey Felder, Beethoven is a glimpse into what little we know of one of the greatest, most complex musicians in Western history. Knowing Beethoven’s flaws doesn’t bring him down to earth, but instead gives us more insight into a composer who, while fraught with despair and rage, was nevertheless able to produce works of tremendous beauty. Even for those with only a passing familiarity with Beethoven and his works, this one-person show will bring tears to your eyes.

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Palo Alto Players: The Diary of Anne Frank

Left to right: Vic Prosak and Roneet Aliza Rahamim. Photo courtesy Joyce Goldschmid and Palo Alto Players.

When the world of the Allies reeled from the discovery of the horrors committed by the Nazis, it was difficult for many people, especially those without personal connections, to process the meaning of what occurred during the Holocaust. Anne Frank’s diary, discovered after the war, allowed insight into the lives of the millions of victims of Hitler’s atrocities and remains a classic of historical literature to this day, with several stage and film adaptations. Palo Alto Players’ version, based on the 1997 script by Wendy Kesselman, brings to life the personalities and trials of the people in hiding in a small annex in Amsterdam.

Through her diary, Anne Frank put a face on the victims of the Holocaust as an ordinary girl surviving under extraordinary circumstances. In a theatrical adaptation, the actress portraying her must balance the innocence of a middle school girl with the desperation of someone forced into hiding. Roneet Aliza Rahamim’s rendition achieves this balance: She begins the play excited and adventurous, and although she becomes more distraught as her circumstances turn grim, she never loses the positivity and hope that lie at the core of her character.

Another standout performance in the play is Vic Prosak as Anne’s father, Otto. Prosak has a deep, powerful voice, which lends authority to his attempts to maintain peace among the members of the annex. Otto feels a profound sadness about the group’s situation as he watches his children grow up under Nazi persecution; he expresses his protectiveness through unfailing diplomacy yet rigorous adherence to the stringent rules dictated by extreme circumstances. It is Otto who gives the final monologue detailing the horrific fates of the rest of the annex group, and the sorrow and rage in his telling is palpable.

As their living situation becomes more desperate over the course of the play, the group wears down, each member reacting to the deteriorating situation according to their own idiosyncrasies. Most obvious is the dentist Mr. Dussel (Tom Bleecker), whose irritable personality is a source of humor in the play’s lighter moments, but, over time, becomes genuinely angry. The Van Daans (Shawn Bender and Rachel Michelberg) show perhaps the most dramatic transformation, as their refinement crumbles under the face of a dwindling supply of money. However, despite the increasing deprivation and tension, human decency and empathy survive, even during the terrifying moments when the Nazis arrive.

Kuo-Hao Lo’s set captures the confined space of the annex while providing a reasonable amount of room for the drama to unfold. Skylights at the top of the stage let in a sliver of cool light, hinting at the outbreak of the war in Nazi-occupied Holland, but not giving the audience – or the members of the annex – quite enough information. Rooms are set up so beds don’t occupy too much of the audience’s visual space; this gives the actors room to perform, while still conveying a cramped living area too small for its occupants.

Many people have read The Diary of Anne Frank at some point in their lives, but Palo Alto Players’ stage adaptation further captures the point of reading the book – understanding the story of those who lost their lives during the Holocaust. More than simply a documentary about genocide, the play allows us to sympathize directly with a handful of people whose lives were destroyed. For those who want to further know the life of people hiding desperately from a government intent on exterminating them, Anne Frank provides profound insight.