WPLongform

Big Pharma and romance can make for a complicated combination

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rx-2By Ande Jacobson

Big Pharma has what many would say is a well-deserved reputation as being an industry solely focused on its profit margin. This theme is explored as Dragon Theatre Company opens its 2014, nine show season with Rx by Kate Fodor. Fodor’s script is a quirky satirical romance that also indicts Big Pharma. The plot follows one company’s pursuit of chemical solutions to non-problems as it convinces patients they are sick and that a pill can solve everything. Along the way, an unassuming researcher gets a bit too close to his study subject, and the resulting romance threatens both of their livelihoods. Continue reading →

“If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans”

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MGL FamilyBy Ande Jacobson

As she was researching shows for this 13th season, the title Making God Laugh jumped out at Tabard’s executive director, Cathy Spielberger Cassetta. Intrigued, she started corresponding with the playwright, Sean Grennan. As she says in her program notes, she found “merit, wisdom, and folly in it” and decided to add this little yet-to-be-published gem as one of the “Twists” to the season. Grennan describes his play as a “dramedy that takes place in four scenes at a family home, each ten years apart.” First is a Thanksgiving dinner in 1980 and the play continues with one scene per decade until spring of 2010.  Grennan too has a program note and says “all playwrights have to write their Family play.” This is his, and Grennan’s characters are each familiar in some ways. The script is very funny, and he uses several pop-culture references both in musical quotes (e.g., “Jet Song” from West Side Story, “Everything’s Comin’ Up Roses” from Gypsy, Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind”) along with some period-specific failures (e.g., AMC’s Pacer, Yugo, Enron) to help hammer home the points he’s making. Continue reading →

Magic from within

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By Ande Jacobson

Everyone searches for meaning at some point in their lives. Some aspire to greatness, some aspire just to survive, and others are somewhere in between. Sunnyvale Community Players presents Pippin, the Roger O. Hirson and Stephen Schwartz musical that is very loosely based on the life story of Pippin the Hunchback, son of Charlemagne, as he searches for meaning in his life. The story is extremely disjoint. It has generous doses of farcical humor and cheap magic tricks (reminiscent of Godspell) mixed with threads of meaning if you look below the surface. Continue reading →

Exploring the varied results of the Reardons’ rearing

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miss-reardon-FBBy Ande Jacobson

Paul Zindel’s And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little isn’t your typical play although the plot is largely drawn from Zindel’s experience. He credits his early years with his eventually becoming a writer. He often retreated into his imagination to escape the drudgery of his family life after his father deserted them. He also had fortuitous timing as an undergraduate in taking a creative writing class taught by playwright Edward Albee who later became Zindel’s valued mentor and friend. Although Zindel majored in chemistry, spent some time in industry, and later taught high school chemistry, he indulged his love of writing in his spare time. After his death, his New York Times obituary reported, “…he never went to the theater, he said, until he was already a published playwright.” Continue reading →

All’s fair in families and politics

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Other Desert Cities 1_MKitatokaBy Ande Jacobson

TheatreWorks opens the 2013/2014 season with another Regional Premiere – Jon Robin Baitz’ Other Desert Cities.  Baitz’ title was inspired by a California freeway sign and two cities in the Middle East. The freeway sign is an odd one along Interstate 10 near Palm Springs where most of the story takes place; the cities are Baghdad and Kabul in reference to a war that figures prominently in the plotline. Topical, volatile, and political only partially describe the tone of this production. Between the witty writing, dramatic theme, superb cast, and gorgeous set, this production is a find equal to a lush desert oasis. There’s no doubt that audiences are in for a gripping evening of theatre. Continue reading →

Finding happiness where you can

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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

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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 →