Zachary Noah Piser and Idina Menzel in "Redwood."                                             Photo by Rich Soublet II

            Idina Menzel is defying gravity again, this time in a world-premiere musical, “Redwood,” at La Jolla Playhouse.
            The Broadway star who once upon a time propelled “Wicked” into the cultural consciousness doesn’t fly in Tina Landau and Katie Diaz’s “Redwood” – she climbs high into the majestic giants of the Northern California forest. It’s an existential quest for a woman, Jesse Myers (Menzel), who is all but incapacitated by grief and is desperate not only for answers but for a reason to live.
            This is a personal creative project for Menzel, who conceived “Redwood” with Landau, and with that prodigious voice of hers she sings her heart out. The power-ballad- and affirmation-heavy score is just made for a Broadway audience, though “Redwood’s” is a story that inhabits dark places in the soul.
            A broken protagonist setting out on the road to an unknown destination, as Jesse does in “Redwood,” is not exactly a novel premise. A premise for a lot of novels (and films), true. But we’ve seen a setup like this before. We do learn early on that Jesse has lost a grown son and a year later she remains devastated. (The circumstances of Spence’s death come much later.) In spite of her wife Mel’s (De’Adre Aziza) plea to face life and be strong, to honor his memory rather than to seek to escape from it, Jesse flees.
            The cross-country drive west (“Place”) is our first opportunity to experience the stunning special effects of this production. The projections by media designer Hana S. Kim capture America on the fly. In time they will make the California redwoods come alive in a way that takes your breath away, as will the scenic design by Jason Ardizzone-West.
            There are clues along Jesse’s drive to forthcoming revelations about her past – strangers who come and go. When she gets to the end of her journey – the redwoods near Eureka, Calif., she meets Finn (Michael Park) and Becca (Nkeki Obi-Melekwe), who climb the mighty trees, study them and all but worship them. Soon Jesse’s deepest exploration of self will become real – and it will test all her bravery, resolve and intestinal fortitude.
            The Finn character, folksy and philosophical and the initiator of the over-the-top “A Little Bit Wild” number, feels like an amalgam of “colorful free spirits” from a dozen other shows. Becca, on the other hand, a serious scientist who is not at all receptive to Jesse’s wanting to climb the redwoods herself (or even hang around her and Finn), is genuinely tough, smart and credible. Obi-Melekwe not only brings this out deftly but exhibits some impressive vocal power of her own (“Becca’s Song” in particular).
            Finn, it is revealed, is sympathetic to Jesse’s plight. He has lost a wife. So he accedes (still rather unbelievably) to Jesse’s ultimate request: to spend a night high in the redwoods by herself. The more practical Becca is dead-set against it.
            Let me interrupt here to laud the vertical movement and staging by Melecio Estrella and his BANDALOOP company. The climbs Jesse, Finn and Becca make, at least to an amateur like me, look all too believable, aided by the projections that give the impression that the three are going higher and higher and higher.
            But it’s when Jesse gets her way and is alone in the redwoods heights that the show is at its most pointed and its most poignant. Her initial freakout (Menzel does this so well and so humanly) is temporary. Jesse finds solace and the pathway to peace up in the trees. (She bonds and names the tree in whose branches she resides “Stella.”) It’s there that she confides in Becca, who has softened toward her by this point, the details of her son’s death and the extent of her searing pain over it: This is “Redwood’s” you-can-hear-a-pin-drop moment.
            The payoff song (“Still”) is rendered not by Menzel at all but by Zachary Noah Piser, appearing as Jesse’s son. Like the star playing his mom, he knows how to belt out a ballad.
            There’s no question that “Redwood” is a visual spectacle or that its illusion of scaling the towering trees is captivating. For me, the music and lyrics are fine, nothing more, though the musicians behind the scenes conducted by Haley Bennett sublimely heighten the emotional atmosphere of the show.
            Metaphors are rife and obvious in this script. That being said, the overarching comment about connections is one that can never be made too often or too loudly. Even among the redwoods and the patches of blue sky above them, we are all one when you get right down to it.
            “Redwood” runs through March 31 at La Jolla Playhouse’s Hughes and Sheila Potiker Theatre.

Zachary Noah Piser and Idina Menzel in "Redwood."                                             Photo by Rich Soublet II

            Idina Menzel is defying gravity again, this time in a world-premiere musical, “Redwood,” at La Jolla Playhouse.
            The Broadway star who once upon a time propelled “Wicked” into the cultural consciousness doesn’t fly in Tina Landau and Katie Diaz’s “Redwood” – she climbs high into the majestic giants of the Northern California forest. It’s an existential quest for a woman, Jesse Myers (Menzel), who is all but incapacitated by grief and is desperate not only for answers but for a reason to live.
            This is a personal creative project for Menzel, who conceived “Redwood” with Landau, and with that prodigious voice of hers she sings her heart out. The power-ballad- and affirmation-heavy score is just made for a Broadway audience, though “Redwood’s” is a story that inhabits dark places in the soul.
            A broken protagonist setting out on the road to an unknown destination, as Jesse does in “Redwood,” is not exactly a novel premise. A premise for a lot of novels (and films), true. But we’ve seen a setup like this before. We do learn early on that Jesse has lost a grown son and a year later she remains devastated. (The circumstances of Spence’s death come much later.) In spite of her wife Mel’s (De’Adre Aziza) plea to face life and be strong, to honor his memory rather than to seek to escape from it, Jesse flees.
            The cross-country drive west (“Place”) is our first opportunity to experience the stunning special effects of this production. The projections by media designer Hana S. Kim capture America on the fly. In time they will make the California redwoods come alive in a way that takes your breath away, as will the scenic design by Jason Ardizzone-West.
            There are clues along Jesse’s drive to forthcoming revelations about her past – strangers who come and go. When she gets to the end of her journey – the redwoods near Eureka, Calif., she meets Finn (Michael Park) and Becca (Nkeki Obi-Melekwe), who climb the mighty trees, study them and all but worship them. Soon Jesse’s deepest exploration of self will become real – and it will test all her bravery, resolve and intestinal fortitude.
            The Finn character, folksy and philosophical and the initiator of the over-the-top “A Little Bit Wild” number, feels like an amalgam of “colorful free spirits” from a dozen other shows. Becca, on the other hand, a serious scientist who is not at all receptive to Jesse’s wanting to climb the redwoods herself (or even hang around her and Finn), is genuinely tough, smart and credible. Obi-Melekwe not only brings this out deftly but exhibits some impressive vocal power of her own (“Becca’s Song” in particular).
            Finn, it is revealed, is sympathetic to Jesse’s plight. He has not lost a son as she has, but the relationship he has with his own is strained, distant – and it’s his fault. So he accedes (still rather unbelievably) to Jesse’s ultimate request: to spend a night high in the redwoods by herself. The more practical Becca is dead-set against it.
            Let me interrupt here to laud the vertical movement and staging by Melecio Estrella and his BANDALOOP company. The climbs Jesse, Finn and Becca make, at least to an amateur like me, look all too believable, aided by the projections that give the impression that the three are going higher and higher and higher.
            But it’s when Jesse gets her way and is alone in the redwoods heights that the show is at its most pointed and its most poignant. Her initial freakout (Menzel does this so well and so humanly) is temporary. Jesse finds solace and the pathway to peace up in the trees. (She bonds and names the tree in whose branches she resides “Stella.”) It’s there that she confides in Becca, who has softened toward her by this point, the details of her son’s death and the extent of her searing pain over it: This is “Redwood’s” you-can-hear-a-pin-drop moment.
            The payoff song (“Still”) is rendered not by Menzel at all but by Zachary Noah Piser, appearing as Jesse’s son. Like the star playing his mom, he knows how to belt out a ballad.
            There’s no question that “Redwood” is a visual spectacle or that its illusion of scaling the towering trees is captivating. For me, the music and lyrics are fine, nothing more, though the musicians behind the scenes conducted by Michael Pearce sublimely heighten the emotional atmosphere of the show.
            Metaphors are rife and obvious in this script. That being said, the overarching comment about connections is one that can never be made too often or too loudly. Even among the redwoods and the patches of blue sky above them, we are all one when you get right down to it.
            “Redwood” runs through March 31 at La Jolla Playhouse’s Hughes and Sheila Potiker Theatre.

Daniel Patrick Russell in "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." Karli Cadel Photography

            “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” sounds like something Sherlock Holmes would say. That’s because he does say it, uttering the revealing clue that the family watchdog did not bark while a prized horse was being stolen from the premises in “The Adventure of Silver Blaze.” (Ergo, the thief was not a stranger to the dog. Crime soon solved.) 
            Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone of Swindon, England, plays detective himself in Mark Haddon’s 2003 novel, setting out to learn who killed Wellington, a neighbor’s dog, and also the mystery of more than 40 letters from his dead mother (postmarked after her death) that he discovered hidden in his father’s bedroom. What transcended the “boy detective” mystery genre was the fact that mathematics-minded Christopher has unspecified “behavioral issues” – though neither autism nor Asperger’s syndrome is ever specified.
            I haven’t read the book, though I’d like to now that I’ve seen the stage adaptation of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” which was adapted by British playwright Simon Stephens (“Birdland,” “Punk Rock”) and is making its San Diego-area debut in a CCA Theatricals production in Escondido.
            Technically spectacular as it is, that’s exceeded by the performance of neurodivergent Daniel Patrick Russell as Christopher. His energy, spontaneity and sensitivity to character are off the charts. The young veteran of both Broadway’s “Billy Elliot” and “The Music Man” and of Stephen Spielberg’s “West Side Story” has us caring about him, worrying about him and of course rooting for him from the very opening of the story when he discovers Wellington, speared to death on the ground. It’s a shocking, graphic moment projected on the screen above the stage that can only approximate what must be going on in the young Christopher’s frenetic thoughts.
            Ingeniously conceived for the theater, “Curious” is an immersive experience in which we are inside Christopher’s mind, one that operates on prime numbers, and is literal to the point of having no conception of metaphor or emotional nuance. He is averse to and recoils from human touch. Anxiety becomes shuddering panic in the presence or midst of hyper-stimuli. This is achieved through a constant confluence of technical effects – projections (by Blake McCarty), bursts of sound (by Jon  Fredette) and light (Mike Billings), and a multi-tiered, scaffolded set by Matthew Herman. Natalie Iscovich choreographs not only Russell’s motions onstage but the cast members who mime various stimuli and literally lift and carry Christopher when the story calls for him to feel transported. This combination of human and non-human kinetics takes Christopher – and us – on car rides, train trips, into the trembling claustrophobia of London’s Tube, and onto alien streets that Christopher must navigate in his own mathematical way.
            Little of this can be effectively conveyed in words here. To venture inside Christopher’s head and his world is to sit in the theater and, without even trying to, become one with them.
            Though every second of the two-and-half-hour “Curious” is Russell’s, he is ably supported by an ensemble that includes Allison Spratt Pearce as Christopher’s teacher/mentor Siobhan, who is also closest to being wired into the young man’s inner thoughts, turmoil and desires. Nathan Madden is Ed, Christopher’s father, and Regina A. Fernandez his mother. I know I should ultimately be more sympathetic to these critically important characters, but it’s difficult understanding how either could physically or emotionally distance themselves from Christopher in spite of how onerous or painful it might be to care for him. I could say even more about either, especially Ed, but at the risk of spoilers I will refrain from doing so. Make up your own mind.
            Also in the cast and playing multiple roles are some familiar dependables including Berto Fernandez, Melissa Fernandes, Christine Hewitt and Dallas McLaughlin. The Matthew Herman scenic design for “Curious” allows us to see the proscenium’s backstage area – a glimpse behind the scenes that is certainly part of this production’s already dramatic visual appeal.
            The arc of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” could be nitpicked – its play-within-a-play idea doesn’t really crystallize, and the tone of the ending feels more convenient than cohesive.
            But the journey along the way is dauntless and more emotional than you’ll expect.
            “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” has to be one of the most challenging projects director J. Scott Lapp has ever undertaken, and he is to be lauded for the end result: a production that, guaranteed, will be unlike any you’ve seen before.
            “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” runs through March 3 at the Center Theater at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

Daniel Patrick Russell in "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." Karli Cadel Photography

            “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” sounds like something Sherlock Holmes would say. That’s because he does say it, uttering the revealing clue that the family watchdog did not bark while a prized horse was being stolen from the premises in “The Adventure of Silver Blaze.” (Ergo, the thief was not a stranger to the dog. Crime soon solved.) 
            Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone of Swindon, England, plays detective himself in Mark Haddon’s 2003 novel, setting out to learn who killed Wellington, a neighbor’s dog, and also the mystery of more than 40 letters from his dead mother (postmarked after her death) that he discovered hidden in his father’s bedroom. What transcended the “boy detective” mystery genre was the fact that mathematics-minded Christopher has unspecified “behavioral issues” – though neither autism nor Asperger’s syndrome is ever specified.
            I haven’t read the book, though I’d like to now that I’ve seen the stage adaptation of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” which was adapted by British playwright Simon Stephens (“Birdland,” “Punk Rock”) and is making its San Diego-area debut in a CCA Theatricals production in Escondido.
            Technically spectacular as it is, that’s exceeded by the performance of neurodivergent Daniel Patrick Russell as Christopher. His energy, spontaneity and sensitivity to character are off the charts. The young veteran of both Broadway’s “Billy Elliot” and “The Music Man” and of Stephen Spielberg’s “West Side Story” has us caring about him, worrying about him and of course rooting for him from the very opening of the story when he discovers Wellington, speared to death on the ground. It’s a shocking, graphic moment projected on the screen above the stage that can only approximate what must be going on in the young Christopher’s frenetic thoughts.
            Ingeniously conceived for the theater, “Curious” is an immersive experience in which we are inside Christopher’s mind, one that operates on prime numbers, and is literal to the point of having no conception of metaphor or emotional nuance. He is averse to and recoils from human touch. Anxiety becomes shuddering panic in the presence or midst of hyper-stimuli. This is achieved through a constant confluence of technical effects – projections (by Blake McCarty), bursts of sound (by Jon  Fredette) and light (Mike Billings), and a multi-tiered, scaffolded set by Matthew Herman, who has also choreographed at CCA not only Russell’s motions onstage but the cast members who mime various stimuli and literally lift and carry Christopher when the story calls for him to feel transported. This combination of human and non-human kinetics takes Christopher – and us – on car rides, train trips, into the trembling claustrophobia of London’s Tube, and onto alien streets that Christopher must navigate in his own mathematical way.
            Little of this can be effectively conveyed in words here. To venture inside Christopher’s head and his world is to sit in the theater and, without even trying to, become one with them.
            Though every second of the two-and-half-hour “Curious” is Russell’s, he is ably supported by an ensemble that includes Allison Spratt Pearce as Christopher’s teacher/mentor Siobhan, who is also closest to being wired into the young man’s inner thoughts, turmoil and desires. Nathan Madden is Ed, Christopher’s father, and Regina A. Fernandez his mother. I know I should ultimately be more sympathetic to these critically important characters, but it’s difficult understanding how either could physically or emotionally distance themselves from Christopher in spite of how onerous or painful it might be to care for him. I could say even more about either, especially Ed, but at the risk of spoilers I will refrain from doing so. Make up your own mind.
            Also in the cast and playing multiple roles are some familiar dependables including Berto Fernandez, Melissa Fernandes, Christine Hewitt and Dallas McLaughlin. The Matthew Herman scenic design for “Curious” allows us to see the proscenium’s backstage area – a glimpse behind the scenes that is certainly part of this production’s already dramatic visual appeal.
            The arc of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” could be nitpicked – its play-within-a-play idea doesn’t really crystallize, and the tone of the ending feels more convenient than cohesive.
            But the journey along the way is dauntless and more emotional than you’ll expect.
            “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” has to be one of the most challenging projects director J. Scott Lapp has ever undertaken, and he is to be lauded for the end result: a production that, guaranteed, will be unlike any you’ve seen before.
            “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” runs through March 3 at the Center Theater at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

Lisette Velandia (as Joan) and Priya Richard (as Medium Alison) in "Fun Home."    Photo by Daren Scott

              Sometime, somewhere, somebody must have said it out loud in filmmaking, theater-making or television-making circles: You can’t tell a story about a writer if you’re going to show him, her or them writing. For an audience, that’s deadly dull.
            So it doesn’t happen very often.
            But how about a show where we see the cartoonist cartooning AND writing at the same time?
            It worked for Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, whose “Fun Home,” a stage musical adaptation of cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s memoir won Best Musical and three other Tony Awards in 2015. In their 90-minute show, an actor portraying the current-day Bechdel is onstage throughout with drawing pencil/pen in hand, re-living and documenting in what would be her graphic novel “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” the most significant events of her upbringing in Pennsylvania – realizing her own sexual identity and discovering the secrets of her closeted father’s ultimately tragic life.
            I first saw “Fun Home” in 2018 when it was produced by the bygone San Diego Repertory Theatre with Amanda Naughton as the grown Alison. (Two younger actors play her as a child and as a college student in the show.) I counted it among my Top 10 theatrical productions of that year.
             Even so, I’d forgotten much of “Fun Home” in the years since, so it’s been fortuitous that there’s a new production onstage through March 3 at New Village Arts in Carlsbad with Kym Pappas directing.
            “Fun Home” is a frank and at times unsettling tale, though I’m not sure why the folks at NVA believe it’s necessary to announce a kind of trigger warning before the show starts. True, “Fun Home” is considerably more daring than the fare longtime New Village audiences may have enjoyed over the years, but the brave world of good live theater, which this is, is one that all of us should welcome just as bravely.
            The fact is, though “Fun Home” has its share of darkness, it’s truly an empowering story that Bechdel was compelled to tell in pictures and words, with Kron and Tesori following in her footsteps.
            The non-linear musical morphs back and forth in time, alternating between Bechdel’s girlhood living among an “ordinary” family of five, and her first year as a student at Oberlin College.
         “Small Alison” has a complicated relationship with her father, Bruce, who operates a funeral home (this becomes the source of the riffed “fun home” adopted by the three kids). She does not understand why her dad gets into trouble or why he sneaks away in the middle of the night.
        “Medium Alison,” meanwhile, comes to terms with her sexuality at college and begins a relationship with the kind and confident lesbian Joan.
            Throughout the parallel storytelling, the adult Alison (smartly played by Rae Henderson-Gray) observes, cartoons, writes and sometimes sings along with her family and younger selves. Now, as in 2018, this device isn’t so much awkward as unneeded. As much as I admire “Fun Home” it seems to me that perhaps having a grown-Alison monologue a couple of times during the show would have accomplished just as much as the presence of the character onstage all the time.
           What stands out most in “Fun Home,” even more than its pointed story, is Tesori’s music – melodic, stirring and well complemented by Kron’s lyrics. There is potency in “Ring of Keys,” wife Helen’s melancholy “Days,” and both “Telephone Wire” and “Edges of the World” near the end of the show. “Changing My Major,” in which Medium Alison expresses her joyous love for Joan, is funny and touching. The young kids’ “Come to the Fun Home” is what it is – kids singing.
            At some junctures it sounds like the actors are over-singing, but that may be because the music behind them is just too loud. It doesn’t need to be.
            The night I saw “Fun Home” at NVA, neither Brent Roberts as Bruce nor Lena Palke as Small Alison, appeared. I’d heard good buzz about Roberts, so I’m sorry I missed him.
            Henderson-Gray and Sarah Alida LeClair (as Helen) deliver sincere and ardent performances, respectively, with Priya Richard as Medium Alison the most memorable among the cast. This follows her appearance last year in New Village’s exquisite “The Ferryman.”
           “Fun Home” is a bold step forward for New Village Arts. Its return to the San Diego area after six years is a welcome one.
           “Fun Home” runs through March 3 at New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad.

Shereen Ahmed and Callum Adams in "The Age of Innocence."                                      Photo by Jim Cox

            I wish I’d had a narrator when I had to read Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence” back in college. Especially one like Eva Kaminsky, who in the Old Globe’s production of Karen Zacarias’ adaptation of the 1920 novel not only speeds up the slow-thawing story but provides much needed wit, snark and commentary to otherwise eminently sober proceedings.
            As expected, this staging look absolutely fabulous, from Susan E. Mickey’s bustled gowns, flamboyant hats and pristinely pressed suits, to timely and emotive lighting by Lee Fiskness, to the stunning chandelier that hovers over the “Gilded Age” upper-crust society digs of the 1870s.
            The staging is visually inspired as well. There are few props. Entrances and exits occur in graceful, seeming-slow motion like the painterly figures of the living canvas of “Sunday in the Park with George.” It’s as sedate as a tasteful conversation around a high-society dinner table.
            “The Age of Innocence,” which won Wharton a Pulitzer Prize – she was the first woman to do so – is a well-known and well-worn tale, popularly adapted before for the stage, for television and for film. Little wonder. As a foredoomed love triangle narrative it’s probably without peer, presuming one’s able to work up genuine empathy for people as privileged and pampered as those in and around the triangle.
            Newland Archer’s (Callum Adams) betrothal to May Welland (Delphi Borich) is all but preordained, but when May’s cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska (Shereen Ahmad), appears on the scene, having fled her cad of a husband in Europe, Archer’s head is quickly turned and his heart’s desire redirected. There are various complications around this, mostly having to do with the snobbishness and determination to protect stature of the family and acquaintances around these three, but the May/Archer/Ellen entanglement supersedes all.
            There’s nothing furtive here. The nervous, stammering Archer is fooling no one about where his affections lie. May, though appearing to be passive, not too bright and even saintly, knows the score sooner than anyone expects. Ellen feels the oppression of the elitist tsk-tskers around her, but she knows she’s the brightest star in the society-verse.
            What Wharton was saying in 1920 about social prejudice and the oppression of women was important and very much with the changing times (women won the right to vote that same year), and this aspect of the ironically titled “The Age of Innocence” should not be dismissed lightly. Regardless of whether Ellen Olenska chose to live her life independently of those who judged her (or loved her) because she was asserting her self-determination or sparing her cousin’s feelings, she is a worthy literary heroine.
            If this is starting to sound more like a book review than a theater review, mea culpa. But “The Age of Innocence” the novel has more heft than does this new production at the Globe.
            In Martin Scorsese’s 1983 film adaptation, Joanne Woodward provided narration, mirroring Wharton’s observational storytelling in the novel. In the Globe’s world-premiere staging, Kaminsky, wearing contemporary clothes, puts much of the lovers’ foibles and machinations into sharp perspective. At times she’s telling us things that we can see on stage, but often she’s enlightening us about what we don’t see but should.
            Chay Yew, a superior director (the Globe’s likable “Dishwater Dreams” last year, La Jolla Playhouse’s wonderful “Cambodian Rock Band” in 2019), demonstrates his respect for the original material here and his “Innocence” cast is studied and dignified. Ahmed commands every scene she inhabits, even without speaking -- as the captivating but troubled Count Olenska should.
            I know a few people who saw “The Age of Innocence” on Valentine’s Day, the evening of its last preview. For them, the lingering moment when Archer and the Countess silently share a carriage with their unspoken longing and torture between them must have seemed like romance at its at-once most beautiful and painful.
             “The Age of Innocence” is no swooning valentine, though -- nor is it innocent. The realities that keep lovers apart may shift and change as the decades go by but they persist in their power to cause loneliness, whether in an elegant salon full of swells or in an empty bedroom.
            “The Age of Innocence” runs through March 10 at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park.

Left to right: Deja Fields, Marcel Ferrin, DeAndre Simmons and Justin Lang in "Clyde's." Photo by Daren Scott

            Order up! Metaphor with melted gruyere and garlic aioli on ciabatta bread!
            That could well be Lynn Nottage’s one-act comedy “Clyde’s,” in which a sandwich represents almost anything except a sandwich. For the formerly incarcerated kitchen crew at Clyde’s truck stop diner in Pennsylvania, pursuit of the perfect sandwich is a matter of personal expression, pride in oneself and healing.
            If the sandwich is a doubledecker metaphor in “Clyde’s,” that can be forgiven, for a couple of reasons. For one, the sandwiches brainstormed and in some cases concocted by Montrellous, Letitia, Rafael and Jason are reflections of their distinctive personalities even as they share the lingering pain of having been in prison (and for different reasons, how they got there in the first place). For another, some of the sandwiches described sound so delicious, this show’s guaranteed to incite your appetite.
            Moxie Theatre is staging “Clyde’s” under the direction of Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, the company’s co-founder and original artistic director. When it comes to directing a production with as many moving parts and intertwining relationships as this one has, and to realizing onstage the work of Lynn Nottage, no one does that better than Turner Sonnenberg. She previously directed the playwright’s “Crumbs from the Table of Joy” at Moxie 10 years ago, and Nottage’s “Intimate Apparel” at the San Diego Rep in 2006.
            Set in a meticulously realistic kitchen designed by Michael Wogulis that includes many appliances and tools on loan to Moxie, “Clyde’s” is a character study constantly in motion. There’s sandwich making, supply restocking, drizzling of ingredients, snatching of order-pad sheets from a window, mopping up … none of which ever intrudes on the interactions between the kitchen staff doing their first jobs out of the joint, and doing their damnedest to survive.
            Montrellous (a resonant DeAndre Simmons) is Clyde’s philosopher-king, a gentle man who has raised the art of the sandwich to fine art. Single-mom Letitia (Deja Fields) is making ends meet while relying on fire and spirit. Rafael (Marcel Ferrin) is sweet and sweet on Letitia. Jason (Justin Lang) is a return character from Nottage’s “Sweat,” at first estranged from the others but quickly accepted by them in spite of the barely suppressed darkness within him.
            As in the best successful stories, the denizens of Clyde’s little kitchen become people whose fates we care about – underdogs who are desperate for a second chance at life and who, while whipping up sandwiches, share hopes they otherwise might not have dared to hope for.
            Then there’s Clyde herself (Tanya Alexander), the embodiment of all the bitterness, resentment and ire that life’s hard knocks and incarceration can beat into a person. Confrontational and verbally abusive, she visits the kitchen to deride and declare war on hopes and dreams. Designer sandwiches? These are truckers! They want truck stop food! Worse: “You’re all losers.”
            Clyde and Montrellous are polar adversaries, and at junctures she seems too bad to be true and he too good to be true. But notably in the case of the Montrellous character, Nottage’s script will make clear that there is another, guarded depth of emotion swelling inside.
            The Moxie cast one and all is standout, with each actor enjoying at least one (and some many more than one) scenes to elucidate his or her character. There are moments of confession, desperation and anger, but also tender gestures here and there that remind us of each ex-inmate’s humanity.
            Nuances of lighting (by Annelise Salazar) and snippets of music (sound design by Harper Justus) make the Clyde’s kitchen more than just a workplace. We can imagine that the unseen side of Clyde’s – where the truckers weaned on ketchup and pickle relish pull up a stool to chow down – is something else entirely.
            Performances from Fields and Lang in particular, along with some genuine laughs amid the baring of soul that runs through “Clyde’s,” mark this as quite possibly the best production at Moxie since Desiree Clarke Miller assumed the role of artistic director. It also testifies to the remarkable writing talent of Lynn Nottage whose intuition about people striving for a better life is uncanny.
            “Clyde’s” runs through March 10 at Moxie Theatre in Rolando.

Tara Grammy (left) and Pooya Mosheni in "English."                                              Photo by Rich Soublet II

            It’s been said that for someone who doesn’t speak it to begin with, English is the hardest language to learn. For a small group of students in Karaj,near Tehran, preparing to take the TOEFL exam,  the degree of difficulty is much more profound than mere pronunciation, syntax or the art of conversation.
            A deserved winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama last year, Sanaz Toosi’s “English” addresses with intelligence and ferocity the quandary of assimilation: Is learning to speak English for the benefit of a “better life” worth the sacrifice of one’s cultural identity … indeed one’s self?
            The Old Globe is staging “English” in its theater-in-the-round White space, which challenges the expectation of a traditional classroom setting, but as the actors are on their feet much of the time, it’s not an impediment. Directing this show, which proceeds largely in quick mini-scenes, is Arya Shahi, a founding member of New York’s Pigpen Theatre Co. His work is no stranger to the Globe: Shahi was part of the ensemble that staged “The Old Man and the Old Moon” and “The Tale of Despereaux” in the main theater in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
            He’s got a skilled and sympathetic cast to work with. Iranian-American actor/writer/activist Pooya Mohseni presides as Marjan, who’s teaching the four students and absolutely insisting that “ENGLISH ONLY” be spoken in the room. Playwright Toosi’s world is one in which the actors speak with halting accents when practicing their English for Marjan and with each other; when speaking normally it is implied that they are conversing in their native language, Farsi. It’s probably the only way this could have been done, as few audience members are likely to be conversant in Farsi themselves.
            The most strident and definitely blunt of the students is Elham (Tara Grammy), who is preparing to take the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) exam for the fifth time. Elham is frustrated by the slow progress of the other students, resentful of the flirtation between the one male pupil, Omid (Joe Joseph) and teacher Marjan, and increasingly bitter about being asked to lose herself in another language, if not another culture, at the expense of her own.
            The oldest of the students, Roya (Mary Apick) is struggling the most with learning English and it may be because she truly doesn’t want to. After all, her son has moved his family to Canada, given himself a non-Iranian-sounding name, and done so too with her grandchild. A running dilemma early in the going is Roya’s futile attempts to get him on the phone.
            Apick is a highly accomplished film and television star in Iran, and that experience resonates in a performance that is completely affecting in both its anger and heartbreak.
            The aforementioned Omid is a mystery to his fellow students – his English is already beyond proficient, and there’s a smugness about him that tends to repel all but Marjan, who it is believed has an unfulfilling marriage and perhaps the same kind of life outside the classroom. Joseph is certainly capable in the role, though to me the flirtation side-story feels superfluous – at least until it precipitates some important revelations near the end of the story.
            Ari Derambakhsh is utterly charming as the youngest student, Goli, though her part among all of them seems underwritten.
            Most of the dramatic tension of “English” simmers in the encounters between Marjan and Elham, right down to the denouement of the play. To some extent they represent both sides of the all-but-institutionalized “you’ve got to speak English to get anywhere” mentality. For Marjan, aptitude in if not mastery of English is entry into another, more promising world. For Elham, learning the language, passing the test, must be done. Period. But she will cling to the world she grew up in, the world she knew. To do otherwise would be to betray herself.
            There’s a plum at the very end of the play, which I won’t spoil. I will say this – it represents a moment of validation for Elham and for anyone else who cherishes what they know and care about the most, anyone who is ardently willing to learn but just as ardently unwilling to compromise.
            “English” runs through Feb. 25 in the Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre in Balboa Park.