Another look at “Sound of Music” now playing at Civic Theatre

‘In 1938 The von Trapp’s, arrived in New York under a six month visitors’ visa and began a concert tour in Pennsylvania. In 1944, several of the von Trapp’s applied for US citizenship at the U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vermont.’ They were fleeing Hitler’s takeover of their beloved Vienna and were lucky enough to have escaped when they did.

You remember the von Trapp’s, of course?  They were the famous ‘singing family von Trapp who lived out their years in Vermont with income from their Family Lodge/farm that served visitors in the small town of Stowe.

Based loosely on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers”, the book for the show “The Sound of Music” is credited to Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. Together with Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II, the original Broadway 1959 production left an indelible mark for musical theatre standards to live up to this day. 

For this Broadway revival, former Old Globe artistic director Jack O’Brien is at the helm. Theatregoers, old and new alike can have another look at a favorite, seen now perhaps through a different lens or for the first time with new eyes. Either way, the underscore of the real story paints scenarios one might never have been imagined in days past.

Set against the rolling hills of the Austrian landscape, (Douglas W. Schmidt) 1938 Austria is in the middle of the Anschlus.The German regime is demanding a straightforward Heil! when one with the Nazi armband enters. Captain von Trapp (Ben Davis) refuses change his political loyalties or even acknowledge their demands even though he is encouraged to join forces as an appeasement by his new love interest Elsa Schraeder (Teri Hansen) and long time friend Max Detweiler (Merwin Foard) both of who are leading advocates for the Nazi’s.

Ben Davis as Captain von Trapp

In the middle of all this political unrest, the sheltered and innocent novitiate Maria (Anna Mintzer) is sent to be governess to the ‘unruly” von Trapp seven. Captain von Trapp, decorated WW I Captain, and widower still thinks he’s in command of his ship and uses his boatswain’s whistle to call his domestic help as well as his own children to line up before him to get their daily marching orders. Each has his or her own set of tweets.

Maria will have nothing of this and begins transforming the very disciplined household into a fun loving musical family. Things get a little dicey for Maria when she finds herself falling in love with the older and ‘spoken for’ widower.   You remember the rest, I’m sure.

With etched in your memory tunes, the likes of “My Favorite Things”, “Climb Eve’ry Mountain” (more on that one later) “Do-Re-Me”, “Edelweiss”, “Sixteen Going On Seventeen” of course “The Sound of Music” (and I could go on) how can one not file this one away as one of our favorite musicals from the Golden Age of the Broadway Musical? 

The evenings’ topper has to be Melody Betts Mother Abbess guiding Maria through her difficult times but more importantly when she uses the full power of her operatic instrument in “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” where she reaches and holds that very last high ‘G’ causing a collective breath to be heard throughout the theatre.

Maria and the children

Add the seven von Trapp children, Liesl (Paige Silvester), the eldest and her short-lived love interest Rolf Gruber (Austin Colby), (“Sixteen Going on Seventeen”) and the entire von Trapp gaggle (“The Lonely Goatherd”) along with Max (“No Way to Stop It”) the musical hums along at a fast clip.

Leaving in its wake, however, there is little tension of what’s to come and even less emotional pull unless you count the final scene when Maria has to finally part company with the Mother Abbess and the Nonnberg Abby.  And when it does come, it’s too little too late. Unfortunately this is one large component O’Brien and his cast fails to give us.

One would love to compliment the actors at this point but for yours truly, the lead role of Maria was simply not a deal maker. Neither voice nor acting convinced. Ben Davis, on the other hand gives a more mature rendering of the stiff necked father/Captain willing to soften his position when push came to shove. The Captain finally regarded the well being of his children above the military discipline including  a convenient marriage, had his plans gone forward. Unfortunately the Baroness Elsa Schraeder couldn’t comprehend.

Austin Colby with Paige Silvester

Austin Colby, the boyfriend turned Nazi was in fine voice and rather eerily convincing as his affections toward Liesl turned from playful puppy-love to icy cold when her father refused the Heil back at him after he delivered a letter to their home. Merwin Foard’s Max was somewhat persuasive as the go between the Nazi regime and his trying to convince the Captain to switch sides ‘until this thing blew over’. Ms. Hansen’s Elsa Schraeder’s, who had her eye on the Captain, exited without much fanfare. (“How Can Love Survive?”) Paige Silvester’s Liesl did win me over as the eldest and in charge of the young'uns as the woman/child with a broken heart.

Director/conductor Jay Alger’s 16-piece orchestra is in full command oft times too loud but then again, the sound at the Civic gives us deafeningly loud music the spoken word is barely audible.  In short, the sound system is in dire need of fixin’.   

While sitting through this particular production and reflecting on the times then and now and the racial climate we are in and will be facing for some time to come, I am in awe that in 2016 minorities are once again the subject/object of hate crimes. Maria et al. were lucky to have found a safe haven in this country in 1948. Others were not so fortunate. Others might not be as fortunate now. Discuss.

That said, “The Sound of Music” is still a favorite. ‘Solving problems like Maria’ should be the least of our worries.

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through Nov. 20th

Organization: Broadway San Diego

Phone: 888-937-8995

Production Type: Musical

Where: 3^rd and B Street, Downtown, San Diego

Ticket Prices: Start at $22.50

Web: broadwaysd.com

Venue: San Diego Civic Theatre

Photo: Matthew Murphy

Lamb’s Players Season Opener, “Equivocation” is smart, funny and engrossing.

“Equivocation” by Bill Cain is an intricate piece of theatre that combines fact with fiction, juxtaposes plays on plays and within plays, speaks to words about words, introduces characters at odds with themselves and provokes conversations regarding life and death decisions. It is now on stage in a regional premiere at The Lamb’s Players Theatre on Coronado through Nov. 20th

In a word it’s a complicated piece of theatre. Cutting through to the nitty -gritty: “It’s a play that never gets written about an event that never takes place.” (Stage Matters).

With patience and close attention, you will feel a sense of satisfaction that you ‘got it.’ It’s intended to make you think, chuckle, challenge your recall of Shakespeare's works and consider that by evenings end, you were privy to some excellent theatre.

Robert Smyth and Francis Gercke

The underlying message in Cain’s play is to understand the art of ‘equivocation’ or “How do you tell the truth in dangerous times?”  

Briefly! Punt, bunt or equivocate.

Or…during cross examination that could result in life or death answers, try ambiguity, hedging and quibbling with the truth. Just take a listen to the answers coming out of the mouths of our elected officials right now. But I digress.

Let’s go back to the days of William Shakespeare, say around 1605. By this time Shakespeare or Shagspeare, as he was called, had by now penned most of his plays. “People will go to your plays as they used to go to church. Reverently.” (Cecil)

It wouldn’t have been unusual say for a Robert Cecil to request that he write another play about the “Gunpowder Plot” of 1605, or the Catholic Conspiracy. Cecil, a most powerful and persuasive man was the 1^st Earl of Salisbury and minister to Elizabeth I of England and later James I of England/ IV of Scotland. There is no doubt that he had the King's ear. 

Lto R Brian Mackey, Ross Hellwig(centrer), Paul Eggington and Francis Gercke

“The Gunpowder Plot” or the “Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason” was a plot to kill the King. All this in the name of religion. Robert Cecil, no Catholic lover he, wants Shag to finish writing the ‘the Kings’ official version of the Gunpowder plot, and have his players act it out at The Old Globe.

13 Catholic men were responsible for the Gunpowder Plot.  All were under the leadership of Robert Catesby. He was the so -called instigator. Guy Fawkes another conspirator, was accused of planting 36 barrels of gunpowder in a vaulted room under Parliament.

Fawkes was to light a slow burning fuse to the loaded kegs thereby killing the Protestant Monarch. Their plan was to replace him with a Catholic leader. Fast-forward, the men were all caught and tried, tortured found guilty and hanged. To this day November 5^th is celebrated as Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night.

At the time of Cecil's request that Shag write this play, his rag tag group of actors ‘The Kings Men’ were in rehearsal for a play about a King (Lear). Later, he will have written “Macbeth” or “The Scottish Play”. These also were in the beginning stages of becoming lasting legacies.

In our play Cecil gives Shag (a masterful, nuanced and convincing Robert Smyth) the information he wants in his play but he wants the official version. He was told…’it must have witches. Definitely witches.’ Most believed that Cecil used the gunpowder plot as a tool for his own political ends. Some believed he was behind the plot. Others claim that he knew about it but let it play out a bit before taking any action.

There was no love lost between the two men, but their journeys crisscross throughout. Shag protests that he can write such a play. ‘There is no plot.’ A furious Cecil holds his toes to the fire insisting he must. Can Shag write a play that tells a lie and still live with himself? Can Shag tell the truth and live?

Shag, is in a lose/lose situation. Now under the threat of jail and possible death himself, he hedges claiming that his actors are a ‘cooperative venture’ and he cannot make the decision himself. “Two weeks then. No more.” “But be careful what you say to me. I speak for the King. And he has no experience of cooperative ventures.” (Cecil)

Robert Smyth and Paul Eggington

The play zigzags back and fourth between rehearsals, infighting with members of the acting company with Sharp, Nate and Armin (Ross Hellwig, Francis Gercke and Brian Mackey as Madman, Fool and Old Man) taking on the roles of the clowns (as well as others) with a bit of infighting around the company’s members.

Ross Hellwig, Caitie Grady, Francis Gercke, Robert Smyth and Brian Mackey

The tension between Richard Burbage (Eggington), Shags leading actor and Sharp (Ross Hellwig) another hot head actor, is one more diversion in a play with enough off shoots in it.

For the most part the comic antics of the others adds some humor to the evening as they scramble around the stage in their witches costumes (Jeanne Reith) as scenes from Macbeth make their way into the story with references to equivocation. ‘I… begin/To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend /That lies like truth.’

Shag and his not so friendly encounters with Cecil, who is played with just the right amount of nastiness by Francis Gercke, produce some of the more tense moments in the show. He is impressive as the mean spirited hunchback Cecil. His looks are mocking and menacing. His acting consistent with his words and deeds. His character is not someone you would want to cross or be on his enemies list. 

Rounding out the cast, Paul Eggington (in a stellar performance) is Richard, head of the acting company and Henry Garnet the English Jesuit priest on trial for taking confession from Robert Catesby, one of the leading plotters to kill the King. Garnet refuses to share tht confession with Cecil, who also was one of the interrogators. 

Shag visits him in jail and that’s when Garnet explains to Shag the logic of equivocation. These moments are touching and help define the significance of equivocation as described by Garnet: “Don’t answer the question they’re asking. If a dishonest man has formed the question, there will be no honest answer. Answer the question beneath the question…” Make sense?

Caitie Grady and Robert Smyth

The two women in this all male cast include Caitie Grady as Judith Shag’s surviving daughter (her twin brother died) and Dianna Elledge, Cellist who plays Deborah Gilmour Smyth’s haunting and yet vivid original music.

Scenes between Judith and Shag bring a bit of sentimentality to the play when Shag confesses to Garnet; in a few of their meetings that he rarely speaks to his daughter since the death of his son her twin brother.

Secretly, Shag wishes it were she instead of he. Grady does the most with the material given her especially in her one big moment when her own soliloquy, talks of how she hates soliloquies and for that matter, plays.

Sean Fanning designed the multipurpose looking Old Globe Stage and prison surroundings and Nathan Pierson’s lighting design gives it all the shading needed to help with location and mood. Jeanne Reith’s period costumes are always creative and on target.

Deborah Gilmour Smyth directs with an eye toward expediency even as the play takes over two hours. It winds and intersects all too often. At times it  feels like we were being hit over the head in order to get a point across. However when all was said and done, Lamb’s Players Theatre is to be congratulated and praised for this impressive undertaking.

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Nov. 20th

Organization: Lamb’s Players Theatre

Phone: 619-437-6000

Production Type: Drama

Where: 1142 Orange Ave. Coronado

Ticket Prices: $22.00-$68.00

Web: lambsplayers.org

Venue: Lamb’s Players Theatre

Photo: Ken Jacques

Ayad Akhtar’s “Disgraced” in a spine tingling outing at San Diego Rep.

If you think this election cycle is a stomach turner, look no further than Ayad Akhtar’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning drama “Disgraced” now in no holds barred production at the San Diego Repertory Theatre thru Nov. 13^th.  

Akhtar’s play is a microcosm of what we are witnessing across the country, state after state and on national TV where unfettered accusations and inflammatory barbs cut to the core of what’s on the minds and in the hearts of Americans after 9/11: race, religion, terrorist attacks and Islamophobia. Forget nuance or civility.

The play, which is Akhtar’s first and the most currently produced around world, is neatly packaged as two couples are seated at the dinner table in the upscale New York apartment of Amir and Emily Kapoor (not his given name). Their dinner guests are Isaac and Jory, (no last names) colleagues and friends on different levels. There’s an ethnic pecking order here as will soon learn.

Monique Gaffney and Richard Baird

Some compare “Disgraced” to Albee’s “Virginia Wolfe” or Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” reviewed earlier now playing at New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad. Think both and times it by ten. It’s quite an eye opener. It scratches deeper into the wounds of the human condition and allows the threat of losing our ideals, our freedoms and our good manners all in the name of fear. That's fear of the other, fear of losing the ‘good old days’ and fear of change.

Amir is now at a crossroads. At the urging of his nephew Abe (an excellent M. Keala Miles, Jr.) he pleads for his uncle to represent his Imam who was being tried for collecting money at his Mosque and using it to fund terrorist activities. Rather than represent the Imam, Amir shows up to watch the proceedings. In the aftermath, he made a statement to the press that was quoted in the New York Times.

Ronobir Lahiri  

Amir (Ronobir Lahiri) was born in this country to Muslim parents. They lived in India before the country was split and is now Pakistan. This will later become an issue for Amir as he told his bosses on his application that his parents were born in India, which in fact they were, but it complicates his life and life style.

Now instead of being looked at as a cooperate lawyer, he is looked at and judged by the color of his skin, his religion and culture. (He goes to the front of the line when boarding a plane because he knows he is going to be profiled anyway.)

The first signs of his being ‘the other’ in the work place starts to unravel when his bosses question him about his own birth and the legitimacy of his name (which he changed). His veneer wears thin when his actions at home don’t reflect what he professes he denounced. Over fennel and anchovy salad, his past teachings come back big time and bite him in the behind.  We begin to see the cracks in his perfect looking marriage, his perfect job and his perfect looking life style.

Allison Spratt Pearce,  Ronobir Lahiri and Monique Gaffney

According to Amir, he has renounced his Muslim faith; doesn’t practice, thinks most of the Koran is backward in its thinking and he wants no part of it. He is a big shot in a Jewish Law firm that deals in acquisitions. In short he believes in American Capitalism; he spends $600.00 on Charvet shirts, and hopes to be promoted by his Jewish bosses sooner rather than later.

“You know I’m going to end up with my name on the firm? Leibowitz, Bernstein, Harris and Kapoor.” “My mother would roll over in her grave.” “It’s not the family name so she might not care…seeing it along all those Jewish ones.”

Monique Gaffney, Ronobir Lahiri, Allison Spratt Pearce and Richard Baird

Emily (Allison Spratt Pearce) is a WASP. She is also a painter just coming in to her own. She used to paint landscapes but that got her nowhere. Now she obsessed with everything having to do with Islamic Traditions. “The Islamic Galleries? It’ll change the way you see art.” “The Muslims gave us Aristotle. Without their translations? We wouldn’t have him. I mean without the Arabs? We wouldn’t even have a visual perspective.”

Isaac (Richard Baird) is curator at the Whitney and is showing a great deal of interest in her paintings. He’s a good friend and for the most part the couples are on good terms. “You know what you are going to be accused of?  Orientalism. It’s inevitable. I mean hell, you’ve even got the brown husband.”

He agrees to bring her paintings to the museum and show them. Did I mention that he’s Jewish? Later on when news of Amir’s not getting the partnership comes to the fore and the s**t hits the fan, Emily spews, “Jews. You see anti-Semitism everywhere.”

Jory (Monique Gaffney) is Isaac’s African American wife. ‘Nuff said! She works along with Amir in the same law offices. She surprises Amir with the news that some of the bigger accounts have been transferred to her now. (“He said something about you being duplicitous. That’s why you’re such a good litigator.”) Amir will later accuse her stealing his job, and her husband Isaac of stealing his wife, but according to Isaac, “They liked her. They don’t like him.”

Her philosophy is a quote from Kissinger hanging over her desk, “If faced with choosing justice or order, I’ll always chose order.” This belief grew out of her breaking out of her ghetto life and becoming the new partner in the law firm, something Amir will learn about in a short time.

With the exception of Ms. Gaffney coming on a little too strong at the top of her performance (she settled in later) the cast, in every way lived up to their character studies. Mr. Lahiri, a handsome hunk, makes his way through his character with credibility showing his arc as he moves from cooperate lawyer and loyal husband to dealing with his conflicted religious beliefs to the complete destruction of everything he tried to build in forming his perfect looking world.

Coming in as the supportive and loving, and yes naïve wife Allison Spratt Pearce is right on target with every emotion from authentic to unbelieving to crushed. Most often yours truly sees Ms. Pearce in musical theatre. While her voice is to die for, she shows her acting chops off as Emily with softness and believability.

Monique Gaffney’s Jory is bit more of a complicated role to pull off. She has to navigate through her own rise to power and her self discovery about her husbands infidelity, while consoling Amir through is plunge into the darkness. She too pilots it well.

Richard Baird, a strong presence on any stage, manages his role of the Jew with part humor, part self-depredation. (“Every religion’s got idiosyncrasies. My ancestors didn’t like lobster. Who doesn’t like lobster?”) He too maneuvers the ethnic jungle with conviction enough for yours truly to make him an honorary M.O.T.

Ronobir Lahiri amd Richard Baird

John Iacovelli designed the immaculate set with patio overlooking New York’s Upper East Side and street noises can be heard by way of Brian Gale’s sound design. Anastasia Poutova designed the appropriate upper middle class, eclectic garments worn by the characters and Kevin Anthenill’s lighting put the finishing touches to an overall enlightening evening of excellent theatre.

Akhtar tears away at the masks we wear in order to get along to go along. When push comes to shove, we usually show up in our true colors.  

(Isaac. “Did you feel pride on September 11th?”

Amir. “If I’m honest ... yes. 
”

Emily. “You don’t really mean that, Amir. 
”

Amir. “I was horrified by it, okay? Absolutely horrified.”

Jory. “Pride about what? About the towers coming down? About people getting killed? 
”

Amir. “That we were finally winning. 
”

Jory. “We? 
”

Amir. “Yeah ... I forgot ... which we I was. 
”)

After seeing this splendid and gut wrenching production with Michael Arabian in the director’s chair, we in the audience are left devastated to think that in fact, the playwright might be talking about us!

Talk among yourselves.

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through Nov. 13^th

Organization: San Diego Repertory Theatre

Phone: 619-544-1000

Production Type: Drama

Where: 79 Horton Plaza, downtown San Diego, CA 92101

Ticket Prices: $38.00-$64.00

Web: sdrep.org

Venue: Lyceum Theatre

Photo: Daren Scott