Shelley Regner and Richard Baird in "The Maltese Falcon."                                   Photo by Aaron Rumley

            North Coast Repertory Theatre’s world-premiere production of “The Maltese Falcon” written by Matthew Salazar-Thompson is a parody of the Dashiell Hammett novel and, more so, the 1941 film adaptation that starred Humphrey Bogart as San Francisco shamus Sam Spade. So to understand and appreciate what is being parodied, you’d best know one or the other.
            That doesn’t mean this animated romp directed by Todd Nielsen can’t be enjoyed strictly on the strength of its physical comedy, well-timed sound effects (thank you, Foley artist Liam Sullivan) and lots and lots of similes and metaphors. But because this production runs nearly two and a half hours with intermission (the first act alone is 75 or more minutes’ long) knowing the source material that Salazar-Thompson, Nielsen and the game cast is winking at will make the time in your seat pass more swiftly.
            Personally speaking, I know the John Huston-directed film adaptation of “The Maltese Falcon” very well, and having read the novel I also know that many of Hammett’s cleverest lines were used verbatim in that movie. (There’s also a 1930s film of “The Maltese Falcon” that admittedly I’ve never seen.) Many of those clever lines and hard-boiled aphorisms are in the NC Rep stage show, though this production still felt long to me. A little too much exposition for one thing, even if that very exposition is meta-mocked by the actors delivering it. The 1941 movie never drags and clocks in at an economical and satisfying 100 minutes.
            This stage production stars Richard Baird as Spade, and from the jump he’s having a ball with the role, never taking himself too seriously but also faithfully speaking the grittiest of the detective’s banter as written by Hammett. (Huston wrote the screenplay for the Bogart film.)
            The other actor in the proceedings who plays only one part is Shelley Regner as femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy. Her North Coast Rep debut is a big winner. She’s every bit the dangerous beauty that Mary Astor was opposite Bogie and, like Baird, she’s deft with the play’s parody of and tribute to its source material.
            A busy ensemble of Regina Fernandez, Louis Lotorto and Daniel A. Stevens handles not only the other principal parts in the mystery of the black bird (Spade’s secretary Effie, Miles Archer’s widow Iva, partners in crime Kasper Gutman and Joel Cairo, gunsel Wilmer Cook, et al) but all the stage play, pantomimes and prop manipulations that help tell the story of the dingus that Spade ultimately dubs “the stuff dreams are made of.”
            What’s most successful about this production is the cast and crew’s ingenuity in effecting a romantic and dangerous ‘30s San Francisco by simply moving a few props and partitions around. Physical touches like spray-canning fog, or creating the illusion of a moving cab or cable car, are creative and amusing. Sound design and music composed by Ian Scot give the setting the period atmosphere and noir shadings required. Sound and visual effects are also utilized to get laughs. This is, remember, a comic take on a classic.
            Here and there playwright Salazar-Thompson departs from the Hammett novel and/or Huston screenplay, and that’s as it should be. I’ve endured more than a few stage adaptations of well-known films that basically tried to reproduce them in a different medium … with dubious results.
            A staple on Turner Classic Movies and a treasured gem of film noir, the 1941 “The Maltese Falcon” flick is assured of cultural immortality. To try and duplicate it is folly. To have fun with it while respecting it at the same time, and doing so onstage, is just fine. Case closed.
            “The Maltese Falcon” runs through April 5 at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach.

 Jessica John and Francis Gercke in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"              Photo by Michael Mackie

            Edward Albee’s cynical history professor George, who in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” devises passive-aggressive “games” such as “Get the Guests” and “Hump the Hostess,” might appreciate a suggestion for a drinking game that would work like this: Every time George or his equally combative spouse Martha downs a fresh cocktail, take a shot.
            But, no, I don’t endorse drinking games; and besides, for all the booze that infuses Albee’s most famous work (now more than 60 years old), “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is not about alcoholism. At least not completely about alcoholism.
            There is poison in the 23-year marriage between the at-once sodden and incendiary George and Martha, but the more times I see Albee’s play the clearer it becomes that it’s not all contained in a bottle.
            From its beginnings a producing company that resolutely embraces emotionally explosive classic theater (“August: Osage County,” last year’s “A Streetcar Named Desire,” et al), Backyard Renaissance Theatre Co. has now taken on “Virginia Woolf.” Its artistic director Francis Gercke (who also co-directs this production with Coleman Ray Clark) and its executive director Jessica John are co-starring as George and Martha. Drew Bradford and Megan Carmitchel complete the cast as Nick and Honey, the younger marrieds who find themselves embroiled in George and Martha’s not-so-private war.
            As with its notable production of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Backyard has with “Virginia Woolf” instilled a play set decades ago with a contemporary feel. No matter that the set of George and Martha’s ‘60s New England cottage living room (accomplished in minute detail by Chad Ryan) is equipped with a typewriter, a globe and what used to be called a hi-fi. The more urgent interpersonal aspects of this long night’s journey into hell could be witnessed today: two mutually loathing – and self-loathing -- combatants in a toxic marriage emboldened by drink to perform for an unwary younger couple. It’s an atmosphere heavy with brickbats and manipulations, a domestic arena rife with baiting and flirting and hectoring. I don’t know – do “grownups” still spend evenings together boozing from a bottomless bar or is that a suburban trope of the 1960s?
            It’s Albee’s words, however, prolific of rhythm and language, searing with assault, that sustain nearly 64 years after his play bowed on Broadway. Embedded in all the recriminations and salvos of “Virginia Woolf” are expressions of regret and often cruelty that, alas, human beings have not outgrown nor risen above in the years since. Academics, as revealed here, find downright hilarious the tweaking of the child’s refrain “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?” into a literary reference, but have they ever come down from their ivory towers?
            “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” is a marathon of melodrama – three acts, three hours, two intermissions. Albee titled his acts consecutively “Fun and Games” (no subtle irony there), “Walpurgisnacht” (a nod to a folkloric gathering of witches) and “The Exorcism.” Each ends in a devastating manner. The last brings a drained sense of relief if not genuine catharsis.
            Co-directors Clark and Gercke give Albee’s exhaustive narrative lots of room while aptly emphasizing its most timely blasts and blow-ups. If there’s slack it’s in the George-and-Nick engagements, the likes of which dominate the second act. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” is most potent when George and Martha are at it; Nick and Honey are more than bystanders – they are victimized.
            As written, George has more to say than Martha does over the course of three acts, but to me she is the complex and crucial figure. The daughter of the president of the college that employs her husband, Martha’s is a misspent life marked by disappointments and delusion and festering self-destruction. As movingly portrayed by Jessica John, though, and witnessed most in the final act, there’s a frailty there that almost begs sympathy. John’s performance, reeling between coarse and broken, mirrors that of Elizabeth Taylor’s presence in the 1962 film adaptation of “Virginia Woolf” more than any Martha I’ve seen onstage.
            At the opening of the story, said to be at around 2 in the morning, a weary George claims to be not up for company at all, and ready to drop (well, maybe after a drink). As it turns out, no one in the play has more stamina than does George, and Gercke is up to the physical demands. Not only does George become a tireless spouter of taunt and invective, but he’s a prankster often in motion and, as Martha pushes his buttons all the harder, ever on attack. Gercke can get loud -- it’s startling even in a shout-fest like “Virginia Woolf” -- and his George never seems to get as drunk as John’s Martha; but then George could be working off the booze with all his manic gamesmanship.
            Drew Bradford’s is a fully realized Nick, wholly believable as an ex-jock who also has brains but is susceptible to the vicious games his host and hostess play. He holds his own and reacts with equal restraint and incredulity in his confrontations with Gercke’s bullying George. Albee’s Honey character is more substantive than she seems on the surface, and Megan Carmitchel finds that substance given her few opportunities here. She’s shown herself, at Backyard and elsewhere, to be an actor who can intuitively navigate both lead and supporting dramatic roles.
            It shouldn’t be overlooked that this staging benefits from timely intrusions of sounds designed by Kamila Nunez and intermittent music composed by Evan Hart Marsh. Costume designer Brenna Maienschein, too, has attired Martha in three different outfits, each boldly reflective of her mood, with the last in funereal black.
            Each time I see “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” I imagine afterward what George and Martha – and Nick and Honey, too – might be experiencing the next day or even a few sleep-it-off hours in the wake of this awful evening.
            Better not to think about it.
            “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” runs through March 26 at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center downtown.

Summer Broyhill (left) and Marti Gobel in "Straddle."                                                  Photo by Xingyu She

            If you look up “straddle” in a dictionary it may say something like “a gesture between two people, of intimacy or possibly of dominance.”
            The back-and-forth between those two dynamics makes for a simmering undercurrent in Diversionary Theatre’s world-premiere production of Harrison David Rivers’ “Straddle.”
            For the first 10 to 15 minutes of this one-act co-conceived and directed by Diversionary’s Sherri Eden Barber, a long-married lesbian couple, Dodie (Summer Broyhill) and Vida (Marti Gobel), go a lot further than straddling each other in a fancy hotel room. I’ve seen some explicit depictions of sexual activity onstage before, but none that I recall as explicit as this. It makes a production I saw earlier this year, the quasi-graphic staging of Adam Rapp’s “Red Light Winter” by OnWord Theatre (of which Gobel is a co-founder), look like a Disney Channel special.
            But just as two lovers’ hunger and infatuation are apt to become two marrieds’ tension and anxiety, Dodie and Vida’s fun is interrupted by the reality of having kids at home being looked after by Grandma or, more disruptive, by a veiled accusation. What took Dodie so long getting a bucket of ice for the room, Vida challenges. “Truth or truth?” is a recurring ultimatum in “Straddle.”
            For just about all of the play’s 80 minutes Dodie and Vida alternate between being physically magnetized by each other (pretty impressive after 14 years of marriage!) and being at odds. Most of the latter is incited by Vida, who seems unable to sustain the spirit of play that her wife is enjoying the hell out of.
            There’s a truce when Dodie lights up a joint and the two proceed to get high. It’s quite funny, but how many times have I seen this old device onstage?
            Nothing in “Straddle’s” first hour prepares you for its confrontational, soul-baring, truth-telling windup. The less said about it here the more it will surprise and maybe enlighten you later.
            Broyhill, who brings to mind Geena Davis, gets to play with the most comedy in “Straddle,” whether it’s ordering hotel food while high or haplessly kicking in a door. Gobel is right there with her, comedy-wise, during the weed-smoking scene, but there’s gravitas in her portrayal of Vida, believable as lover, wife, mother and, eventually, a woman who is willing to share all, painful as all can be.
            The hotel room designed by McKenna Perry is contemporary and appointed in the way that “hip” hotel rooms can be, and designer Annelise Schultz-Salazar has lit the furnishing and mirrors for passionate proceedings. The focal point on the stage is the bed. You probably figured that.
            “Straddle” is sexier and sultrier than it is meaningful, and aside from learning that the two women met at a laundromat I’d like to have learned more about them BEFORE they met, something that could provide added perspective on who they’ve become together. To this end, “Straddle” is more voyeuristic than revelatory.
            “Straddle” runs through March at Diversionary Theatre in University Heights.

Edith Head (Susan Claassen) re-examines a gown she designed for Bette Davis' Margo Channing in "All About Eve." Photo courtesy of Moxie Theatre

            Before Susan Claassen’s performance of “A Conversation with Edith Head” even began, a Hollywood nostalgist like myself knew that I was in for quite an evening. Rollicking over the Moxie Theatre sound system were Bing Crosby and Bob Hope singing tunes from their popular “Road” pictures. The stage backdrop was sheer eye candy: replica Oscar statuettes; black and white glamor photos of Grace Kelly, Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, Mae West; tailor’s mannequins fitted with recognizable dresses like the number Bette Davis wore at the “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night” party scene in “All About Eve.”
            To borrow from Bob Hope’s famous theme song, thanks for the memories, Edith Head.
         The 85-minute show Claassen created with Head biographer Paddy Calistro has been performed for almost 25 years after premiering at Tucson’s Invisible Theatre where Claassen (now a La Jolla resident) was managing director. While Claassen, practically a dead finger for Hollywood’s most honored (eight Oscars) costume designer, has performed this interactive piece at North Coast Rep and at the Coronado Film Festival, the current Moxie engagement is its first sit-down engagement.
            Edith Head spent more than a half-century in the movie business, stretching all the way back to the Silent Era. Her final job was on behalf of director Carl Reiner for 1982’s Steve Martin spoof “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.” “A Conversation” finds Head in her customary tailored suit and trademark glasses reminiscing about her peerless career in the movie biz, sometimes praising/sometimes dishing on the major stars she dressed, wryly recounting the machinations of the studios for which she worked, self-glorifying in her Oscar wins, and here and there touching on her less-known personal life.
            Stuart Moulton is cast as the host of this affair, posing questions to the stage and playfully challenging Head’s memory a bit. Questions from audience members also have been gathered and are asked of Claassen – and are usually answered with some zing.
            The magic of this show is that not even halfway into it you’re buying that this IS Edith Head, circa 1981 when Reagan was in the White House, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was tops at the box office (not a project Head worked on, by the way), and no one had dreamed of streaming or social media. More a series of anecdotes and asides than a traditional work of theater “A Conversation with Edith Head” is pretty much that – Head sharing her life’s work in all its big-screen enchantment, bantering with audience members, prompting them to recall the names of films or stars in the process.
            With all due modesty I can say that I know a lot about movie history. I can recite chapter and verse lines from films Head worked on like “All About Eve,” “Double Indemnity,” “To Catch A Thief,” “Sunset Boulevard” and more. But there was considerable that I learned from “A Conversation” …
            Like that Head dressed both Paul Newman and Robert Redford in “The Sting.” Or that she became great friends with Liz Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck and Grace Kelly. She had nothing laudatory to say about Audrey Hepburn, for whom she designed dresses in both “Roman Holiday” and “Sabrina.” And for all her record number (for women) of Oscar wins, she remained pissed off about the times she didn’t hear her name called.
            Not having read Calistro’s biography of Head or done deep-dive research I can’t say how accurate is “A Conversation’s” interlude when Claassen relives the screening of Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard” at Paramount and the climactic moment when Gloria Swanson, as Norma Desmond, descends the staircase, ready for her closeup. But this is one of the most touching sequences in “A Conversation with Edith Head,” an instance where the designer herself is absolutely overcome by the wonder of what motion pictures and larger-than-life stars can be.
            Audiences of a certain age, naturally, will most appreciate the trips down the memory lanes of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. But so will film buffs and lovers of classic fashion.
          Anyone will appreciate who Edith Head was and what she accomplished merely by discovering through a quick Web search this woman’s career filmography. It’s staggering.
            “A Conversation with Edith Head” is a lighthearted and feisty reminder.
            “A Conversation with Edith Head” runs through March 8 at Moxie Theatre in Rolando.

Andy Grotelueschen (left) and Michael Crane in "Bartleby."                                 Photo by Rich Soublet II

            I’ll leave it to the academics to dissect and examine from some informed critical perspective the socio-psychological intricacies of Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” (Yikes, that sentence sounds like it was written by an academic.)
            Instead, let’s consider “Bartleby,” a theatrical adaptation of the 1853 short story that was originally published in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Science and Art. Fiasco Theater’s Noah Brody and Paul L. Coffey, clearly unintimidated by Melville’s particular density, have taken “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and transformed it into a work of absurdist theater and in the process instilled in it comic devices that are in short supply in the original story.
            The play like that story hinges on one inscrutable line spoken by the neat but laconic copier (or scrivener) hired by a lawyer who presides over a small Wall Street office: “I would prefer not to.” What initially seems to prompt a “Say, what?” becomes a deadened refrain that baffles Bartleby’s infinitely patient employer while further and further exasperating the others in his employ -- scriveners Turkey and Nippers, and clerk Ginger Snap (Ginger Nut in the Melville story). Before long “I would prefer not to” applies to Bartleby’s requests to not only perform tasks on the job but to reveal anything illuminating about himself including those persistent denials. By the time he prefers not to leave the office from which he’s been dismissed, only the worst is bound to happen.
            One could legitimately question, even without having first read Melville’s short story, where the humor resides in what begins as apparent self-alienation and descends into self-destruction. Yet on opening night at the Old Globe, which commissioned this world-premiere Fiasco Theater production, there was hearty laughter in the audience and not of the nervous, unsettled kind.
            For starters, Brody and Coffey have made The Lawyer (Andy Grotelueschen) a likably pompous figure who’s much more sympathetic than in the short story. He truly wants to understand why Bartleby is demurring and he sincerely gives a damn about what happens to the enigmatic scrivener. Grotelueschen works some effective comic timing, too, on the audience and on his fellow actors. He’s entertaining to watch and to hear.
            The quirks of the clerks – I know, obvious rhyme – Turkey (Matt Dallal) and Nippers (Devin E.Haqq) include with great animation swilling from a flask after noon and cursing a blue streak before noon respectively; and direction by Emily Young keeps them and the turntable stage in motion. Were only “Bartleby, the Scrivener” as briskly moving as is this adaptation.
            As for Bartleby himself, played with robotic dignity by Michael Crane, he’s as much a mystery to the audience as he is to the characters around him. The incredulous reactions to him from The Lawyer and the others in the office may not be howling, but they are amusing.
            Everyone, especially Bartleby, is immaculately costumed for the time period by Emily Rebholz. If this were set in a 21st-century law office they’d be in polos and jeans.
            I emerged from this performance not entirely sure what it all meant while remaining firmly resistant to over-analysis in the fashion of those literary scholars to which I referred above. One realization lingered, however, and possibly that’s what even Melville planned at the outset: that all of us, at one time or another, are tempted to look duty and responsibility and commitment in the face and say no. Not now. Or “I would prefer not to.” Say this for Bartleby: He did so politely.
            Fiasco Theater’s “Bartleby” runs through March 22 at the Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre in Balboa Park.

Left to right: Fernando Vega, Vanessa Orozco and Luis Sherlinee in "Somewhere Over the Border." Karli Cadel Photography

            The crucial moment in Cygnet Theatre’s production of the musical “Somewhere Over the Border” isn’t musical at all: It’s when a frightened young woman, hiding in the back of a truck, holds her breath and lies dead-still while immigration/border officers inspect the vehicle. Reina has journeyed nearly 3,000 miles from El Salvador to Tijuana, Mexico, and this muffled, predatory inspection will determine her fate.
            “Somewhere Over the Border,” written by Brian Quijada, is based on the true story of his own mother, also named Reina, who left her son (him) behind in El Salvador to seek a better life for them both in the imagined freedom, beauty and prosperity of the USA. In a whimsical conceit Quijada chose to tell this story as an adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” complete with a young girl seeking home and three characters with more than passing resemblance to Baum’s Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion accompanying her on her trek to salvation.
            References to “Oz” are more than just Easter eggs here. Banana farmer Cruz (Luis Sherlinee) wants to attend university and enhance his unchallenged brain in so doing; woeful Silvano (Edward Padilla) has a broken heart after being separated from his family, now living in the U.S.: habit-wearing nun Leona (Luzm Ortiz) would rather be a rock ‘n’ roll star … if she only had the nerve; El Gran Coyote de Tijuana (Fernando Vega, who also plays the narrator/playwright Quijada part) has a booming voice and ostensibly the power to make all the dreamers’ dreams reality; Reina (Vanessa Orozco) has no Toto with her but she’s every bit as doggedly determined as Dorothy Gale. Her desired destination is not the Emerald City but rather the U.S. and a coveted green card.
            Director Carlos Mendoza told me in an interview for the San Diego Union-Tribune that “Somewhere Over the Border” is not so much a story about immigration as it is a story about family and finding home. This makes it more compatible with the themes of the “Oz” book but for me the immigrant’s plight and the risks he, she or they take constitutes the urgency of this show, the musical score for which is underwhelming –same-sounding ballads, overly expository lyrics, and nothing really beyond the title song that is especially memorable.
            The actors are likable. Only Orozco is an impressive vocalist, so thankfully she does the heavy lifting. Crissy Guerrero, portraying Reina’s mother Julia with whom her child has been left, gets two ballads when truly one would have sufficed.
            “Somewhere Over the Border” is also a case of two very different acts. The slow-moving first, which is set in Reina’s El Salvador village, takes far too long to establish that she will sacrifice caring for her young baby in order to seek that better life in America. If you want to get “Wizard of Oz”-ish about it, it didn’t take nearly so long for Dorothy to be swept away from Kansas and down into that magical land over the rainbow. Furthermore, when Reina gets the funds necessary to make the multi-bus-ride trip north and to pay off El Gran Coyote who will facilitate her cross-over, this happens too fast, almost unbelievably so.
            As in “Oz” Reina meets her eventual traveling companions and hears their plights one by one, culminating with their arrival in TJ at the end of the first act.
            The much better, less uneven second act is half the length and more than that it’s gripping and comes with reality checks for Reina. The commentary that playwright Quijada is forwarding about those like his mother who gave up so much for a dream is saturated throughout.
            Very much to its credit, the show does not tie everything up into a big red ribbon at the end nor does it gloss over the terrible trials that would-be immigrants confront.
            A valuable asset to the production is the extensive projection design by Blake McCarty that grounds us not only in locations but in emotional atmosphere. Without these vivid images of Central America, Mexico, Los Angeles and Chicago, “Somewhere Over the Border” would be substantially diminished in impact.
            A live band led by conductor/keyboardist Lyndon Pugeda provides an olio of musical styles, from cumbria to rock and pop, though at times the volume drowned out the singers on stage, in particular Sherlinee in Act One portraying Reina’s brother Adan.
            “Somewhere Over the Border” premiered four years ago at Syracuse Stage, so at this point it is what it is. I can daydream about a tighter, faster moving show, but why?
            What’s important here is the light cast on the immigrant experience. In the current political climate where the top-down message in the USA is “stay the hell out of here” the stories of the real Reina and the Reina of “Somewhere Over the Border” couldn’t be more poignant.
            “Somewhere Over the Border” runs through March 15 at Cygnet’s Joseph Clayes III Theater in Liberty Station.

Norbert Leo Butz and Christina Kirk in "The Recipe."                                             Photo by Rich Soublet II

            No less than Julia Child herself would appreciate the importance of having the right ingredients.
            “The Recipe,” a world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, has them:
            A playwright, Claudia Shear, who crafted a script based on Bob Spitz’s book “Dearie,” that paints a vivid portrait of the younger Julia Child that not many know about and who was not depicted in the 2009 film “Julie and Julia.”
            A director, Lisa Peterson, at the helm of a brisk, stylish and altogether charming production which closes the Playhouse’s 2025-’26 season.
            Two leads, Christina Kirk as Child and Norbert Leo Butz as her husband Paul, who are irresistible and who enjoy great chemistry onstage. I don’t know what Julia Child was like in real life, but I’d like to think she was very much the woman portrayed by Kirk: independent-minded, fun-loving, stubborn, focused and oh so human in her self-doubts, self-deprecation and frustrations.
            The presentation of “The Recipe” in the Playhouse’s Potiker Theatre is also part of its effectiveness and its appeal. Rachel Hauck’s movable set pieces variously evoke a Smith College dorm room, the swelter of Ceylon, the stuffiness of a conservative Pasadena home and the bon vivant sophistication and adventure of Paris. The coup de grace is the fabulous working kitchen with its wall of gleaming golden pots and pans hung like treasured art that Paul builds at their home there for Julia. It’s all critical to telling her story of discovering who she is by what she is passionate to do.
            It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a theater audience where one could sense the enjoyment patrons were having on opening night. “The Recipe” comes with its laugh lines and moments of glib humor, and the relationship between Julia and Paul that builds over the course of the story is quietly touching and, like Paris itself, tres romantique.
            The lighter, faster-moving first act of “The Recipe” establishes a 20ish Julia McWilliams unimpressed by Smith College academia but gamely wringing fun out of every situation and personal interaction she can. Her eventual secretarial skills and desire to do what she can for the war effort leads her to the otherworld of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where those around her consider the 6-foot-2, wholly uninhibited woman from Pasadena a fish out of water. But it’s there that she meets a worldly OSS civil servant and artist named Paul Child. After initially being startled by a personality like Julia’s, he becomes infatuated, and who can blame him? Julia McWilliams is just so damned much fun. Anything goes! Try a little opium? Why not? When she and Child do – and its staging is inspired – all barriers between them fall away. They are destined for a life together (even if Julia’s stern, “I-know-what’s-best-for-MY-daughter” dad, played by Michael Park, tries to prevent it).
            Come Act Two, life in Paris and exposure to restaurants there and their rich, exquisite cuisine ignites the creative spark inside the woman who is now Julia Child: She will cook like these French chefs cook! With her husband’s encouragement she enrolls in the Sorbonne. When that experience ends in disappointment, a defeated Julia is buoyed by meeting through a cooking club Simone Beck (called Simca in “The Recipe”) and through her Louisette Bertholle. Simca (Jill Ambramovitz) and Louise (Saisha Talwar), impressed by Julia’s enthusiasm and sheer audacity, persuade her to work with them on a cookbook.
            This will become the definitive “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”
            There are, in “The Recipe,” flinty personal complications between Julia and her collaborators, and Julia’s marriage to Paul suffers its own stresses. In the second act, we see a Julia unlike the earlier Julia, her devil-may-care overcome by failures and fits of temper and her own insatiable drive to be who she wants to be.
            The wrap-up, the resolution of the pitfalls and conflicts, is tender and intuitive. Julia Child sees the path of her future life and career; it comes with humility, but we know she will carry with her unflagging spirit and joy as she becomes the Julia Child so many remember from “The French Chef” on television.
            If “The Recipe” has any shortcoming, it would be its two-hour, 45-minute length. Even for a play as entertaining as this one, with its likable characters and bright storytelling and jazzy original music by Andre Pluess, it is a little long. One choreographed, non-speaking sequence in the second act showing the three cookbook collaborators busy in the kitchen could be trimmed or even spliced and nothing would be lost. But in trying to envision a shorter iteration of “The Recipe” I quibbled with myself in the trying.
            Some really good dishes take their time to cook. You can’t rush them.
            Kirk and Butz both give outstanding performances. They’re as believable as could be as two people in love with and supportive of each other; and it’s their portrayal of Julia and Paul Child’s ability to embrace life with all its serious crossroads and silly misadventures that make “The Recipe” as delicious and satisfying as it is.
            “The Recipe” runs through March 22 at La Jolla Playhouse’s Sheila & Hughes Potiker Theatre. Limited seats remain available.

Katie Holmes and Alexander Hurt in "Hedda Gabler."                                           Photo by Rich Soublet II

            Hedda Gabler is among the most fascinating characters in all of theater, someone whose cerebral wheels are always turning, a woman of passions and impulses that won’t be restrained.
            She is also, as created by Henrik Ibsen, an enigmatic protagonist that challenges critical analysis – and yet scholars and theater critics (myself included) can’t resist the challenge.
            The Hedda in the Old Globe’s production of “Hedda Gabler,” a new adaptation by Erin Cressida Wilson from a translation by Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey, so commands the evolving drama that all of the principals in her sphere – her ambitious but oft-clueless husband, the men who lust for her and strive to overpower her, the anxious onetime schoolmate – are either pawns in her mind games or foredoomed supplicants of sorts. Only when one of them seizes power from her does Hedda founder, and that will be sudden and everlasting.
            Barry Edelstein directs a “Hedda Gabler” that moves purposefully along over the course of one 100-minute act. Though the play has its noisier confrontations, it is a talky affair, and it’s to the director’s credit that the tension therein is consistent and taut.
            Katie Holmes, whom Edelstein directed in Anna Ziegler’s “The Wanderers” three years ago at Roundabout Theatre in New York, is a charismatic, contemporary-seeming Hedda Gabler, the latter accomplished not only through Holmes’ layered performance but because of Wilson’s script, the language and nuances of which transcend the period costumes and manners of late-19th-century Kristiania, Norway. Holmes’ Hedda, trapped rather than lapped in the luxury of the Tesman household, is playful one minute, cruel the next, either impetuously tinkling at the piano or taunting or tempting her would-be lovers.
            For the duration of the play Hedda’s arena is the Tesman drawing room, thoughtfully realized onstage by scenic designer Mark Wendland. The conspicuous, ornate furnace/stove is the only thing that towers over her; a couch that threatens to stretch the length of the room might as well represent the gulf between the newly married George Tesman (Charlie Barnett), a babe in his own woods, and the flaring, fiery (when she wants to be) Hedda.
            This production is accompanied by recurring piano music performed by Korrie Yamaoka, a not altogether effective device in my mind. I found its presence intrusive more than atmospheric.
            As always at the Globe, costume design by David I. Reynoso is ideal to the time and the storytelling.
            In support of Holmes, Alexander Hurt is intensity personified as the neurotic writer Ejlert Lovborg in whose spell a frantic Thea Elvsted (Hedda’s former schoolmate, played by Celeste Arias) is captive. Alfredo Narciso is calculating, blackmailing Judge Brack. Saidah Arrika Ekulona (as George’s aunt) and Katie MacNichol (as Berte the housekeeper) round out a steady cast.
            This is Holmes’ show, however, and she joins a distinguished list of actors who’ve portrayed Hedda Gabler onstage including Maggie Smith, Glenda Jackson and Cate Blanchett and, more recently, Ruth Wilson and Tessa Thompson. It’s appropriate that her performance never reels out of control given that Hedda herself seeks and prizes control, especially over others, as insatiably as she does. If Holmes’ Hedda is unsympathetic, that’s how so many have viewed Ibsen’s character for decades. Considering the Tesman household it’s hard to begrudge her her boredom at the least and perhaps not her burning machinations, either. One literal burning is paramount.
            Wilson’s Globe-commissioned adaptation adds some humor to the story and updated language somewhat suggests a “Hedda Gabler” in the here and now. An exasperated George even lets out a “WTF!” (but unabbreviated) at one point. The same could be exclaimed by Hedda if she took a long look around her claustrophobic post-“honeymoon” home and pondered the price of aristocracy.
            “Hedda Gabler” runs through March 22 at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park.

Robert J. Townsend and Autumn Kirkpatrick in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Karli Cadel Photography

            How to succeed in enjoying San Diego Musical Theatre’s production of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”:
            First, keep in mind that this musical-comedy satire of corporate culture in the ‘60s is a period piece, a portrait of its time, a thankfully bygone era when men in suits strutted like roosters and women were there for the plucking.
            Second, though the lyrics to songs like “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm” and most of all “A Secretary Is Not a Toy” are cringe-worthy even if you’re not a woman, musical theater heavyweight Frank Loesser’s score is a lively and tuneful one. There’s only one number – “I Believe In You,” which became a favorite of Vegas-ish lounge singers – that most people remember, but neither is this 1961 show undermined by syrupy, swooning ballads of the kind lessers that Loesser composed.
            And third, give yourself over to director Omri Schein’s impeccable comic instincts, responsible here for making “How to Succeed …” an entertaining romp in spite of its length (well over two and a half hours) and its being so retro it makes the “gender dynamics” of television’s chauvinistic “Mad Men” look enlightened. Schein himself is a master of onstage antics and physical comedy, and at SDMT he’s brought out the best in a large cast that is right in lockstep with him.
            Oh, and on the subject of lockstep, a fourth how-to-enjoy: choreography by Xavier J. Bush that makes you feel as if you’re in a much bigger theater.
            This was my first time seeing “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” onstage. Prior I’d only seen the 1967 film that starred Robert Morse as J. Pierrepont Finch, the window washer-turned-mailroom clerk who follows the advice of a book titled “How to Succeed” etc. etc. on his way zooming up the corporate ladder at the World Wide Wicket Company. Can’t say I remembered much about it, either.
            The smash-hit stage musical is based on a novel by Shepherd Mead and was written by Abe Burrows, Willie Gilbert and Jack Weinstock. It was Burrows who reportedly opined that glamour was “the indefinable something about a girl with a big bosom.” There’s some context for you.
            But “How to Succeed” the musical would win a Tony and the Pulitzer for Drama (!). Just keep telling yourself “It’s satire.”
            At SDMT, Frankie Errington occupies the role of Finch with spirit and buoyancy. They also succeed, if you will, in maintaining a likability in Finch even as the ambitious and manipulative character exploits others on the way upward. “How to Succeed” is a welcome onstage return for Errington who hasn’t performed since 2019.
            Jasmine January’s becoming one of the most dependable character actors in town, and she’s a standout as Rosemary, the charming secretary who dreams of sharing a New Rochelle mansion with “Ponty.” The show’s other major female part belongs to Autumn Kirkpatrick as Hedy LaRue, whose very name itself is a character description. She’s Burrows’ “indefinable something,” a total bombshell caricature, but props to Kirkpatrick for a game and winning comedic performance that has nuances.
            The presence of Robert J. Townsend (as World Wide Wicket President J.B. Biggley) is a boon to any production given his sonorous vocals and seasoned pro’s experience. Same with Sandy Campbell in the granted, underutilized role of Biggley’s secretary, Miss Jones.
            If there’s an antagonist in the story it’s Biggley’s weaselly nephew Bud Frump. Zane Camacho savors every moment indulging Frump’s machinations.
            Everyone in the World Wide Wicket secretarial pool as well as the guys in suits is turned out beautifully in bright ‘60s colors by costume designer Patricia Lutz. She’s even got them looking great in the inane, out-of-nowhere pirate number (“Yo-Ho-Ho”) that arrives late in the storytelling. Scenic designer Mike Buckley, too, created a mobile and flexible set that can facilitate opening-and-closing elevator doors one minute and men’s room sinks the next.
            I’d be remiss if I didn’t applaud San Diego Musical Theatre for its new seating that has replaced those former uncomfortable chairs. This was especially appreciated during a long show like “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
            “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” runs through March 1 at San Diego Musical Theatre in Kearny Mesa.

Sarah Alida LeClair and Timothy Benson co-star in "Audition Sides."    Photo courtesy of Riot Productions

            You could say that Sarah Alida LeClair’s “Audition Sides” is about two potentially terrifying experiences. One, auditioning for a part. Two, being thrown together with an-ex lover … when you both are married to someone else.
            So there’s no paucity of tension in this 65-minute piece first seen onstage during the 2024 San Diego International Film Festival.
            LeClair just wound up a three-performance engagement of “Audition Sides” at Moxie Theatre directed by Rhiannon McAfee. The Rolando space will be the production home this year for Riot Productions, for which LeClair is artistic director.
            Hopefully “Audition Sides,” which explores the audition process in all its heavy anxiety and, come to think of it, relationships in all their heavy anxiety, will see another stage one day now that the brief Moxie staging has concluded. For anyone in theater, it’s undoubtedly relatable. (I could tell from the reactions of some people in the Sunday matinee audience.). For others, the complexities of love, which are many, quickly become the thrust of the story.
            LeClair (as The Woman) and Timothy Benson, who plays The Man, find themselves as audition partners, but we soon learn that their interpersonal history runs far deeper. The stopping-and-starting of the scene they’re rehearsing turns out to be just a pretext for an escalating confrontation about their past romance, their present circumstances and whatever future they might share … as friends, as lovers, as nothing at all.
            Comic relief is provided by Josalyn Johnson as the audition proctor who, to the actors/lovers’ irritation, becomes part of the drama whether they like it or not.
            The auditioning couple’s interactions run the gamut from anger to tenderness, a reflection certainly of so many people’s navigations of love especially when they’re roiled by injured feelings, miscommunication and uncertainty.
            LeClair has said that the premise for “Audition Sides” stemmed from her understanding of the fraught but enduring romance between 19th-century musician Clara Schumann (wife of Robert) and composer Johannes Brahms. As LeClair called them in the “Audition Sides” program notes “two people who in their brilliance and artistic hearts were isolated in the world and had found each other at a moment when it made no sense to be together, too broken to find a way, searching for other forms of love and stability in their lives but who would truly never find what they had in each other with anybody else.”
            Maybe The Woman and The Man in the audition room had it easy by comparison.