Jessica John (left) and Deborah Gilmour Smyth in "The Beauty Queen of Leenane." Photo by Daren Scott In staging back to back in 2024 two dark and unsettling dramas – first, Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive” and now Martin McDonagh’s “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” -- Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company must be applauded for its sheer bravery. These are disturbing pieces of theater that challenge the artists in them and audiences alike.
“The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” which opened Saturday night at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center downtown, hasn’t been produced in San Diego in more than 20 years. The first entry in Irish playwright McDonagh’s “Leenane Trilogy,” it is, on the surface, a dysfunctional mother/daughter battle royal played out in a suffocatingly claustrophobic cottage in County Galway. But the deep dive that McDonagh takes into the characters of 70-year-old Mag Folan (Deborah Gilmour Smyth) and her 40-year-old spinster daughter Maureen (Jessica John) explores the human soul at its most fractured and tormented. “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” is not for the faint of heart. And yet … Who among us has never felt, as Maureen does, the profound disillusion and disappointment sometimes meted out by life? How many of us have known the frustration and even fury that can accompany caring for an aging loved one who’s perhaps slipping into dementia? If “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” was only a nightmare fairy tale, it wouldn’t be as gripping or as immersive a work of theater as it is. There may be a framed photo of John F. Kennedy and a crucifix on the wall in the home Mag and Maureen share but there is nothing like idealism or holiness there. Insulting each other the while, self-suffering daughter waits on self-suffering mother. Any tinge of lightness comes from the telly or from idle gossip. Affection there is none. Mag growls and complains and shifts in her chair like she’s perpetually trying not to roll over on a sore. Maureen, often staring dead-eyed as if at a better future hopelessly elusive to her, alternates between slow boil and martyrdom. The entry into the story of the Dooley brothers, the younger Ray (Nick Daugherty) and the older Pato (MJ Sieber), opens up the drama, momentarily uplifts it and ultimately proves the catalyst for the psychological explosions and worse to come. Good-hearted, slightly awkward Pato is an imagined romance out of Maureen’s past, she who has never known a man nor any experience with love. His return to Leenane from England on a visit immediately represents hope for desperately lonely Maureen. Her anguished longing to be not just loved (and to love) but to be free is matched in intensity by Mag’s pathological will to prevent it. McDonagh has a tendency to not so subtly telegraph the violence ahead (see a poker and a frying pan), but that does not diminish the palpable atmosphere of dread. Is what ensues the result of cruelty or madness? Or both? The playwright has these questions hover over the brutality and the despair. (The script only missteps once, near the end, where Ray observes out loud what we the audience can obviously see in a changed Maureen.) A skilled director, Francis Gercke allows his actors to fully inhabit this searing tragedy unfolding on a deceptively quaint set by Tony Cucuzzella. Gilmour Smyth and John are paired as mother and daughter for the second time in 10 months at Backyard Renaissance: The two had gone head to head in the theater’s triumphant “August: Osage County,” also directed by Gercke. Mother/daughter relationship-wise, that dynamic in retrospect feels like a stroll in the park when compared to “The Beauty Queen of Leenane.” Though the fact that the two actors have made this work twice in two highly charged plays speaks to the director’s guidance, to their own formidable abilities and to the trust they clearly have in each other onstage. Deborah Gilmour Smyth once again demonstrates her fearlessness and commitment to a character, including one like Mag who most will deem, as do I, wholly unsympathetic. Mag’s machinations are predictable, but with a shift of her eyes or a nervous movement Gilmour Smyth does not allow her to ever become a one-dimensional or frankly monstrous antagonist. One could say that Maureen is a mutual antagonist, and though this character is worthy of sympathy she is at once impulsive and calculating when it comes to confronting the bete noire that is her mother. Jessica John brings every bit of this psychological complexity and undone physicality to her powerfully affecting performance. As Pato, MJ Sieber’s Act Two monologue in which he’s composing a letter to Maureen offering himself and offering her a way out, is the one note of genuine sensitivity in “The Beauty Queen of Leenane.” Pato is no prize, but Sieber makes him feel like one. The unfiltered Ray character pops in and out of the cottage to provide comic relief but also to set the table for some serious confrontations between Mag and Maureen. The likable Nick Daugherty seizes each opportunity. There are multiple reminders in “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” that this is an Irish play set in Ireland. The actors employ authentic dialect coached by Backyard Renaissance’s Grace Delaney, though only Sieber’s is decipherable at all times during the production. There’s also the illusion that just outside Mag’s and Maureen’s kitchen window is the land of Erin in all its rich, haunting beauty. Inside, Maureen, the “beauty queen of Leenane,” is haunted and broken and dangerously despairing. Mag? She awaits a birthday dedication on the wireless and a song from her past. That sound you hear is the sound of two restless hearts beating. “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” runs through July 13 at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center, downtown.
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Caitie Grady (in foreground) in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." Photo by Ken Jacques The word is “capybara.”
If you know that refers to a web-footed amphibious rodent common to South America then you’ve probably seen “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” Capybara is one of the mostly obscure words contestants are asked to spell in this longtime popular musical comedy by William Finn (music and lyrics) and Rachel Sheinkin (book). It’s set at a spelling bee taking place at fictional Putnam Valley Middle School. The emcee, Rona Lisa Peretti, is a former bee champ herself. The six youthful competitors come with their own comic idiosyncrasies and, in the case of a couple of them, weightier back stories. I first saw “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” nine years ago when it was produced by the bygone Intrepid Shakespeare Co. in San Marcos. Its cast included Nancy Snow Carr as Rona, spouse Geno Carr as Vice Principal Douglas Panch, who quizzes the bee contestants, and among those the hysterically funny Omri Schein playing geeky William Barfee (“It’s pronounced BAR-FAY!”). Well now Schein’s back and Lamb’s has got him. Once again stealing the show as William Barfee, Schein heads the cast of Lamb’s Players Theatre’s new production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” directed by Robert Smyth with Colleen Kollar Smith as choreographer and assistant director, and musical direction by G. Scott Lacy. Nancy Snow Carr and Geno Carr returned as Rona and Vice Principal Panch, but for now their roles are being ably filled by understudies Eileen Bowman and Brian Mackey. The contestants include the always stellar Megan Carmitchel and Lamb’s company member Caitie Grady. Ben Read leads a lively little band playing behind the action. Thanks, Lamb’s, for employing live music in an onstage musical. This is an inarguably fun show with lots of laughs. You’ve got to respect a script with lyrics that rhyme “Nietzsche” with “Christina Ricci.” I’d forgotten from the last time around seeing “Spelling Bee” that there are a few lines that stretch the bounds of PG-13 – somewhat of a happy surprise at Lamb’s – and an entire song about an erection, an untimely mishap incurred by contestant Chip Tolentino (Ernest Sauceda). The show’s songs in general – the erection tune aside – aren’t that memorable, but they’re performed with zest, and Kollar Smith’s choreography enlivens what might otherwise be an affair in which everyone’s sitting down much of the time. “Spelling Bee” prescribes that four guest contestants be brought onto the stage from the audience. I’ve seen such a gambit in many shows before and it often produces Amateur Hour to the most shuddering extent. But at Lamb’s the night I was there it worked beautifully. One young woman from the crowd more than held her own among the pro’s onstage. Speaking of pro’s, Bowman is a proven comic performer. So is Mackey, whose part is rather thankless by comparison, but he gets his moments. Nobody can outshine Schein, but Carmitchel proves a whiz with a childlike lisp, Sauceda and Ben van Diepen deliver physical comedy nuggets as Tolentino and contestant Leaf Coneybear respectively. Grady’s Olive Ostrovsky is the straight role among the contestants but this allows her to again showcase at Lamb’s her lovely singing voice. Coronado School of the Arts student Isabella Pruter, as prodigious Marcy Park, is a promising young talent who will have even bigger things ahead of her. Bryan Barbarin as Official Comfort Counselor (and ex-con) Mitch Mahoney also gets to do a cameo as Jesus Christ. God bless him. The word is “regalement.” It’s not in the show, but it means fun and it well describes “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” runs through Aug. 18 at Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado. Nio Russell (left) as Celie and Hadiyyah Noelle as Shug in "The Color Purple." Photo by Jason Sullivan / Dupla Photography Thinking back, the only thing I remember vividly about the 1985 film adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple” is the moment when Celie (Whoopi Goldberg) is shaving her abusive husband Mister (Danny Glover) with a straight razor and the will-she-or-won’t-she? tension encompassing it.
As to New Village Arts’ production of the 2005 musical adaptation of “The Color Purple” it’s not likely I’ll dismiss this so easily from my memory. The ambitious production is expertly directed by Kandace Crystal and choreographed by Alyssa “Ajay” Junious, and brightened by Leigh Scarritt’s musical direction and Janet Pitcher’s costume design. An outstanding cast performs with spirit, sincerity and, when appropriate to the tale, an ebullience that is surely felt in the confines of the Carlsbad theater. It’s true that the Stephen Spielberg-directed film softened the harsh realities and sexual frankness of Walker’s book, and with its own narrative departures the stage musical written by Marsha Norman does too. On the other hand, it adds a majestic, wonderfully costumed Africa scene (“African Homeland”) at the beginning of Act Two that could only be done faithfully in a theatrical setting. Brenda Russell, Allee Willlis and Stephen Bray collaborated on the music and lyrics of the stage adaptation, a filmed version of which directed by Blitz Bazawule was released last Christmas. Its most notable tunes are those written for dance-driven ensemble numbers: “Mysterious Ways,” “Big Dog,” “Brown Betty,” “Shug Avery Comin’ to Town,” “Miss Celie’s Pants,” et al. Among the others in the score, those assigned to the flamboyant Shug character (at NVA a terrific Hadiyyah Noelle) are highlights, whether it’s the provocative “Push da Button” or the heartfelt “Too Beautiful for Words.” The climactic and triumphant “I’m Here” from Celie affords the gifted Nio Russell the opportunity to demonstrate their vocal power – and they do. There’s a sung-through feel to “The Color Purple” musical, with the majority of its songs advancing the well-known story of a homely but kind-hearted Black teenager who is given by her sexually and verbally abusive father to a farmer, Albert (aka Mister), who will add violence and infidelity to this terrible equation. Celie’s only friend and ally, her sweet sister Nettie (Taylor Renee Henderson), is turned away by Mister after she rejects him. Over time and not hearing from her, Celie presumes Nettie is dead. Celie’s life changes and a sliver of happiness is hoped for with the arrival of worldly wise saloon singer Shug, who has also been Mister’s mistress. From here on out, with the help of Shug and the inspiration of fiery acquaintance Sofia (Eboni Muse), Celie gradually finds her dignity, her self-empowerment and her courage. Besides Russell’s and Noelle’s complex performances, this NVA staging boasts that evocative turn from Muse (one to cheer for) as well as Henderson’s sensitive portrayal of Nettie, Jasmine January’s comedic Squeak and the recurring entertainment that is the Church Lady chorus (January, Destiny Denny, Juanita Harris, Kiara Hudlin and Erin Vanderhyde Gross). On the evening I attended, understudy Zack King performed with ferocity the Mister role, as despicable a character as you’ll encounter in a story like this one, and made credible as possible his reclamation. As with its acclaimed production of Jez Butterworth’s “The Ferryman” last year, New Village admirably navigates with “The Color Purple” the challenge of a big show on a relatively compact stage. Plaudits especially to choreographer Junious. Cheers as well to NVA for telling important stories in song already in 2024: first Alison Bechel’s “Fun Home” and now “The Color Purple.” “The Color Purple” runs through July 21 at New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad. Kaylin Sauer (right) in rehearsal as a zombie Viola in "Twelfth Night of the Living Dead (Or What You Kill)." Photo by Clay Greenhalgh The conceit of A.J. Schaar’s zombie/Shakespeare mashup “Twelfth Night of the Living Dead (Or What You Kill)” is that The Bard’s well-known characters go about their posturing and prankstering generally without acknowledging that the zombies in their company are any significantly different than they are. This makes for lots of deadpan comedy among the living dead.
With the exception of a few moments when a human denizen of Illyria flees from a grunting, groaning, writhing zombie character reaching out to them there is no blatant recognition of flesh eaters until the last 20 minutes or so of this world premiere. No detailed giving away of the ending here, but suffice to say the undead have their day and then some. “Twelfth Night of the Living Dead” is the first production of fledgling Loud Fridge Theatre Group’s second season and to this point the company’s most ambitious. Staged at the City Heights Performance Annex, it includes a cast of 12, live music, fight choreography and, as you would expect with this show, imaginative makeup and costuming. Loud Fridge’s director of operations Kate Rose Reynolds directs the large and entertaining ensemble which stars Kaylin Saur as a Viola quite unlike the one Reynolds herself portrayed in a production of “Twelfth Night” (sans zombies) in the Bay Area in 2018. In playwright Schaar’s world, Viola survives Shakespeare’s shipwreck but washes up a growling, convulsing zombie starved for victims. The foundation of the fanciful “Twelfth Night” story and its beautiful language is maintained – except of course in the latter case Viola does not speak that beautiful language – nor do any of the other characters once they’ve been attacked and “turned” undead. In a sense, the zombies-in-“Twelfth Night” gambit is of the one-joke variety, and once you accept it and get used to these characters infiltrating Illyria the shock value is diminished. It’s not a simple device to sustain over the length of this two-hour production, presented without intermission. Part of the quandary is that the zombies are up against a well-loved Shakespeare comedy already familiar to many. It’s my favorite of the lot for sure. The presence alone of Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Feste the fool and Malvolio the vain and foppish steward of Lady Olivia (here Robert Del Pino in drag) constitutes Shakespeare at his most broadly hilarious, their machinations and maneuvers, schemes and sight gags golden. It’s like you almost don’t need zombies. Even so, Loud Fridge has superbly cast these critical roles. Danny Campbell is delightfully debauched as Sir Toby, his flask of booze ever at the ready. Julia Giolzetti plays off him well as Sir Toby’s partner in crime Sir Andrew. The talented William BJ Robinson is the charming and conniving Feste. As the hapless Malvolio, Lee Engelman is true to the yellow-stockinged, cross-gartered butt of the others’ big joke. I never tire of “Twelfth Night’s” “rascals vs. Malvolio” subplot – frankly, it’s better than the original play’s Viola-centered intrigue of bumpy romance and mistaken identity – and this zombied treatment is no exception. But let’s give credit where it’s most certainly due: Schaar has worked the zombies into “Twelfth Night’s” narrative without reducing their appearance onstage to comic cameos. They interact with the other characters mostly as written by The Bard albeit without speaking intelligible words. As alluded to earlier, this adherence is maintained for most of “Twelfth Night of the Living Dead,” but when it isn’t – well, you’ll see. Then there’s Kaylin Saur. An experienced circus artist, drag performer and actor, she is the bleating beating heart of this production. With her rubberband physicality, stalking non-language and mixture of disorientation and menace, Saur’s zombie Viola is so mesmerizing to watch it’s hard to pay attention to any other character onstage with her. What would seem an exhausting challenge for any actor comes effortlessly for Saur, who I have to say is the most interesting and diverting Viola I’ve yet seen in my many “Twelfth Night” experiences. The limitations of the live stage take some of the bite out of the zombie attacks, but Reynolds and her crew creatively use a scrim to reflect much of the mayhem in silhouette. Other such moments of horror are heard offstage, and in the otherwise merely functional City Heights Performance Annex they echo eerily. Full disclosure: Unlike both playwright Schaar and director Reynolds, I’m not particularly a fan of zombie movies or TV shows and as such am less apt to revel in this deconstruction. What I do appreciate, however, are inventions that regardless of their nature bring Shakespeare’s works to audiences that might otherwise not be drawn to them. I have no way of knowing how many in the opening night audience of “Twelfth Night of the Living Dead” were conversant with the original play or with any of The Bard’s canon. Probably more than will be in subsequent performances when fewer friends and theater people occupy the bleacher seats. But if even one person Saturday night in the midst of enjoying watching the zombies chewing the scenery was for a second charmed by the lyricism of Shakespeare, then Loud Fridge Theatre Group has done well by his peerless legacy while having much fun doing it. “Twelfth Night of the Living Dead (Or What You Kill)” runs through July 7 at City Heights Performance Annex. In the foreground (left to right): Patti Murin, Christopher Ryan Grant and Van Hughes in "The Ballad of Johnny and June" at La Jolla Playhouse. Photo by Rich Soublet II In “The Ballad of Johnny and June,” a world-premiere bio-musical at La Jolla Playhouse, there are three versions of how country music’s royal couple, Johnny Cash and June Carter, first met. They all happened backstage at a show, but Johnny (Christopher Ryan Grant) remembers it one way, June (Patti Murin) remembers it another, and the pair’s only child together, John Carter Cash (Van Hughes), who’s also the show’s narrator, tells us nobody knows for sure how it went down.
One thing is certain: Neither Johnny’s nor June’s life would be the same, and they would ultimately spend the rest of their lives together. (Both passed away in 2003, Johnny just four months after June.) The presence of a grown John Carter Cash onstage in this collaborative musical by Des McAnuff and Robert Cary is reflective of the development and incubation of this show. McAnuff’s involvement came at the behest of the Cash estate – Johnny Cash had been a major fan of the Playhouse-born musical “Big River” (directed, as is this new show, by McAnuff) and was friends with its composer, Roger Miller. In meeting John Carter Cash in Nashville, McAnuff learned that Johnny and June’s son wanted to tell an authentic, un-“Hollywood” story of his parents’ lives and careers. “The Ballad of Johnny and June” became a collaboration between McAnuff, Cary and in a significant sense John Carter or JC. So “Ballad” is not a jukebox musical in which Grant and Murin simply perform the wonderful songs associated with Cash and Carter Cash. Neither is it a straightforward dramatization with musical performances included as in the 2005 film “Walk the Line” (which I do love, by the way). Instead, John Carter Cash speaks to the audience throughout, beginning by asking who’s married and who’s in love. The premise is that he’s considering a proposal himself. It’s clear that JC believes his parents loved each other, through many taxing trials, and never stopped. Van Hughes’ Carter Cash is omnipresent onstage, along with his guitar, telling the tale of Johnny and June, in his mind setting the record straight about them, and singing and playing on his own – then later with the two co-stars. Those who’ve read up on Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash and/or those who remember well the movie with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon will recognize much of the unfolding details, the chronology of which begins with June as a member of the popular Carter Family singers and Johnny as a boy with a strict father and a brother who dies shortly after a gruesome table-saw accident. The beginnings of Johnny Cash’s career under the wing of Sun Records’ Sam Phillips is here, as is his first marriage to Vivian Liberto (Gabriella Joy) and the philandering he did during it, the circumstances that brought him and June Carter together, their quick and mutual infatuation, Johnny’s drug abuse and his run-ins with the law, et al. What “Ballad” brings to the fore are what likely only Cash/Carter historians and ultra-ardent fans may know: the disappointments of June’s two previous marriages, her relationship in the Carter Family hierarchy, and more revealing still, her personal addiction issues. The latter to some extent overturns the perception created by the 2005 movie that June saved Johnny from total self-destruction, period. It’s tempting to compare this new musical to that well-remembered film, for which Witherspoon won an Oscar and Phoenix lost Best Actor because he happened to be up against Philip Seymour Hoffman for “Capote.” Many will undertake this comparison. It’s not really fair – the film and this show are two separate entities in entirely different mediums, arriving nearly 20 years apart. On its own merits, “The Ballad of Johnny and June” is a fascinating, if somewhat stretched out, work of Broadway-aspiring musical theater, propelled by unforgettable music performed live by Grant and Murin (both of them first rate), an ensemble that includes Hughes and six others in various roles, and a rousing, adroit orchestra conducted by keyboardist/music director Lisa LeMay. (Guitarists Joe Payne and Lorraine Hussey are standouts.) For me, because so many of the events of Cash and Carter Cash’s life together are well known, there aren’t a lot of surprises in the storytelling outside of June’s addiction reveal, and on a gut, emotional level the show reverberates with me far more during the performance of songs than in the drama being played out in between them. That can be exhilarating (“Ring of Fire”) or devastating (Cash’s cover of Trent Reznor’s “Hurt”). Having John Carter Cash as narrator certainly accomplishes the goal of filtering the story through his prism – who would know his parents better than he does? The onstage narrator who breaks the fourth wall isn’t my preferred theatrical device, but Hughes is a likable and warm presence, whether on the periphery of or inside the story. As to the live music, it’s foot-stompin’ and frequently thrilling. Few of the tunes are performed in their entirety, but neither are these classics reduced to medley snippets. Grant -- moving, hugging his guitar and absolutely sounding like the deep, distinctively voiced Man in Black -- more than does justice to “I Walk the Line,” “Cry Cry Cry,” “Get Rhythm,” the early Cash breakthrough “Hey Porter” and, complete with mariachi accompaniment as it was on the record, “Ring of Fire.” The prison gig sequence (one enactment in this musical that I find inferior to the film version) features the iconic “Folsom Prison Blues,” the quintessential Johnny Cash number, but also the lesser “A Boy Named Sue.” I know this one was actually recorded live when Cash played at San Quentin in 1969, but it’s always seemed like a Cash catalogue outlier to me. Maybe a bone thrown to those who don’t know his canon well? Could there have been folks like that in the audience? Murin, to my mind the pillar of this show, runs the gamut from the delightfully cornball “No Swallerin’ Place” to the Carter Family’s introspective “Wildwood Flower.” She and Grant electrify with the duets “Jackson” and “I’ve Been Everywhere” (this latter enhanced by Sean Nieuwenhuis’ projections of all those swiftly name-dropped towns). Robert Cary’s original “The Ballad of Johnny and June” is sung by Hughes at various times throughout. It’s a reminder that this is JC’s story as much as that of his beloved if troubled parents. I was never fortunate enough to see Johnny and June live. Right now, this may be the next best thing. “The Ballad of Johnny and June” runs through July 7 at La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Theatre. Rob McClure in "Mrs. Doubtfire." Photo by Joan Marcus The splendor of Rob McClure’s comic performance in “Mrs. Doubtfire” the musical is that he doesn’t try to be Robin Williams. But bravo, Mr. McClure, because your Daniel Hillard/Mrs. Doubtfire is a force of nature all its own.
McClure has been starring in this musical adaptation by Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell since it premiered in Seattle five years ago. (The show opened on Broadway in 2021 after a pandemic delay.) So this wacky two-character role he can probably do in his sleep by now. Not that it ever looks like he’s sleepwalking through a part that requires not only quick-changing from Daniel to a dowdy Scottish nanny but singing, dancing, riffing and all brands of physical comedy. Most impressive feat of the night: his “loop song” called “It’s About Time” in which he does improv, he does Elvis, he does puppets, he does it all. It’s an expansion of a scene from the film that’s amazin’ to watch. In fact, it’s the physical production numbers that work best in this musical “Mrs. Doubtfire” presented by Broadway San Diego: “Make Me a Woman” where Daniel’s makeup artist brother Frank (Aaron Kaburick) and Frank’s partner Andre (Nike Alexander) do just that; “Easy Peasy,” a wildly choreographed (by Lorin Latarro) cooking sequence in the kitchen; and the revealing “He Lied to Me” restaurant number highlighted by Lannie Rubio as a scorned and sexy Flamenco singer. The premise hasn’t changed much from the 1993 film. Daniel is an out-of-work voice actor whose perpetual Peter Pan complex is fun for his three kids but exasperating for his put-upon wife Miranda, played smartly on this tour by McClure’s real-life wife Maggie Lakis. After a divorce decree that Daniel only see the three kids once a week given his unemployment and disorganized life, he hits on the idea of applying for the job as the nanny his ex is seeking. You know the rest. Those vivid production numbers aside, the musical score of “Mrs. Doubtfire” is undistinguished, especially when syrupy ballads make their way, as they inevitably do on Broadway, into Act 2. Happily, there are lengthy sequences – most of them propping up the unfolding premise in Act 1 – where the comedy supersedes the song. Then it’s like watching “Mrs. Doubtfire” the movie live onstage, which is a treat if you loved the film. This is a very funny show that thrives on sight gags. Seeing Mrs. Doubtfire dancing (once in her skivvies) is a bonus not in the movie. Seeing a stage full of Mrs. Doubtfires dancing is another. Many in the cast make hay with their character parts, whether it’s Kaburick and Alexander, Romelda Teron Benjamin as a no-nonsense court-appointed social worker, Jodi Kimura as a buttoned-up television executive or Leo Roberts as Stu, the hunky new man in Miranda’s life. The onstage transformation of Daniel into Mrs. Doubtfire is cleverly achieved and often distracted from by gyrating dancers, and the aforementioned restaurant scene with its big reveal is a fine tribute to the spirit of the movie. If not for the cunningly choreographed numbers, this could have simply been a play version of the film. But then the comparisons to something made iconic by Robin Williams would intrude. Better it be a musical – not a perfect one by any means – but an undeniably appealing one with, like the movie, its heart in the right place. “Mrs. Doubtfire” runs through June 9 at the Civic Theatre, downtown. Lauren Weinberg as Queen Guenevere in "Camelot." Photo by Aaron Rumley Chatting pre-performance with some of the veteran theatergoers at North Coast Rep on Saturday night, I realized that I wasn’t the only one about to see the 64-year-old Lerner & Loewe warhorse “Camelot” for the very first time.
It’s not that surprising. Productions of the sprawling stage musical about King Arthur, Guenevere and Sir Lancelot typically requires a large performance space and includes a cast of nearly 25. Not everybody’s got the bandwidth for that. But as explained to me recently in an interview I did with Jeffrey B. Moss, who’s directing “Camelot” in Solana Beach, this production is a scaled-down but authentic iteration of the show, a concept that is popular among smaller theaters that wish to stage the musical based on T.H. White’s novel “The Once and Future King.” At times during the North Coast Rep production, “Camelot” still seems too big for its environs, as when it attempts to simulate battle scenes. On the other hand, and admittedly speaking from a position of having never seen the show on a massive stage, there is an intimacy to this “Camelot” that enables us to connect more closely with the characters. I didn’t really know what to expect when the show began. Not only had I never seen “Camelot” staged before, but I don’t recall even seeing the 1967 film adaptation. I expected familiar Arthurian figures – got ‘em. I expected period costumes – got ‘em (thanks to fine handiwork by designer Elisa Benzoni). I hoped for live musical accompaniment rather than recorded – got it (a four-piece ensemble led by musical director/pianist Daniel Lincoln). What I didn’t expect was that for most of the first act, “Camelot” is light fare and funny. Far from the staid, overly solemn Knights of the Round Table grandiosity I had in the back of my mind. As Arthur (whose childhood nickname was the undignified Wart), Jered McLenigan is happily hapless, not a rock-jawed stalwart king at all, and shyly endearing around the beautiful Guenevere (Lauren Weinberg). The attending knights (Jacob Caltrider, Elias Wygodny and Scott Hurst Jr.) have their comic struts in full vigor, and Jason Heil as Merlyn, complete with overflowing beard, is as amusing as he is wise. I wish there’d been more of Merlyn in the story. Of course having seen the spoofing “Monty Python’s Spamalot” multiple times, the quick banter and physical antics of the original “Camelot” don’t come off as that funny. This said, the only issue with the undeniably entertaining goings-on of Act One is that it’s so damned long. An hour and a half to be precise. It also requires practically the entire first act to introduce what will be “Camelot’s” chief conflict – the romantic triangle between Arthur, Guenevere and the French warrior Sir Lancelot (Brian Krinsky), a long-locked hunk for whom the queen falls hard after her initial disdain. The second act of “Camelot” does include the playful duet between Arthur and Guenevere “What Do the Simple Folk Do?”, but most of the tone is defiant and deadly serious, making it a shorter but thematically very different animal from Act One. It’s much more the “Camelot” I guess I expected, beginning with the musical’s best-known song “If Ever I Would Leave You,” and adding the secondary conflict of Arthur’s scheming son from a previous tryst, Mordred (Nick Apostolina – he’s like a villainous Michael J. Fox). I’m a fan of Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, mainly because of my undying affection for “My Fair Lady.” I would call “Camelot’s” score pleasant and whimsical and often witty (though far less witty than “My Fair Lady’s”), but that’s as far as I’ll go. What makes this score sing and soar is the presence of Lauren Weinberg as Guenevere. She is the only woman in the cast. She is also the highlight of every moment she has on stage. What a melodic, ranging, stunning voice. Besides “My Fair Lady,” I also have undying love for Julie Andrews, who played Eliza Doolittle on Broadway and who also played Guenevere in the Great White Way production of “Camelot.” Hearing Weinberg, whether during the jaunty “The Lusty Month of May” or the ardent “Before I Gaze at You Again,” brought Andrews to mind. That’s the highest praise I can give. The strongest male voice in the cast is Brian Krinsky’s (Lancelot), though on opening night there seemed to be sound issues during his introductory “C’est Moi” number. (All was fine by the time we got to “If Ever I Would Leave you.”) Krinsky’s pipes are as booming as he is big. “Camelot,” even a scaled-down one, is an ambitious undertaking, and North Coast Rep deserves plaudits for doing so, from Moss’ direction to Jill Gorrie Rovatsos’ imaginative choreography to a game cast that gives urgency to a “Golden Age Musical” whose heyday would seem many years in the past. I can now cross “Camelot” off my legacy-theater list. Time to rent the movie on Amazon Prime? Pass. I prefer to remember it by Lauren Weinberg and to dream what it must have been like to have heard Julie Andrews. “Camelot” runs through June 30 at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach. |
AuthorDavid L. Coddon is a Southern California theater critic. Archives
October 2024
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