WPLongform

Finding happiness where you can

A Good Reed Review Review , , , , , , ,

sst-hd-6By Ande Jacobson

Samuel Beckett has been described as an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet known for his use of dark humor, absurd situations, and extreme precision in his writing. The second stage production of Stanford Summer Theater 2013 is Beckett’s Happy Days, a play that’s billed as a comedy “unparalleled in its comic precision and deep humor.” Some may quibble with that description, but for Beckett aficionados this is a “not to be missed” production. For those not so enamored, it could make for a very tedious evening. Continue reading →

The Devil is in the details

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Damn Yankees 8_DavidAllenBy Ande Jacobson

The boys of summer keep the balls flying and the bats swinging, and Foothill Music Theatre combines with Foothill College Theatre Arts to capture the spirit of baseball in their energetic production of a longtime Broadway favorite, Damn Yankees. Director Tom Gough has large shoes to fill as he grabs the reins after Foothill Music Theatre thrived under its originator, Jay Manley, for over 30 years. This year for the first summer production under his guidance, Gough states in his program notes that he gravitated toward a show that combined three of his favorite things: baseball, live theatre, and the Faust legend. Gough’s drive and love of the theatre program have kept the FMT summer tradition alive for audiences to enjoy. Continue reading →

“Superior Donuts” serves up more than “dessert cakes”

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By Ande Jacobson

Playwright and actor Tracy Letts describes Superior Donuts as involving a “clash of cultures”.  Letts intersperses some light moments and witty exchanges between several colorful and diverse characters with some darker, more serious situations.  Much of the story provides background on unseen family members and circumstances that encumber, or scar the visible characters.  The play is well written, and right from the start, the action turns the quaint little donut shop on its head.  In the first blackout at the top of the show, the shop is transformed from a neatly kept eatery into a disheveled establishment with chairs overturned, rubbish strewn everywhere, and graffiti on the wall. Continue reading →

Happiness is remembering a mother’s love

A Good Reed Review Review , , , , , , , , ,

Wild with Happy 5_MKitaokaBy Ande Jacobson

Losing your mother is tough.  Things can sometimes be a bit surreal as you try to deal with that loss while fanciful memories flood your mind at the most inopportune times – like when you’re at the funeral home trying to make final arrangements.  Mix all that with a sideways Cinderella story, and you have actor and playwright Colman Domingo’s Wild With Happy which just opened at TheatreWorks in its West Coast Premiere. Continue reading →

The night smiles three times

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Hillbarn-night-music-MKitaoka_130507_3906By Ande Jacobson

Hillbarn Theatre Company’s latest offering is A Little Night Music which opened on Friday, 10 May.  This highly acclaimed Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler musical, suggested by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, follows the lives and loves of several mismatched couples in early 20th Century Sweden.  As Sondheim recalls in his memoir Finishing the Hat, director Harold Prince once described A Little Night Music as “whipped cream with knives.”  An apt description as the plotline is both sweet and sharp.  Sondheim claims he focused on the knives and spent his energy pursuing his dream of writing a “Theme and Variations,” in this case, using a metric theme, or more specifically a triple-meter theme exploring the myriad options available to him beyond the waltz. Continue reading →

East meets west in “Miss Saigon”

A Good Reed Review Review , , , , , , , , , ,

Saigon129FBy Ande Jacobson

Palo Alto Players (PAP) tackles a classic story with their production of Miss Saigon, by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Richard Maltby, Jr., which is based on Giacomo Puccini’s tragedy, Madama Butterfly, about a doomed romance between an Asian woman and her American GI lover.  The modern version keeps the drama and concept on which Puccini’s opera was based but modernizes the story and brings it to Vietnam, and PAP makes a valiant effort to stay faithful to the script.  Overall, it’s a production worth seeing in spite of a few shortcomings. Continue reading →

Sister and brother, mother and son, and a journey through time

A Good Reed Review Review , , , , , , , ,

johnjensliderimagelrgBy Ande Jacobson

Hillbarn Theatre’s latest offering, John & Jen, is best described as a chamber musical.  Written by Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald, the show calls for two actors and three musicians to bring the audience the winding story of Jen Tracy and the two Johns in her life.  Alicia Teeter plays Jen, and William Giammona plays her baby brother and her son, both named John.  The story covers almost 40 years from 1952 to 1990, and as the plot unfolds, we see humor, pathos, and drama, all in slightly less than 2 hours.  In the beginning, Jen is 6 and her baby brother is a newborn.  At the end, she’s 44 and her son is 18 and just getting ready to start college. Continue reading →

How far does the apple fall?

A Good Reed Review Review , , , , , ,

appleneverfalls-tasca-tyler-weilandBy Ande Jacobson

The Pear welcomes the world premiere of Paul Braverman’s latest work, The Apple Never Falls, as their current offering. Take a trip into 1964 Boston at the height of the Boston Strangler’s reign of terror in this film noir style story following Frankie Payne, a hard-boiled detective turned private eye. Per her client’s wishes, she investigates the murders attributed to the Strangler, searching for clues, and in the process, evaluating relationships, heredity, and furthering the age-old nature/nurture debate. This is a sequel of sorts to Braverman’s first Frankie Payne adventure, No Good Deed, which debuted at The Pear in early 2011. Braverman’s writing is fun, and being firmly planted in the noir genre, he smacks you with some twists that you don’t see coming, although the clues are there if you know where to look. Continue reading →

Book: REMEMBERING MOM AND DAD

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs , , , , , ,

Remembering_Mom_and__Cover_for_KindleBy Ande Jacobson

In REMEMBERING MOM AND DAD, I make the jump from analyzing the stories to telling them.  The book is a collection of nonfiction essays and short stories written over time remembering Bayla and Jerry Jacobson. The stories include personal recollections from my experience along with the retelling of numerous events related to me in conversations over the years. Some of the stories included are: “Music in the House”, “The Parenthood Plunge”, “The Jacobson Pet Parade”, “Disney Days of Summer”, and many more.  Interested?

Purchase the print edition online on Amazon.

Purchase a digital copy in Kindle or Nook formats.

Continue reading →

The role of the pit musician in musical theatre

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs , , , , ,

OUaMWatchingWithOrchBy Ande Jacobson

Imagine that you have gone to the theatre to see a performance of that Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, The King and I. You’ve been sitting in the auditorium for a few minutes before curtain reading through the program, and you take note of some of the cast members you may know as you read their biographies. Continue reading →