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Politicians and pundits are again lamenting the latest slaughter in Colorado, where a dozen moviegoers were murdered by a troubled young man who had no trouble buying an assault rifle and other guns. But the horror will be transient while the NRA's clout has permanence, write Bill Moyers and Michael Winship.
Advantage to Mr. Romney
Exclusive: Mitt Romney's on a roll. He's turned back suspicions about his curious departure from Bain Capital and blunted demands he release more tax returns. Now, as he surges in the polls, he's twisted a comment by President Obama into a nasty attack ad – and almost no one is objecting, writes Robert Parry.
How We've Earned Your Support
From Editor Robert Parry: Since fall 1995 – for almost 17 years – Consortiumnews.com has worked to correct the American narrative. We've done it on spot stories of great significance and on historical turning points that require a better understanding to know where we're headed and why.
Mitt Romney's New Lie
Exclusive: Mitt Romney is echoing a lie that has been rumbling through the right-wing echo chamber, a selectively edited comment by President Obama about how roads, bridges and other public spending help business. This is a classic case where "independent fact-checkers" could help out, writes Robert Parry.
Dodging Tomatoes and Dissent
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to newly democratic Egypt was met by some protesters throwing tomatoes, but her stop in Israel, which included no overt signs of dissension, may have had more turmoil just below the surface, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Angry Money v. Democracy
A handful of "angry, old, white men" are on their way to buying the American elections, says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. But Republicans in Congress are making sure those identities stay secret by killing a bill that would at least require disclosure, write Bill Moyers and Michael Winship.
Romney's 'Fact-Checker' Cover-up
Exclusive: The "independent fact-checkers," who have been shielding Mitt Romney from questions about Bain Capital's off-shoring jobs and closing factories, are growing more isolated as the New York Times and other news outlets call for Romney to disclose more, reports Robert Parry.
Immigration, Racism & the Courts
Blocked on comprehensive immigration reform, the Obama administration has won some piecemeal victories against GOP demands for more draconian moves against "the undocumented." Deportations of "dreamers" have been stopped and much of an Arizona law was overturned, but more battles lie ahead, writes Marjorie Cohn.
The Romney 'Fact-Checking' Scandal
Exclusive: Mitt Romney cites "independent fact-checkers" to spare him from having to explain exactly what he did with Bain Capital after February 1999. But those "fact-checkers" are acting less like impartial journalists and more like argumentative lawyers covering Romney's political flanks, writes Robert Parry.
Bohemian Grove & Reagan's 'Treason'
Exclusive: This weekend, Occupy protesters are targeting the Bohemian Grove in California, where well-connected rich men go on retreats several weekends each summer. The secrecy of the 1980 encampment became a factor in the cover-up of possible "treason" by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, writes Robert Parry.


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Spider-Man Score Gets a Tweak From Veteran Director
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The ongoing saga of the $65 million Broadway musical "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" continues, this time with tweaks to the score. Paul Bogaev, a veteran director will help improve the music written by U2's Bono and The Edge.
Bogaev was nominated for a Tony for "Bombay Dreams" and was musical director for Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Boulevard" and "Starlight Express."
He has worked with rock stars Phil Collins for "Tarzan" and Elton John on "Aida."
After many delays, the musical is expected to open on March 15.
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Twelfth Night – What's with that Title?
January 6, 2015 § Leave a Comment
Today is Jan. 6, The Feast of Epiphany – which happens on the twelfth day after Christmas. As anyone who has been bombarded with multiple versions of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" during the holiday season knows, Christmas used to be an extended celebration culminating on Epiphany – as it still is in several European countries. In fact, in Shakespeare's time Christmas itself was a more muted and religiously-focused event, and the celebrations grew larger every evening until Twelfth Night. (In line with ancient Judeo-Christian tradition the days began at sundown the evening before, which is why we still have such a focus on Christmas Eve. Using this rule, Twelfth Night was celebrated in the early modern period on the night of Jan. 5 – Epiphany Eve, as it were.)
All that is reasonably clear, and explains the event which gives Shakespeare's play its name. The complication, of course, is that nothing in the play really suggests that the play takes place during the Christmas season, or has anything directly to do with the twelve days of Christmas at all. So why the name?
For that, we have to realize that Twelfth Night was a raucous celebration, a sort of cross between our modern New Year's Eve and Mardi Gras parties. Part of the festivities was the inversion of norms. A "Lord of Misrule" was often appointed to supervise the event – generally a youth or a servant with an outgoing personality and a wicked sense of parody. The distinction marking social classes were briefly relaxed and everything turned topsy-turvy. It was a time to blow off some steam, and frequently to ridicule the excesses of authority.
Twelfth Night, the play, features many such reversals. The social climbing Malvolio acts far above his station and inappropriately dreams of "having greatness thrust upon him." Viola is in disguise as a eunuch, Cesario. Viola's name is a near anagram of Olivia's, reflecting their interlocking oppositions on the subject of love. (In one case Olivia does not love where Viola does, and in another Viola loves where Olivia does not.) Sebastian is mistaken for his twin, and finds himself the object – rather than the initiator – of intense wooing.
The title, like those of Comedy of Errors and Much Ado about Nothing, suggests comic chaos. In this case, not because it happens on Twelfth Night, but because it is as disordered and inverted.
The Mask of Blackness: The Arabian Shakespeare Festival's OTHELLO reexamines Moorishness.
November 15, 2014 § 1 Comment
Otherness comes in many flavors
Since the extinction of the practice of white actors performing (and stereotyping) the title role of Othello in blackface, the play – at least in America – has featured actors of color and become a vehicle for examining black/white race relations. Because that is a necessary, and still unresolved, conversation it has been a highly successful strategy for rediscovering the relevance of the play.
What got lost in that transition is the possibility that Shakespeare was dramatizing otherness and ethnicity, but from a different perspective than Americans are imposing on it because of our current cultural complications: Othello is identified as a Moor, a word more closely associated in the Elizabethan era with those of Arabian descent than with peoples from sub-Saharan Africa. At about the time Shakespeare was writing the play, in fact, Elizabeth was receiving a famous embassy from the Barbary States. The ambassador, who manners and dress captivated London, took time to have his portrait painted.
The San Francisco-based Arabian Shakespeare Festival is now producing the play in a version which, unsurprisingly given its mission, opens the conversation about the Anglo/Arab implications of the play. The eight-person cast, led by Armando McClain, is mostly composed of accomplished regulars with various troupes in the active Bay Area Shakespeare scene.
The company is an emerging group, still producing on a shoe-string – albeit in an Equity approved project. Performing currently in the Royce Gallery's intimate space, (the production will later tour to the United Arab Emerates, I think) the set is a modern adaptation of an Elizabethan open stage, cleverly incorporating two large support pillars into the downstage location similarly occupied in the Globe. The scenery, by Janny Cote, consists of a few sliding cubes and a couple of curtains. (These were hung from an incongruously omnipresent palm-ish tree, center stage, which may allude to the symbol of the desert tribes, but because it lacked any direct purpose was – at least to me – confusing.) Joanne Martin's costumes were suits and uniforms for the male characters, dresses with prominently featured head scarves for the women. The time and place was the modern Middle East.
Performing in an American/Arabian Context
Kevin Hammond's direction is understated, and as far as creating visually interesting groupings of the actors, essentially absent. The production, therefore, hangs on the performance of the actors, and on the inescapable contemporary implications arising from the company's American/Arabian context.
On the performance front, the production is an unmitigated treat. In almost any production McClain's beautiful vocal production and outstanding diction would stand out, but Teddy Spencer as Iago, Jennifer Le Blanc as Desdemona and Artistic Director William J. Brown III as Roderigo easily kept pace. This was far and away the best-spoken production I have recently experienced. For those who go to hear a Shakespeare play, this is what you dream about. The intelligence of the readings, the clarity of thought, and the easy audibility made this production as accessible as any contemporary play. There was never a moment I felt in doubt about what had been said or what was meant.
Spencer's Iago is especially rewarding. He is a meticulous actor. I previously admired his performance as Orlando in Marin Shakespeare's As You Like It for its extraordinary clarity, but his Iago is on another plane altogether. The steps by which his plot unfolds, exceeding even his expectations, are so carefully executed that you can feel him thinking in front of you. His Iago is colder than is currently fashionable, which is interesting in the context of Red State America's xenophobia – he feels no need to seduce us into agreeing with him. Although Spencer is capable of incredible charisma on stage, he does not seek to charm us in this role. Instead, he steadily implicates us in his plot with an expectation that we will share his hatred of the outsider – which is chilling.
Le Blanc is very well known in the Bay Area. Her Rosie-the-riveter-inspired Kate in Taming of the Shrew at Livermore Shakes (opposite McClain as Petruchio) was a powerhouse performance. She is an unusual Desdemona because she is anything but delicate, or helpless. She is a strong actress, and it infuses her characters. Her Desdemona's fate forces us to think about the issues of women's rights both domestically and internationally because she is not passively complicit in it. She fights right to the end.
Perhaps the single best performance in the play is Brown's wonderfully inept Roderigo, whom Iago dupes financially and ultimately murders. From the opening moments he is in over his head, but Brown's embodiment of his bewilderment, fear, and pliability is a tour de force. It is exceptionally difficult to play weak characters memorably, but Brown's Roderigo is the best I have ever seen.
Annamarie MacLeod rounds out the principals as Emilia, Desdemona's servant and Iago's estranged wife. Emilia has one of the most memorable monologues in Shakespeare, rationalizing why women might cheat on their cheating husbands, but MacLeod delivered it with a vulnerability and yearning for her lost husband that I have never previously seen.
The supporting cast included Malcolm Rodgers, Aaron Kitchin and Sofia Ahmad all of whom had some lovely moments.
A Fresh Context
Conceptually this is not an aggressive production. While the play itself focuses attention on Othello's outsider status, the implications of the Arabian context in our current climate (where Arab-Americans can be subjected to intense hostility no matter what their religious beliefs or degree of assimilation) unfold subtly and slowly. I, at least, have seen the play so often filtered through the lens of the African-American experience that it took a while to realize exactly how this production was filtered through the American-Arabian lens instead. (There is neither denigration or dismissal of the former in this production, it is simply seen – unusually for our time – through the latter.)
Nonetheless, it gives the play a different feel and focus. For example, near the end of the play Othello receives word that he has been reposted, creating an urgency in his mind to deal with his (in his belief) unfaithful wife before the opportunity passes him by. He might have dealt with things more slowly and rationally if he were not being transferred the next day. And to where? I never really paid attention before, that his transfer is to Mauritania, from which the word for his ethnicity, Moor, is derived. Venice is rewarding his outstanding service by exiling him to a remote outpost where he will "fit in" now that they no longer need him.
Or this: Desdemona introduces the prophetic "willow song" by telling us that her mother's maid sang it on the night she died. The maid's name was Barbary – she was Moorish from the Barbary Coast. The number of references to Arabian matters and frameworks is astonishingly high once they are highlighted by design or by context.
Of course, throughout the play many characters (including Othello, himself) also comment on his blackness. This can be understood symbolically, but it has been a long time since I saw an Othello who was not also very dark skinned, so I have hear these references literally instead. (The last Othello I saw who was not very dark skinned was probably Patrick Stewart in a famous "photo-reversed" production for the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. in the mid '90s where everyone else in the cast was African-American.)
I have no idea how Armando McClain self-identifies ethnically, (nor do I think he – or any actor – has any obligation to clarify such matters) but in this production he reads more bronze than black. In this case, that helped me to hear the production as emphasizing the metaphor, the "mask" if you will, of blackness instead of the literalness so often associated with Othello's and others' statements. It was useful and interesting to think freshly about the association of darkness with malignancy and the damage done by such connotations.
This is a fascinating and original production of a play which has grown somewhat interpretively stale in the repertoire, and worth the time and effort of anyone that wants to see and hear it with fresh appreciation. It has a short run, and a limited number of seats, so go while the opportunity is available!
Arabian Shakespeare Festival at the Royce Gallery
Nov. 14, 2014
There Will Be Blood: a review of Marlowe's TAMBURLAINE, Parts I & II
November 9, 2014 § 4 Comments
Absent Father
Christopher Marlowe was a fast living, young dying contemporary of Shakespeare's who broke away from the medieval tradition of sing-song alliterative verse and almost single-handedly ushered in the golden age of Elizabethan drama. He was a revolutionary genius, perfecting and popularizing blank verse, a muscular new meter which Ben Jonson called "Marlowe's mighty line." He is revered as the "father of English tragedy." Why, then, are his plays so infrequently produced?
(Doctor Faustus is Marlowe's best-known work and, I concede, produced more often but still not quite cracking the levels of even minor Shakespeare, but his other plays have essentially dropped from the repertoire in America.)
Although my usual "beat" is the Bay Area, I sought some answers at a recent preview performance in Brooklyn's Polonsky Shakespeare Center. Theatre for a New Audience is currently offering a rare production of Marlowe's first great hit, Tamburlaine. How rare? Tamburlaine has not been professional produced in the city during my lifetime, last gracing the boards there in the mid 1950s.
Directed by Michael Boyd (recently stepped down from the helm of the RSC) and starring John Douglas Thompson, the production was illuminating about both the thrill and the danger of reviving Marlowe.
Marlowe's play, now called Part I, was the hit of the London theatre scene in 1587, and he quickly penned a sequel, Part II. TFANA is presenting a sleek cutting which combines sections from both plays, and bills it as Tamburlaine, Parts I & II. Thoughtful editing by Boyd brought the scope of this evening down to four hours (inclusive of intermission), but that length alone is at least one impediment to more frequent performance. The sheer scale of the material is daunting to both the production company and the audience alike. Whatever compromises were necessary to bring the material down to this length, however, fear of controversy was certainly not a guiding factor as I shall explore a bit more later.
Historical Fiction is not a New Genre
Tamburlaine, like most Marlowe plays, has as its central figure a driven, charismatic anti-hero who refuses to accept the limitations placed on him. Tamburlaine is historical fiction, dramatizing the story of the self-made Tartar Emperor, Timur the Lame, who started life as a poor shepherd and eventually conquered the remnants of Genghis Khan's empire.
In Part I of the play we watch him rise to power through a combination of fearlessness, charm and treachery, brilliantly conveyed by John Douglas Thompson in the title role.
Tamburlaine is already a successful marauding bandit when the play begins. When the King of Persia (Paul Lazar) sends his disloyal brother (the wonderfully slimy Saxon Palmer) to suppress his piracy, Tamburlaine deftly turns him by elaborately promising to support a coup. Once it is successful, he instantly reneges on his promise by disposing of his new sponsor and taking the crown for himself. (One of the recurrent motifs in Marlowe is the distance between what is said, albeit with rhetorical brilliance, and what is actually done. How depressingly relevant does that remain today?)
It's All About the Wordplay
He kidnaps the daughter of an Egyptian king, Zenocrate (Merritt Janson) on the way to her wedding, and vows to make her his wife, but delays to test her even after it is clear that she has fallen in love with him. The bulk of Part I is taken with his conquest of the Turks. His verbal duels with Bajazeth, their emperor, (Chukwudi Iwuji giving the best performance in the play) are the high point of the night – Elizabethan trash talk that thrills. Marlowe doubles down on the delight by setting Zenocrate in debate against the Turkish empress (Patrice Johnson Chevannes) in a parallel smackdown.
After Tamburlaine succeeds in his conquest, he tortures the captured Emperor and his wife, by using the former as a footstool and the latter as a household slave forced to watch her husband's humiliation. Because of the stunning performances it is a degradation that we feel keenly, but accomplished with a theatricality in which we revel. When the formerly arrogant, but downtrodden, couple commit suicide we feel the first stirrings of Marlowe's tragic capacity.
With striking contemporary relevance, the play is set in a period of intense religious struggle between Christians and Muslims. Thompson is at his best as Tamburlaine when he conveys the warrior's contempt for the superstitions of both factions – daring everybody's heavens to strike him down for trampling over anyone in his way.
Boyd's direction is deft throughout Part I, showing us the brutality of conquest but always avoiding associating it too closely with his protagonist. The most visually astonishing scene of the first act was seeing the assassination of the Persian king, in mid-sentence, as he simply begin to drip blood from multiple wounds invisibly inflicted. It was chilling.
Seneca Redux
It is a play with Senecan levels of violence – again thematically modern but risky. Character after character would die from similarly disembodied causes, or more horrifyingly when a young boy, played by an impassive Ian Saint-Germain, would appear with buckets of blood that he would pour over them. (I strongly suspect that the half-hour intermission was necessary, not because we needed the break, but because that is how long it took to mop up literally gallons of stage blood.)
Part II is more intense, and more piercing in its look at all involved. It begins as the Muslims temporarily ally with the Christians to neutralize the rising protagonist, but (as Tamburlaine knew it would) their truce breaks down. The Christian king is persuaded that he is not bound by his sacred oath because it was given to non-believers. His betrayal is rewarded with almost instant defeat and death, but it gives Tamburlaine the break he needs to divide and conquer.
The focus shifts to Tamburlaine's training of his three adult sons to succeed him, a lesson in brutality so unrelenting that he kills one of his own sons for insufficient viciousness. It is, significantly, the only murder we see him commit with direct agency and in front of us. The shift of sympathy away from him is palpable, as is our guilt for having been so charmed in the first place. The contemporary implications of the play, that underdogs we consider our allies and have armed can spin out of control once they get the upper hand, becomes inescapable.
Tamburlaine's rise continues unabated, but its limit is foreshadowed when his beloved Zenocrate dies, despite his order for troupes to attack heaven and prevent it taking her. He turns bizarre as he decides not to bury her, but carry the embalmed body with him on his campaigns. Thompson's nuanced delivery of his mental decline is brilliant – so carefully and subtly unleashed that we understand how those around him might not have noticed until it was too late.
Cruelty and Swagger
He conquers four more kingdoms, and in the most famous scene in the play, forces their captured kings to draw his chariot. It is this iconic moment, a perfect combination of cruelty and swagger, that made Marlowe's reputation.
Tamburlaine then attacks Babylon, hanging its governor from the walls and ordering the troupes to shoot him dead for target practice. When a group of virgins is sent by the city to implore mercy he has them impaled, followed by ordering the drowning the entire population of the town, and then ordering their holy book, the Koran, burned – which is performed onstage. (It is that latter point that led me to say that whatever choices Boyd made in cutting the play, avoidance of controversy was not one of them!)
He defiantly denies that any divine punishment will come from it, and it is ambiguous how closely related his final illness is, although its onset begins within a few lines of the desecration. Tamburlaine has died by the end of the scene, unconquered, but leaving behind an empire that will fall apart as quickly as it was built.
The Challenges of Marlowe
What did I conclude after seeing the production? First, Marlowe's blank verse is muscular, unfashionably so to those who are used to Shakespeare's more extensive employment of variations. It might be that Boyd's cutting left too many peaks without enough valleys between them, but it was a difficult to be so constantly attentive to such unrelenting energy. I rather think that Marlowe presents special challenges this way, however.
Second, the themes of the play are amazingly current, but it takes a deft touch to convey them without getting sidetracked into controversy. (For example, can you convince an audience to excuse the burning of a sacred text in front of them, even the pretend burning, by emphasizing the burner was equally contemptuous of all religions? Boyd does, but it is dicey.)
Marlowe is tough – raw and edgy. His plays can be Titus Andronicus-level violent. Set and costume designer Tom Piper and special effects designer Jeremy Chernick emphasized this with white costumes in a basically black Elizabethan courtyard colored only by dripping, splattering, pooling and flowing blood.
Tamburlaine is not particularly sexual, although there is a scene in which one of his generals threatens to rape the conquered woman he loves when she does not return his feelings, but that is exceptional in his plays. Edward II, by contrast, focuses squarely on the homosexual liaisons of the king. And in all of them religious controversy abounds. Marlowe's atheism is evident throughout this, and other, plays.
The plays present immense logistical challenges to any company without unlimited resources – which is essentially all of them in America. Boyd covers dozens of roles with a cast of twenty, and most of the time the doubling is so thematically motivated that you not only suspend disbelief, but understand the play better because of it. I was a little perplexed by his double casting Zenocrate with the final antagonist Callapine, however, because the actress kept having to leap uncomfortably between the two roles, where all other actors in the production finished each part before moving to the next. A different convention seemed to be employed for her, not altogether successfully, but that is a minor complaint about an overwhelmingly successful production.
Courage and Capability
If I had to state a position, I'd suggest that it is not content that prevents the plays from being produced more often, but difficulty. There are very few companies capable of taking on a Marlowe play.
All the more reason that you should see this production, because TFANA has the courage and the capability! The cast is outstanding, including many actors in lesser parts not singled out above, especially the chameleons Matthew Amendt and Caroline Hewitt. It officially opens this week and runs through Dec. 21.
Tamburlaine, Parts I & II
Theatre for a New Audience
Brooklyn, New York
Nov. 5, 2014
Getting Cross-Gender Performance Right: Lisa Wolpe and Shakespeare
October 28, 2014 § Leave a Comment
Performing Gender
Lisa Wolpe is, according the playbill of her current solo show, Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender, America's reigning "Shakespearean Drag King." It is no surprise, then, when she enters the stage with a flying leap in male persona and immediately starts into the balcony scene: "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."
That was what I was there to see, and I dare say most of the rest of the audience, too – Lisa Wolpe doing her internationally acclaimed cross-gender performance of Shakespeare. First impression: Her Romeo seemed a bit, what, contrived? Mannered. No, Constructed. That's the word. I immediate thought that he was a bit too artificially created as he pondered the light breaking through the window and my heart sank just a little… and then Wolpe gracefully slipped into Juliet. Charming, but also – to exactly the same degree, although in opposite technical ways – constructed.
It took a second for me to realize that that, of course, was her point. Adolescent self-invention is a series of poses, assumed (and often quickly discarded) identities, and painful attempts at self-definition. Watching Wolpe alternate Romeo and Juliet foregrounded the awkward self-consciousness of both young lovers. Wolpe remembers exactly what it was like to try to create oneself as a teenager, and brings that knowledge to the performances. We watched her characters struggle to invent appropriate outward expressions of their inner lives – and while we saw how arbitrary the role models for doing so really are – the scene was about so much more than that. Wolpe delivered about the most nakedly honest representation of adolescent love I've ever seen. Best moment: Juliet's "What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor face, nor (suddenly blushing and mumbling) any-other-part-belonging-to-a-man." Genius.
I was looking forward to seeing how this foregrounding of gender role construction was to develop over the evening, but in truth, once established it did not have to be repeated, and wasn't.
And Much More than Gender
Instead the balcony scene soon segued into new – unexpected – material. Wolpe shared the tragic story of her family – losing both parents at a young age – both apparently suicides. Her father, a traumatized WWII veteran, died when she was a toddler, her mother a decade later, but not until after entering into a disastrous, abusive second marriage.
When Wolpe transitioned back to Shakespeare, as Hamlet, she had already established that her connection point to the role was a shared longing for a lost father – to which, it turns out, gender is fairly irrelevant. Her Hamlet is gendered male, but it hardly registered, since it is the searing intensity of her identification with Hamlet's loss that powered the performance forward. It was an astonishing realization of the emotional and psychological complexity of the role, as fulfilled as any I have ever seen, but not about Hamlet's self-constructed gender.
Her alternating of Shakespearean performances with personal revelations continued throughout the evening, as did her alternating male and female characters. Playing the falsely accused queen, Hermione, in the trial scene from The Winter's Tale, the approach seemed unlike any performance of the role I have ever seen. This Hermione was not the dignified and articulate noblewoman, certain of her innocence, we usually see. This Hermione was disempowered, defeated and disintegrating right before our eyes. It was a shockingly incisive portrait of a domestic abuse victim. The only surprise in the revelation that it was based on her mother was the deftness and concision with which it was handled – a single sentence inserted as an aside into the middle of the monologue itself.
It did not take long to become clear how passionately Wolpe cares about empowering women's voices (especially those that are elsewhere suppressed or ignored) on stage. The fact that she refuses to be limited to channeling those strictly through female characters is telling, but so if the fact that she does not channel them strictly through male characters, either. Gender is a tool, not a trick, in her creative arsenal.
Her performances have a lot to say about the range of human experience, and the manner in which gender can provide agency, but the striking power of her characterizations derives from the fact that the container is never more interesting the contents. I rather frequently lost track of the fact that Wolpe was jumping back and forth across gender boundaries, but I never, for a second, stopped realizing that I was watching a great artist at work.
Cross-Gendering, but not Re-gendering
She has probably more experience played cross-gendered Shakespeare than any actor in America, so perhaps it is that she makes it look so easy and unremarkable that allows us to forget that it is, in fact, technically difficult and still (unfortunately) controversial. She never takes the easy "non-traditional casting" path, however, of re-gendering the character. No Prosperas, Queen Lears, or Macbethanys for her. Part of her exploration of acting and characterization is delving into the gender roles, assuming the agency that both male actors and characters are more freely granted, not just claiming the lines and scenes to ease the under-representation of women in theatre.
As the evening progressed her performances cherry-picked some of the very best of the canon, included Henry V and, fascinatingly, Shylock. The reason for the latter choice became clear as her family story began to focus more and more upon recovering her father's astounding history – the only member of a German Jewish family to survive the holocaust, decorated war hero (fighting with a Canadian regiment), self-appointed avenger executing hundreds of captured German soldiers, and finally haunted PTSD victim taking his own life.
We drifted further and further from seeking perspective on the performance of gender on stage and in life, and began directly to explore the tragic consequences of inhumanity.
A Work-in-Progess, but What Work!
Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender is still a work in progress, and as a solo show it has some dramaturgical difficulties, not the least of which is that the longer into the evening we get the less it is focused on its titular subjects. Wolpe is not yet a world-class author, which is only apparent because she is a world-class actor. The most polished parts of the evening are the scenes and monologues from plays that she has starred in and performed in their entirety. She is still crafting the personal narrative that introduces and surrounds them.
But as a showcase for an actor of genuine brilliance, for an artist insightfully deconstructing gender roles, and for an activist empowering women's voices, it is a great vehicle. Seeing Wolpe work is watching alchemy in action – that particular magic by which an actor transforms herself into someone totally different while simultaneously revealing her deepest self. She is a living treasure. The show is now touring. See it if you can.
Lisa Wolpe's Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender
Presented by the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
Presidio Officer's Club, San Francisco
Oct. 25, 2014
The Most Produced Plays in America…sort of.
September 28, 2014 § Leave a Comment
Theatre Communications Group Has a List!
Every season, Theatre Communications Group (TCG) – the organization of America's not-for-profit theatres – puts out a list of the 10 most produced plays by its nearly 500 members. (Because they recognize ties, this year it is actually a top 11…) Although it covers only a segment of the American Theatre scene, (because it does not include for-profit, academic, or amateur theatres) its annual list is a quick way to get the pulse of what plays and playwrights are currently hot.
That is a very useful list for performers thinking about where to put their time and energy familiarizing themselves with scripts, with names to watch, and with sources for audition material. Because I know it gets used that way, every season I also put out my own annual rant reminding students and actors of a surprising omission.
And the winner is…
In this year's list, published just last week, the top spot goes to Christopher Durang's Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike which has a whopping 27 productions scheduled across the nation this year. There is no sense in which it can said the American theatre marches in lockstep, however. A measly ten productions earn the second spot for Outside Mullingar by John Patrick Shanley, and it only takes six productions to earn a place in the top 10, …er 11.
For the last season for which complete records are available (2013-14), 23 productions were enough to earn the top spot for David Ive's Venus in Fur, which managed to hang on this year to a six-production tie for tenth place. Two other titles on the current list were also represented last year, but there is rather fast turnover from year-to-year. (The top production on the list a decade ago, for example, was The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey, which is scheduled for how many productions this year? Oooow, zero.)
The Problem with the List
The list is a little misleading, however, because TCG makes two exclusions to their counts: They do not include holiday shows, like the ubiquitous Christmas Carol and the current small budget alternative, The Santaland Diaries, the first of which would be the perennial winner of the top spot.
More surprisingly, they do not list plays by Shakespeare. Yet every year Shakespeare plays would rank quite high on the list if they did. In the current season, according to a title search using TCG's data, 11 productions A Midsummer Night's Dream would actually earn second place on this list if it were recognized.
Ten Tempests would make it third on the list, in a tie with Shanley's play. Nine Hamlets would garner it fourth place. King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth would make the cut, tying with three other titles that have six productions each scheduled. Both As You Like It and Comedy of Errors are just one production shy of also making the list. That is eight Shakespearean titles in a top 11 list (with ties), while no other playwright is represented even twice.
All told, according to a quick search of the TCG website, Shakespeare has a total of 108 productions and/or adaptations in the 2014-15 season – actually a surprisingly low number – but still far above the second place finisher (Dickens at 46) and the top living playwright (Durang at 28). The year before (when the 450th anniversary of his birth fell) he received 127. The year before that, he received 153. The year before that 148.
My purpose is not to quarrel with TCG's exclusions. They are open about their methodology, and their support of new American work. As they tactfully put it in a footnote, there are only so many ways to say that A LOT of companies do a version of A Christmas Carol each year – although almost every one of those is the work of a different adapter. There is also no comfortable way to note, year after year, that if they included Shakespeare's plays he would dominate the list and push some living, struggling playwrights entirely off.
America's Most Produced Playwright
When students ask me, however, about where to spend their time and energy, I am always quick to remind them the most produced playwright in America – who, by the way, has occupied this position for every single year of the last hundred years – is William Shakespeare. If I were going to study just one play in depth, I think I'd pick the most produced play in America over the last decade which is…A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The Fall Classical Theatre Season in the San Francisco Area
September 2, 2014 § Leave a Comment
As summer winds down, so does the number of pre-modern plays on local stages, but there are a few festivals with seasons continuing into fall and a small number of additional productions. Of particular note are the two continuing productions by the Marin Shakespeare Festival and the upcoming Midsummer at CalShakes helmed by the wonderful young director Shana Cooper. I personally am also really anticipating the production of Shakespeare's R&J, a four-person adaptation of Romeo and Juliet by Joe Calarco which will play at the New Conservatory Theatre Center.
Continuing until Sept. 7
PENTHESILEA adapted from Heinrich Von Kleist by Guilio Perrone
Actor's Ensemble of Berkeley
Live Oak Theatre
1301 Stattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA
Continuing until Sept. 14
San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
Presidio Main Parade Grounds
San Francisco, CA
also playing at McLaren Park – Jerry Garcia Amphitheater Sept. 20-21
Continuing until Sept. 14
Half Moon Bay Shakespeare Company
John L. Carter Memorial Park
Stone Pine Road
Half Moon Bay, CA
Continuing until Sept. 14
Curtain Theatre
Old Mill Park Amphitheatre
Mill Valley, CA
Continuing until Sept. 27
AN IDEAL HUSBAND by Oscar Wilde
Continuing until Sept. 28
Marin Shakespeare Company
Forest Meadows Amphitheatre
Dominican University of California
890 Belle Ave.
San Rafael, CA
Sept. 3 – 28
California Shakespeare Theatre
100 California Shakespeare Theatre Way
Orinda, CA
Sept. 4 – 28
SAINT JOAN by George Bernard Shaw
Jewel Theatre Company
Center Stage
1001 Center Street
Santa Cruz, CA
Sept. 12 -28
Shakespeare Napa Valley
Veteran's Memorial Park
Main St. at 2nd St.
Napa, CA
Sept. 26 – Oct. 19
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST by Oscar Wilde
Pacifica Spendrift Players
1050 Crespi Drive
Pacifica, CA
Oct. 17 – Nov. 15
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST by Oscar Wilde
Santa Clara Players
1505 Warburton
Santa Clara, CA
Oct. 18 – Nov. 19
African-American Shakespeare Company
Buriel Clay Theatre
762 Fulton St., #305
San Francisco, CA
Oct. 30 – Nov. 9
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST by Oscar Wilde
Sonoma State University
Evert B. Person Theatre
1801 E. Cotato Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA
Nov. 7 – Dec. 12
SHAKESPEARE'S R&J by Joe Calarco
New Conservatory Theatre Center
25 Van Ness Ave, LL
San Francisco, CA
Nov. 13-23
Arabian Shakespeare Festival
Royce Gallery
2901 Mariposa St.
San Francisco, CA
Nov. 14 – 23
Cal State East Bay
University Theatre
25800 Carlos Bee Blvd.
Hayward, SA
Nov. 14 – 23
Las Positas College
Barbara Mertes Center for the Arts
300 Campus Hill Road
Livermore, CA
What Was Lost is Found – A Review of the Santa Cruz Shakespeare Season
August 1, 2014 § Leave a Comment
A Phoenix from the Ashes
The good news this summer is that Santa Cruz Shakespeare, the new company sprung from the ashes of the defunct Shakespeare Santa Cruz, is here at all. (The old SSC collapsed last year when its primary patron, UC-Santa Cruz, decided – after 32 years – to withdraw support.) The great news is that the new company is not only excellent in and of itself, but demonstrates considerable continuity with its predecessor and perhaps – after a series of events worthy of one of Shakespeare's romances – what was lost has been found again.
The controversial decision to close Shakespeare Santa Cruz was just one painful effect of the widespread devastation caused by the billion-and-a-half dollar cuts to California's higher education systems since 2008. This particular loss, however, struck a chord with its loyal audiences, who rallied to save, if not the company itself, the accumulated artistic capital of this beloved summer tradition.
Funders in the local community in Santa Cruz and the Bay Area artistic community pulled together to resurrect this acclaimed artistic resource in a new, independent form. In record time a new non-profit was created, an infrastructure was reinvented, and sufficient funding was raised to mount a season. All this is cause for great celebration.
It would be churlish to criticize the initial efforts of such an heroic effort for artistic insufficiency, so I (and my critical colleagues, I think) are grateful that no leeway is needed. The two mainstage offerings of the summer (As You Like It and Merry Wives of Windsor) can stand on their own.
Merry Wives When It Is about the Wives
Conceptually, Merry Wives is the most interesting. Although chosen as a vehicle for Richard Ziman (whose portrait of Falstaff in the Henry IV plays in recent years has made him a local celebrity) the real interest comes from director Kirsten Brandt's feminist reading and inventive staging set in the 1920s.
Merry Wives is a lesser work in the canon. Almost entirely in prose, it looks like a play hastily assembled and perhaps never advanced beyond a first draft.
The plot is an exceedingly thin and repetitive regurgitation of the famous commedia dell'arte get-in-the-bag lazzi in which an obnoxious man is tricked into hiding is a container "for his own protection" and then beaten by his alleged protectors. In MWW, Falstaff attempts to seduce two different (married) women by sending them identical proposals for assignations on the same day – apparently unaware that they are best friends. The women (repeatedly) pretend to accept and then in slapstick incidents punish the very-slow-to-get-the-picture Falstaff for his unwanted advances, while one also gets in some licks against a suspicious husband. The other gets her own comeuppance from a daughter who ends the play by becoming a wife to the man of her own choosing against the plotting of her mother for a very bad candidate.
In most modern productions the play is not very funny, because there are only so many ways a fat joke can be told and Falstaff is much less engaging in this play than he is in the histories. Brandt has launched the gender politics into the foreground, refocusing the play on the titular wives instead of Falstaff. Her leading actresses, Julia Coffey (Mistress Ford) and Greta Wohlrabe (Mistress Page), find the genuine humor in women who are tired of being underestimated and can run circles around the men in their lives.
Carly Cioffi (as Mistress Quickly) and Maribel Martinez (as the enterprising daughter, Anne Page) round out the cast of clever women. The director and her cast found astonishing depths in characters that are generally played much more superficially.
And Also There Were Men
The male cast was more than capably played – but given the conception of the evening – necessarily seemed more one-dimensional and less engaging. Ziman's Falstaff was not the centerpiece of the evening, but he gamely took all his slapstick licks and summoned up his dignity at the end. The strongest performance was probably that of Mark Anderson Phillips whose jealous, "mansplaining" Master Ford was delightful.
Kit Wilder (the Welsh parson Hugh Evans) and William Elsman (the French Doctor Caius) led the supporting actor contingent with loving charm.
The 1920s setting gives the set designer Eric Barker, the costume designer B. Modern, and the lighting designer Kent Dorsey a specific and recognizable period in which to work – and they all find magic in it.
B. Modern's costumes, especially, reflect the perfect expression of women who are finding their freedom in times when men don't yet "get it." The best sight gag of the night is, however, Falstaff's "disguise" as a garish and hugely rotund female fortuneteller.
Into the Woods
As You Like It was, by contrast, a much more staid and traditional production but situated in probably the most beautiful setting in the world for this play – The Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen, a redwood paradise – it too was delightful. Scenic designer Michael Ganio and lighting designer Kent Dorsey made the most of this natural environment featuring it with spectacular combinations of light and shadow that drew audible gasps from the audience when curtains were drawn that revealed the vista.
Using a repertory cast for the summer, AYLI utilized the same personnel as Merry Wives, but often to vastly different effect. Julia Coffey, who proved such an excellent farceur as Mistress Ford, here expertly plays the much more emotionally complex leading woman, Rosalind. The contrast could not be higher, not least because she spends most of this play in convincing disguise as a young man. She is in the woods because she has been banished by her usurping uncle, Duke Frederick. She flees to the forest with her cousin Celia, disguising herself as protection against outlaws. If there are any such ruffians, however, we never see them. The forest is occupied by her father (the overthrown Duke) and his orderly, nostalgic courtiers. A recent arrival is a young nobleman, Orlando, who is also fleeing an inhospitable home, in his case running from a treacherous older brother.
Rosalind and Orlando have met before, when he unexpectedly won a wresting match with her in the audience, at which they fell for each other immediately. In this production Dan Flapper places the emphasis on Orlando as both extremely inarticulate and overly romantic. When the couple again meets in the woods, Rosalind has already assumed her male alter ego, Ganymede, which allows her to covertly tackle the problem that his worshipful and idealized courtship (he is posting bad love poems on trees) is less engaged than what she has in mind.
She undertakes to disabuse him of his poetic attitudes through "love lessons," her male self impersonating her actual self in a series of scenes of dizzying complexity.
Flapper and Coffey have outstanding chemistry as the central couple. The courtship is less engaging that it is in some productions because Flapper's Orlando never loses sight of the fact that these "love lessons" are just pretense and his real love is, he believes, elsewhere. (I read the play to suggest that Orlando finds himself developing very real feelings for Ganymede, which he neither understands nor controls.) In Mark Rucker's production, however, it is Rosalind who loses sight of the game, kissing Orlando in an inappropriate moment from which he recoils. Still, the sparks are no less intense for this reversal.
Greta Wohlrabe plays Rosalind's cousin Celia, and it is fascinating to see her paired with Mark Anderson Phillips playing Orlando's repenting older brother Oliver. (In Merry Wives, they played Mistress Page and Master Ford, respectively.) Here, their chemistry rivals that of the main couple and their giddy humor becomes infectious.
Co-artistic director Mike Ryan plays the court jester, Toucstone, settling into country life with clarity and precision. It is a very difficult role, composed mostly of indecipherable old jokes, but he makes us understand.
In some ways this production was uneven. Richard Zinman doubles as both the usurped and usurping Dukes, but with no visual distinction and so little physical or vocal changes that he seems more like one character in two moods that contrasting brothers. With no other doubling of note in the cast, this proved a confusing convention. Allen Gilmore plays Jacques, the forest philosopher, as genuinely depressed and even his "seven ages of man" speech fails to land. William Elsman, a terrific and dependable actor, got some good laughs as the endlessly rejected country bumpkin, Silvius, but seems strangely miscast. (He seems perpetually used for egomaniacal roles in this company, like Doctor Caius in Merry Wives, but is actually a remarkably handsome and articulate actor who would have made a fine Orlando.)
By far the most original touch in the production was that Orlando's faithful old retainer, Adam, (played by Marcus Cato) was given a prominent – and interpolated – death scene just before intermission. It was a darkness that would not return, however. Understandably, this summer the focus is on the miracle of the phoenix, and not on what is lost.
As You Like It, directed by Mark Rucker
Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Kirstin Brandt
Santa Cruz Shakespeare
Reviewed on July 20, 2014, Running through August 10
Tickets: $16-48
Info: santacruzshakespeare.com
Don't Trust Your Mentors – A Review of ROMEO AND JULIET at the Marin Shakespeare Company
July 31, 2014 § Leave a Comment
Romeo and Juliet is generally interpreted as a tragedy of youthful impetuousness, but thanks to two exceptionally powerful performances from supporting players Marin Shakespeare Company's current production is, instead, an unconventional reading of the play as a tale of adult betrayal.
Youthful Leads
On its surface, Lesley Schisgall Currier's production is generally traditional, although with a few interesting moments of intentional anachronism thrown in. Jake Murphy (Romeo) is genuinely youthful, on a summer break from pursuing his undergraduate degree, and onstage he seems believably adolescent. Romeo is a notoriously difficult character to play successfully as most young actors have trouble catching both the lover and the fighter in him. Murphy is more believable as the latter, but the depth of his passion grows near the end of the play and his suicide, which he played with both fear and gravity, was harrowing.
Luisa Frasconi is cast against type as Juliet. Her forte is comedy. She is wonderful as Phebe in As You Like It, the other play in rep at Marin, and was winning in The Liar at Livermore Shakespeare Festival last summer. She does not overly indulge her comic impulses in this production, but her broad physicality and her "Betty Boop" voice occasionally work against our taking her seriously. Although interesting enough in most ways, if the production had depended on them alone for its impact, these leads would lack the tragic stature needed to carry the evening.
More than Just Support
But in intriguing ways, Currier's production is not focused on them. The early moments of the play are built on the power of the always-dependable Scott Coopwood as the Chorus that delivers the opening sonnet, and then as the Prince of Verona. Teddy Spencer as Tybalt and Jackson Currier as Mercutio both find very sinister readings of their characters and propel the middle of the play forward.
The production really comes into its own with the appearance of Julian Lopez-Morillas as the young couple's spiritual guide and confidant, Friar Lawrence. (Last summer Lopez-Morillas, as the leading character Hieronimo, brilliantly carried this company's production of the rarely-produced Spanish Tragedy.) This Friar Lawrence was strongly conveyed because Lopez-Morillas speaks Shakespeare's verse exceptionally well, but the character was also interpreted as bright, insightful, and genuinely concerned for the welfare of the young couple. There was no doubt that his intentions were pure – that is, until the last moment. When he might have saved Juliet's life, he callously abandoned her in a desperate bid for his own safety. The betrayal was shocking.
The most brilliant turn of the evening was delivered by Debi Durst, the queen of San Francisco's improv comedy scene, as the nurse. She delivered everything that her reputation would suggest: hilarious as a chatterbox that cannot be quieted in her first scene, the bawdy equal of the young men who later accost her in the street, and fussily silly when withholding information from Juliet about Romeo's intentions to marry her and her coming wedding night.
She is so charming and funny that, even if you know the play well, you are unprepared for her reaction in the moment when Juliet seeks an ally against her tyrannical father (played by the company's artistic director, Robert Currier.) In this central moment, Durst smoothly slides into the recommendation that Juliet quietly pretend her marriage to Romeo never existed and bigamously marry the wealthier Count Paris without so much as a backward glance. I've seen this moment played as consciously venal, and as completely opportunistic before, but Durst's rendition clearly revealed the desperation with which she held onto her small position in a grand household as her only defense against a life of exponential loss. It was much more than the ability of a comedian to reveal the pain underneath the laughter: it seemed stunningly contemporary: in a bad economy down-and-out elders will sell out their protégés in an instant if it buys them even a little while longer on the trickle-down fringe.
Mostly Cloudy with Scattered Silliness
The combined impact of Lopez-Morillas and Durst was such that the play seemed to mean something insightfully different than the message it usually delivers. Instead of a warning about the rashness of youth, this performance seemed much more concerned with the danger of their gullibility about the "benevolence" of their elders. At least in this production, times are tough and an entire generation is abandoned to its own devices. Currier seems to suggest that far from a tragedy of fate, the loss of these two innocent teenagers was entirely preventable by trusted mentors who failed to step up to the plate.
This dark vision generally permeated the play, although Adam Roy (as the clown character, Peter) pushed hard in the opposite direction. On opening night he was clearly an audience favorite, as he had been as Touchstone in As You Like It. It is a performance I liked much less than those around me – worrying that he was frequently stealing focus and diluting the cynicism with which this production is infused – but it is only fair to say that I seemed pretty much alone in this assessment.
This is a company that places its emphasis on acting instead of spectacle. Jackson Currier is credited with the inoffensive set design, although only in the set decoration was it any different from the one used in As You Like It, credited to Joel Eis. Abra Berman's black-and-white costumes were more aesthetically suggestive, achieving their impact in contrast to Romeo and Juliet's blood red final apparel. Maxx Kurzunski's lighting was little more than general illumination, and seemed to bear a curiously inverse relationship to the logical amount of light the scenes needed. (The gloomy crypt was the most brightly lit scene of the evening. Go figure.)
As You Like It
Marin Shakespeare Company
Directed by Lesley Schisgall Currier
Attended July 26, 2014, playing through Sept. 28
Tickets: $12-35 or "pay your age"
Info: marinshakespeare.org
Review: AS YOU LIKE IT at Marin Shakespeare Company
July 16, 2014 § Leave a Comment
An As You Like It that is, well, pretty darn likeable…
As You Like It at The Marin Shakespeare Company is a perfect example of all that is good about this company, celebrating its 25th season this summer. Still under the direction of its founders, Robert and Lesley Currier, MSC is pretty much a mom-and-pop operation. They run a very lean organization. The Curriers tend to direct most shows themselves and once the repertoire is in performance, can be found cheerfully kibitzing with the audience before the shows from the stage, selling raffle tickets during intermissions, and helping clean the Forest Meadows amphitheatre after most performances. Three times a year they host a popular bus excursion to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. It is clear that a substantial portion of their loyal audience thinks of them as close personal friends.
MSC is anything but a slick, institutional behemoth, preferring their Shakespeare played respectfully and without gimmicks. (As You Like It is set in the Elizabethan period, costumed traditionally, and with the exception of a couple of intentionally anachronistic WWF jokes at the wrestling match, conventionally interpreting – as comedy – the moderately cut script.) The values of this company might be thought "old-fashioned," but it remains engaged and accessible to its community and the good will between the performers and the audience is palpable.
The single most impressive thing about the production may well be that all tickets for As You Like It are available for a "pay whatever you want" rate. There is outstanding theatre routinely available in the Bay Area, but as a college professor I am keenly aware that much of it is priced well beyond the means of most of my students. As ticket prices at for-profit and non-profit theatres have begun to look more interchangeable, that MSC would apply a sizable anonymous gift directly toward the box office so that literally anyone can see this professional production for free seems less "old-fashioned," than progressive.
Two Boards and a Passion
Robert Currier's productions often seem directed only in a loose sense – free of overt directorial concepts, extensive production values, or artificial boosts. That "two-boards-and-a-passion" approach places the responsibility squarely on the actors to convey the (surprisingly complicated) story.
In this case, some terrific performances rise to the occasion. As You Like It is a meandering pastoral in which an exiled young woman named Rosalind (in male disguise, because – Shakespeare) teaches a disinherited and homeless young man – Orlando – what it means to rise above misfortune and commit to love. The high point of the play is a psychologically layered scene in which this young woman, in her disguise as the boy Ganymede, role-plays being a woman. His/her purpose is ostensibly to cure heartbroken Orlando of his infatuation with a lost crush (her, but he doesn't know that) while in fact she is inflaming the passion of her understandably confused "suitor."
Rosalind has all the surface theatrics in this scene but it was the endearing, if slightly goofy, Teddy Spencer (playing Orlando in his company debut) that made the scene hum on opening night. His deep confusion about whether his increasing fondness for the boy Ganymede's illusion was bringing him closer to Rosalind or weaning him away from her was precisely modulated moment-by-moment and touchingly amusing.
The luminous Elena Wright brought a charismatic presence to Rosalind, but relied on the conventions of the play to convey the efficacy of her disguise – as she made no obvious distinctions between her male and female personas beyond masculine and feminine attire. It was Spencer's responses that guided the audience into suspending their disbelief. (Adding to the humor was company veteran Julian Lopez-Morillas' turn as the old shepherd Corin, who was never taken in by the ineffective veneer for a second and was perplexed that anyone else was.)
Supporting Players
The most theatrically adventurous aspect of the evening was Scott Coopwood's rapidly alternating doubling of the roles of a banished good old duke and his evil, usurping younger brother. Coopwood wittily played the evil Frederick as a physical quotation of the most famous usurper in the canon, Richard III. It was a shorthand explanation that clarified everything without a bit of exposition.
The most difficult role in the play might well be Orlando's older brother Oliver, who is unrelentingly evil in the first half of the play while he disinherits his brother, and is miraculously converted to a romantically smitten and reformed lover-at-first-sight in the second half. This change is rarely convincing, but Davern Wright's all-in commitment to the premise made it narratively compelling precisely because he did not try to make it psychologically realistic.
As is often the case in casts mixing professionals and non-professionals, the supporting cast was uneven. Glenn Havlan's portrait of the perpetually depressed Jacques was unusually subdued, while most of the country bumpkins were distractingly overplayed – including one who inserted a juggling act for no discernible reason. Luisa Frasconi (who plays Juliet in the next production in the season), however, found the comic gold in the conceited and delusional shepherdess Phebe – who falls in love with Rosalind's disguised alter ego.
As You Like It is the most musical play in the canon. The uncredited music in this production was enjoyably delivered by Sean Mirkovitch and the company's interns, conveying the time-wasting pleasure of a summer evening in the forest. It was a fine metaphor for this friendly and leisurely production.
As You Like It
Marin Shakespeare Company
Directed by Robert Currier
July 12, 2014
Tickets: Pay "as you like it"
Info: marinshakespeare.org
Review: COMEDY OF ERRORS at CalShakes
July 1, 2014 § Leave a Comment
Director/Playwright Aaron Posner is having his moment, and watching his wonderfully inventive production of Comedy of Errors at Cal Shakes it is easy to see why. Posner brings the same kind of surprise and delight to Errors that infuses his sold-out production of The Tempest (incorporating magic designed by Teller – of Penn & Teller fame) now playing at the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard.
His production of Errors, featuring local favorite Danny Scheie and the brilliant Adrian Danzig of Chicago's 500 Clown, has a virtuosic theatricality that is both clever and very entertaining.
Mistaken Identity, Loss, and Longing
Errors is one of Shakespeare's earliest works, but it has the confident polish of the late romances (Winter's Tale, Tempest and Cymbeline) and some surprising structural similarities. Based on the Roman playwright Plautus' Twin Manaechmi, it is superficially a farce of mistaken identity when twins separated at birth, along with their also-separated-twin servants, coincidentally find themselves in the same place at the same time and are constantly confused with each other. Many contemporary productions have found some deeper resonances in the intensity of loss and longing expressed by the members of the play's shattered family- which also includes a lost mother and father – although this is not Posner's way.
His production, instead, finds it central energy in the sheer theatricality of a single actor playing both twins. Posner pushed this concept much further than is usual, however, by divorcing it from any attempt at realistic illusion and inviting us into the game.
Directorial Invention
Shakespeare's play is carefully structured so that no twin appears onstage with his brother until the final scene – where the illusion is often accomplished with stand-ins. (This was the approach taken in last summer's production at the Marin Shakespeare Festival, for example.) There is, however, a very clever scene early in the play when the twin servants (the Dromios) have a scene together, one visible on the outside of a door and the other hidden behind it. Posner's inventiveness is on high display in this moment, because his "door" is an entirely transparent creation of mime and hilarious sound effects. Actor Danny Scheie jumps back and forth transforming from one twin into the other with little more than the adjustment of his hat and attitude.
Both Scheie and Danzig (as the Antipholus twins) deliver bravura performances of rapid fire changes, reaching their peak in the touching denouement when they play both reunited twins simultaneously. (No spoiler alert necessary – you have to SEE it to appreciate what they do!)
As the evening progresses we see other actors in the small ensemble of seven also making onstage transformations from one character into another in their multiple roles. Ron Campbell and Liam Vincent make the most of this when they find themselves trapped onstage as the merchants Angelo and Balthasar unable to change into the approaching Egeon and the Duke – which they are also playing. The priceless looks of blind panic on their faces were worth the price of admission alone, and the relief they felt when costumes conveniently appeared from the wings was palpable. The rubbery Patty Gallagher found an equally funny solution to her problem when one of her characters, the Courtesan, is sent to fetch another, the Abbess, as she just gamely stalled carrying out the instruction.
Is There an Award for Funniest Sound Design?
Beaver Bauer's eclectic costumes were at once luxurious and comedic, and handily facilitated the extensive doubling of the supporting cast. Nina Ball's brightly colored set was serviceable, but undistinguished. Lighting Designer David Cuthbert contributed much more, especially to defining the moments of suspended time, which made a special kind of sense of the soliloquies. The standout design of the evening, however, was Andre Pluess' brilliant sound design – a work of comic genius.
The loss of this highly theatrical approach is that it rendered the two female leads, Nemuna Ceesay as Adriana and Tristan Cunningham as Luciana, relatively uninteresting. Because they were not changing characters, and were essentially one-dimensional personalities, they were left without much to do and their skills unexploited. The text was also not treated with any particular reverence, with some of the interpolated gags getting a bit cheap. ("My wife is shrewish." "Funny, she doesn't look shrewish.")
All told, however, the big laughs and charming performances far outweigh any deficits. There is hardly a slow moment in the evening to catch one's breath. This is an easy production to love. CalShakes' Artistic Director, Jonathan Moscone, has been able to attract some of the top talent in the nation to the Bay Area, and we can only be thrilled that he talked Aaron Posner into returning!


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Chancellor Search Committee Named
JUNE 3, 2008-- MADISON, WIS. - With the successful conclusion of three simultaneous chancellor searches, the University of Wisconsin System now turns its attention to recruiting and hiring new leaders for UW-Green Bay and UW-River Falls. UW System President Kevin P. Reilly today appointed a 19-member search committee to help identify a new chancellor for UWRF.
Recently, Chancellor Don Betz announced that he will leave the campus at the end of June to become president of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla.
Reilly appointed 10 faculty members, two academic staff members, one classified staff member, one campus administrator, and two student representatives to the committee. They are joined by one UW System administrator and two community representatives.
Members of the UWRF Chancellor Search and Screen Committee are:
James Madsen (chair) - Professor of Physics
Mark Gillen - Assistant Professor of Counseling and School Psychology
Gregg Hadley - Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics
Claire Kilian - Associate Professor of Management and Marketing
Michelle Parkinson - Assistant Professor of English
Glenn Potts - Professor of Economics
David Rainville - Professor of Chemistry
Kristin Tjornehoj - Associate Professor of Music
José Vega - Professor of Teacher Education
Jennifer Willis-Rivera - Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Theatre Arts
Academic Staff
Kristen Hendrickson - Budget Director
Kathleen Olsen - Instructor, Communication Studies and Theatre Arts
Classified Staff
Susie Zimmer - Academic Department Associate, Art
Cindy Bendix - President, Student Senate
Kevin Rockwood
Lynn Paulson - Assistant Vice President, UW System
Dale Gallenberg - Dean, College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences
Jim Harsdorf - Chancellor ' s Advisory Council, dairy farmer
Steve Healy - UW-River Falls Foundation Board, College of Business & Economics Advisory Board
Following an intensive search and screening process, the committee is expected to recommend five candidates as finalists for consideration by Reilly and a special Board of Regents committee chaired by Regent Brent Smith. Other Regents on the committee include Eileen Connolly-Keesler, Chuck Pruitt and José Vasquez.
The campus search committee will convene for the first time at 1 p.m., June 16 in the Eau Galle River Room (Room 332) of the University Center on the UWRF campus. At that meeting, Smith and Reilly will officially charge the committee with its mission and roles, review procedures, and launch the search process.
Last updated:
Thursday, 22-Apr-2010 16:09:05 Central Daylight Time
University of Wisconsin - River Falls


text: A Hyperactive Fire House Dalmatian and and Over-Aggressive English Bulldog Wilshire, a hyperactive Dalmatian in Los Angeles, runs amuck in Firehouse 29 and the city attorney threatens to take him away if he doesn't shape up. Cesar tries to clear Wilshire's spotty past and make him a role model for fire dogs everywhere. Read more


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- Cleaning & Care: Handwash and dry thoroughly
- Height: 4.25-in.
- Material: Aluminum
- Origin: USA
- Size/Capacity: 12-in.
- Special Features: Durable
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Very disappointed in the manner in which this product was packed for shipping. Also, it was scratched in quite a few places on the silver part of the turntable. It was a Christmas gift for someone - she has said that it works pretty well.I recommend this product.Was this helpful?
A must for even the beginner cake baker
Beautifully constructed and sturdy. Much better than the plastic turntables which tend to be wobbly. Makes frosting cakes a breeze...I don't know how I've managed to go for so long without it!I recommend this product.Was this helpful?
The perfect turnatable
If you are serious about cake decorating this turntable is the perfect investment. This is just like what the professionals use.I recommend this product.Was this helpful?
Customer Reviews for 12-in. Cake Turntable by Parrish
Overall Rating:
4.5 out of 5 stars, based on 12 ratings
100% of reviewers recommend this product
91% say this is a "good value"
It is a Christmas gift for my daughter.I recommend this product.Was this helpful?
- December 21, 2011
- By: Janemarie
- From: LA
- I Cook: Very Often
- Style: Family
This is the one to have if you're looking for a cake turntable.I recommend this product.Was this helpful?
- April 7, 2011
- By: Dan
- From: CO
- I Cook: Every Day
- Style: Party Host
In the reviews on the site it said that the turntable was delivered with scratches and it was also a little bent. Instructions on care and cleaning were not included(i.e. dishwasher safe?). I don't feel these were so much as a shipping issue but more of a product quality control issue.I recommend this product.Was this helpful?
- August 31, 2008
- By: Sharon
- From: PA
- I Cook: Very Often
- Style: Family
A must for even the beginner cake baker
Beautifully constructed and sturdy. Much better than the plastic turntables which tend to be wobbly. Makes frosting cakes a breeze...I don't know how I've managed to go for so long without it!I recommend this product.Was this helpful?
- July 7, 2008
- By: Jennifer
- From: IL
- I Cook: Very Often
- Style: Party Host
The perfect turnatable
If you are serious about cake decorating this turntable is the perfect investment. This is just like what the professionals use.I recommend this product.Was this helpful?
- March 24, 2008
- By: Mui
- From: CA
- I Cook: Every Day
- Style: Family


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Hello there, This is a tricky one, I promise! :) Injera is a flat bread mostly prepared in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It's a very spongy, but not rubbery, and it has a nice sour taste. Originally it is done with teff, which is a local crop in that region, and it has the property of not containing any gluten (this explains the lack of rubbery texture I suppose). It is prepared mixing teff flour (sometimes mixed with sorghum flour, to save on the precious teff) with water, forming a liquid but dense batter. Something similar to a pancake batter in terms of viscosity. No yeast is added, but it will be left to rest and ferment for something between 3 days and a week. After that some hot water is added one hour before the final step, which is cooking injera. The procedure is illustrated in this video: As a curious engineer, with an Eritrean mother, I've always been fascinated by this flat bread and I tried to replicate the results without using teff, but with no success so far. I manage to get the bubbles right (sometimes), but the texture of my injera is always very rubbery, no matter what kind of method I use to try to get rid of it (toasting the wheat flour before using it for the batter, or using an immersion blender on the batter). Any suggestion is most welcome! :)
The science of injera, the East-African flat bread
Started by Anonymous Modernist 15340 , Jan 23 2013 12:41 AMBread
1 reply to this topic
Posted 23 January 2013 - 12:41 AM
Posted 23 January 2013 - 12:01 PM
Yeast is everywhere. While it's not added by you the bread picks some up before it can ferment. The fermentation is what will add the bubbles. Most flavors from it will typically burn out during cooking. I'm thinking lactic acid would be one of the things that could last through the fire. It's rubbery here at our Ethiopia restaurants so I don't have a good idea of the texture you're going for. Reading around online about 'rubbery breads' people are posting different types of solutions. From adding more water to going with better yeast.
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Cheap DSM to Laughlin flights
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LOS ANGELES - After several years of co-productions and joint investment, the two most prominent global film industries came together today for the signing of an historic declaration between the city of Los Angeles and the Indian film industry at Paramount Pictures Studios in Hollywood.
As part of the declaration, the city of Los Angeles and the Indian film industry, represented by the Film and Television Producers Guild of India and the Film Federation of India, agree to develop and strengthen motion picture production, distribution, technology, content protection and commercial cooperation between the two filmmaking communities. The two parties also support the creation of the Los Angeles-India Film Council to increase Indian film production in Los Angeles.
Speaking at the event, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said: "This declaration reinforces our city's commitment to attracting international production. In the past year, we have already seen Hindi movies such as My Name is Khan and Kites filmed in Los Angeles, and we enthusiastically welcome further Indian production in Los Angeles."
Mayor Villaraigosa was joined by California Film Commissioner Amy Lemisch, Paramount Pictures Chairman and CEO Brad Grey, and MPAA Special Policy Advisor Fritz Attaway, along with Indian Producers Bobby Bedi and L. Suresh.
"Our vibrant film communities share many of the same goals and concerns," said Bob Pisano, President and Interim CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. "The numerous co-productions with Indian studios over the past several years are evidence of a growing bond between our two industries. Today's action is an important step toward furthering that growth."
Paramount Pictures Chairman and CEO Brad Grey said, "Paramount is honored to host these important discussions, which usher in a new era of strategic partnership. We hope this groundbreaking collaboration will yield more co-productions and alliances, greater films and a stronger global film industry."
The Indian delegation was led by eminent Hindi producer Bobby Bedi and Tamil producer and Film Federation of India President L. Suresh, along with other representatives from the major Indian production houses of Reliance BIG Entertainment and UTV Motion Pictures. The delegation came to Los Angeles for a two day summit with the Hollywood studios, California officials, and other film related companies to discuss economic development and collaboration.
Representing the Indian delegation, Producer Bobby Bedi noted, "Hollywood and Bollywood are two industries that are economically robust and represent significant economic and cultural interests of their respective countries. India has always held a fascination for Hollywood, and this agreement pulls us closer together with the aim of sharing ideas and best practices on domestic and international film production. We look forward to working with the City of Los Angeles to increase Indian production here." Producer L. Suresh asserted, "In addition to the Hindi film industry, the southern and regional Indian film industries also welcome the opportunity to work hand and hand with Hollywood. Already we have seen significant collaboration in technology between Hollywood and South India, and we will soon see collaborations in production."
Past big budget Indian productions filmed in Los Angeles include: Kites (2010), My Name is Khan (2010), Kambakkht Ishq (2009), Kaante (2002), and Pardes (1997).
This is the second major step towards economic development and cooperation between Hollywood and the Indian film industry this year. In March, the two industries came together in Mumbai to launch the Alliance Against Copyright Theft, a Bollywood-Hollywood content protection coalition in India.
Other joint ventures and co-productions between individual Hollywood studios and Indian production houses over the past several years include My Name is Khan (2010), Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge (2010), Lahore (2010), Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hain (2010), Khichdi (2010), We Are Family (2010), Do Dooni Chaar (2010), Chandni Chowk to China (2009), Quick Gun Murugan (2009), Raaz the Mystery Continues (2009), Roadside Romeo (2008), Saas Bahu Aur Sensex (2008), Saawariya (2007). Several, such as Zokkomon and Dum Maro Dum, are also slated for 2011. Indian investment in Hollywood has been steadily increasing, most notably with Indian entertainment conglomerate Reliance's production and distribution deal with Dreamworks SKG.


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BBEdit 8.7 adds Lua support, more
updated 12:25 pm EDT, Mon August 6, 2007
BBEdit 8.7 released
Bare Bones Software today released BBEdit 8.7 with built-in support for the Lua programming language. BBEdit 8.7 is a major update to the professional text editor that adds significant improvements to the File Groups and Disk Browser workflow features. The update utilizes Finder Smart Folders as sources for Text Factory and multi-file search operations, and re-opens documents upon re-launch that were open when the application last quit. Other notable revisions include a new Python language module that supports code folding, significant refinements to FTP/SFTP as well as Disk Browser windows, AppleScript improvements, and more. BBEdit 8.7 also includes fixes for reported issues and adds several minor improvements. The update is available for free to all registered BBEdit 8.5 and 8.6 customers, while the application is priced at $125 for new individual users. BBEdit 8.7 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.


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Pre-Screening of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Mikel Samaniego and Jessica Reasy
Thursday, November 21, 2013 at 10:00 PM - Friday, November 22, 2013 at 1:00 AM (PST)
Who's Going
San Francisco, California
London, United Kingdom
Florence, Italy
Event Details
The Big Picture and Redeeming Soles invite you to an exclusive pre-screening of this year's blockbuster movie, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Proceeds from this not-to-be-missed evening go to provide much needed footwear to men, women and children in need this holiday season.
Get a ticket by making a donation to this fantastic cause and get ready for an evening of frivolity and fun at the movies.
Seats are very limited so secure your ticket NOW!
This event is proudly supported by: The Big Picture: Belltown, Belltown Insurance Group, Cascade Healthcare Solutions, Clean for a Change, Get Stuff Done Group & Seattle Oasis Vacation Rentals
When & Where
Big Picture Movie Theatre
2505 1st Avenue
Thursday, November 21, 2013 at 10:00 PM - Friday, November 22, 2013 at 1:00 AM (PST)
Add to my calendar
Mikel Samaniego and Jessica Reasy
Mikel and Jessica are two nonprofit leaders committed to building community, synergy and skills among nonprofit leaders, social entrepreneurs and their respective organizations.


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Until 2012 Australia was the largest recipient of Chinese Outbound Direct Investment (ODI), but dropped to second place behind the United States in 2013. Australia was able to rely on its natural resources endowments and various other comparative advantages including geography. The slow down of investment in the Australian resources sector exposed Australia to more global competition for diversifying Chinese investment.
We are proud to share with you the full report series, Demystifying Chinese Investment in Australia.


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More News from loreen sarmiento
Welcome 2013! With the traditional fireworks and noise came also the barrage of SMS, Facebook and email messages with common aspirations: new beginnings, good health, fresh hope, stronger faith, deeper peace, genuine joy and lots and lots of love!
When I got these well-meaning wishes, all I can reply is: "Thanks. I pray that you receive the same blessings, too."
It is important that we wish back to people the positive messages we receive. And aside from this, learn also to claim what they wish for you.
Sometimes, we thank a well-wisher but we don't really believe totally that what they wish for can happen to us.
Could it be a traumatic experience you've had? Are you blinded by the negative events around you? Or can it be that your current difficulties make you think nothing great will happen or improve this year for you?
If we allow doubt, fear or maybe cynicism to eat us up, it will indeed be hard for us to boldly claim that we CAN have new beginnings, good health, fresh hope, stronger faith, deeper peace, genuine joy and lots and lots of love this year.
But God called us to escape complacency, doubt and fear and claim the blessings He wants us to have through the wishes of other people. God's plan is to prosper us in all ways. "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" He said it through the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 29:11). And what God says WILL happen. But again, we need to claim them, too!
But with all the negativity around us and inside us, how do we claim the good things to happen to us? One word: FAITH.
God simplifies this by saying three words "Ask . . . seek . . . and knock. . . ." from what He said to His apostles in the gospel of St. Matthew: "Ask and it will be given to you ; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
These verbs are spoken in the present tense and they indicate continued, sincere, and earnest petitioning.
We need to sincerely ask, continuously seek and knock hard. And though we don't see anything happening, the eyes of Faith will make us believe we will have what we ask, seek and knock for. It is Faith that will make us claim even what seems to be impossible to happen.
God moves things for people who have the greatest faith in Him. If we timidly ask, seek and knock, it's doubtful we'll claim the blessing. Worse, if we don't do anything and just wallow in self-pity and cynicism, we nullify any chance of good coming our way.
The difficulties we have now or the weaknesses we think we have can be daunting, yes, but these should not hinder us from moving forward positively.
Abraham Lincoln was poor but ran for public office anyway and became the President of the US.
Beethoven lost his mother and brother and could no longer hear, yet took to the role of caring for his brother's widow and nephew seriously despite the difficulty. He overcame all these to become one of the world's greatest musical composers.
In our home shore, Arnel Aba, Godfrey Taberna and Isidro Vildosola compose the Wetshop Para Tri Team in last year's 5150 Triathlon event in Subic and completed the Olympic distance—1.5-kilometer swim, 40K bike and 10K run—with a time of 2 hours, 31 minutes and 30 seconds.
But they were not ordinary triathletes. Arnel swam with only a left leg, Godfrey rode the bike with a clubbed right foot, and Isidro ran with only a left arm. They rose above pain, obstacles and disability to provide an example of hope for those who are like them.
When you've spent the most significant part of your life overcoming near-impossible obstacles, whatever mountains facing you now should look like molehills. The fact that you've been surviving all these years shows that there is always something great after a difficulty.
I like what my nephew Alexcie Mae posted in Facebook last week: An arrow can only be shot by pulling backward. So when life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means it's going to launch you into something great. So just focus and keep on aiming.
Satan will always place obstacles to stop us from seeking God's blessings. He'll even accuse you of not being worthy of God's blessings.
But I believe that we can't claim God's blessings if we don't look past our difficulties—arise, and seek for them. All God's blessings come through faith and grace and we must claim them regardless of the circumstances.
2013 has come. Pull back our arrows so miracles and blessings can be launched. Continue to aim, focus and claim boldly and positively in faith!
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Ezra Klein wonders what the must-read magazines are. I think this is an unduly touchy subject for someone who works in the magazine industry to take on. I'll just say that excluding publications that anyone I know works for, I like Dwell, Monocle, N+1, and (yes!) ESPN the best.


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Many U.S. cities cannot access the skilled workers they need.
Which countries have the most social media influence?
With The Dark Knight Rises days away, you can brush up on your Gotham geography.
Which metros have the largest share of working class jobs?
Which metros have the largest share of service class workers?
Mapping the city's church bells, sirens, and calls to prayer.
This time, based on Twitter data.
Stark maps highlight inefficiencies in global food production.
The cartographers over at Floating Sheep track tweets on both topics.
The future of the map isn't directions, it's information.
Keep this map in mind now that the Supreme Court has ruled to uphold Obamacare.
Gothenburg, Sweden, makes its public planning process interactive with an online map.
Something dramatic has to happen to fundamentally change how and where Americans live. But what if the recession wasn't it?
Baby Boomers over 65 are moving to the coasts.
Mapping where emergencies are happening in the U.S.
America's deepest economic and political divides are reflected in the rate of abortions across the 50 states.
Artist Stephen Walter maps the city below the surface.
A county-level look at where homes are worth less than the debt owed on them.
An online tool visualizes various unpleasant water-scarce scenarios.