“Storefront Church,” John Patrick Shanley’s new play, finishes his Church-State trilogy with a hard-edged look at the mortgage crisis, greed, and redemption—at San Francisco Playhouse through January 11, 2014
Gloria Weinstock (center) is kindhearted Jesse in “Storefront Church” at San Francisco Playhouse. Her financial woes become significant when she “rents” the ground floor of a store front to Chester, an impoverished Pentecostal preacher whose church was destroyed in the Katrina hurricane. In Chester’s three months of occupancy, he has not paid Jessie and she has financed all the “upgrades” to the church by taking out a second mortgage. Facing foreclosure, her husband Ethan (Ray Reinhardt) (left) goes to bat for her at the bank and she asks Donaldo (Gabriel Marin) (right), the Bronx Borough president, and her best friend’s son to assist her. Photo: Jessica Palopoli
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley’s new play Storefront Church, at San Francisco Playhouse, transports the audience to a wintery Bronx, where a disenchanted and broke preacher has lost his faith while trying to start over in New York after his New Orleans church was washed away by Katrina. His Latina landlady, Jesse, has taken out a second mortgage trying to help him pay for the renovation of the storefront church. Her Jewish husband, Ethan, a retired tax accountant, pays a visit to an unsympathetic loan officer at the bank that is about to foreclose on her. Donaldo, the Bronx Borough president, who has known Jessie since his childhood tries to intervene and the bank’s CEO seizes the moment to enlist borough support for a new mall he hopes to finance. It sounds dismal but it all ends on a hopeful note— the preacher conquers his despair enough to deliver a sermon; the characters reconnect with their faith; Jesse gets to keep her property; the mall is given the green light with a percentage of the space allocated for community use.
In 2005, Shanley won a Pulitzer Prize in drama and a Tony Award for best play for “Doubt” in which a strict nun accuses a highly respected priest of being sexually inappropriate with one of the school students under her charge. “Doubt” was the first in Shanley’s trilogy of Church and State plays; the second play, “Defiance,” from 2006, explored racism and the disunity it caused aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina as the Vietnam War was winding down. “Storefront Church” is an exploration of contemporary society’s lack of faith and of the plight of the individual striving to survive in a world dominated by corporate greed.
Money, money, money, faith and the borough. Pastor Chester (Carl Lumbly) and Borough President (Gabriel Marin), the son of a Latino storefront preacher, have a fateful and intense meeting over church vs. mortgage. Both men have lost their faith. Photo: Jessica Palopoli.
While “Storefront Church” is less powerful than the other two plays in the triad, it is a moving portrait of our troubling times, when one’s convictions and sense of self are under constant siege and achieving and maintaining financial security is a game few succeed at. In order to cover overarching themes, Shanley sacrifices character development resulting in some confusion about back stories and relationships. Director Joy Carlin has assembled a talented cast— popular Bay Area actors Derek Fischer (CEO of the bank), Rod Gnapp (bank loan officer), Carl Lumbly (Pastor Chester), Gabriel Marin (Borough President), Ray Reinheart (Ethan, Jesse’s husband), and Gloria Weinstock (Jesse). As usual, San Francisco Playhouse’s staging is impeccable.
Stay-tuned to San Francisco Playhouse…Director Bill English says their next play, Jez Butterworth’s “Jerusalem,” (January 21-March 8), is “probably the best play written in the 21st century so far.” I’ve come to trust Bill English…he serves us our moral peas and carrots in the most interesting dishes. He promises that the San Francisco Playhouse’s production will be the “first American” production of the play that earned raves at London’s Royal Court in 2009. It makes frequent allusions to Blake’s poem from which its title is derived.
Details: Storefront Church ends Saturday, January 11, 2014. San Francisco Playhouse is located at 450 Post Street (2nd Floor of Kensington Park Hotel, b/n Powell & Mason) Performances: Tuesday to Thursday 7pm, Friday and Saturday 8pm. Matinees: 3pm Saturdays; 2pm Sunday on 1.5.14 Tickets: $30-$100. For more information visit www.sfplayhouse.org or call the box office at (415) 677-9596.
review: The child returns…Magic Theatre’s revival of Sam Shepard’s “Buried Child” is still gripping after 35 years—through October 13, 2013
No one recognizes Vincent (Patrick Alparone, center) when he returns home and tries to reconnect with his father, Tilden (James Wagner, right), and grandfather, Dodge (Rod Gnapp, left) in Sam Shepard’s Buried Child at Magic Theatre. Photo: Jennifer Reiley
Tightly held family secrets are unearthed in Magic Theatre’s revival of Buried Child, Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize winning odyssey about finding one’s way back home and finding one’s place in that home. The play, directed by Producing Artistic Director Loretta Greco, opens Magic’s 47th season and continues its “Sheparding America” celebration of the playwright’s 70th birthday−up this November. Buried Child premiered at the Magic in 1978, during the exciting eight-year period that Sam Shepard was the theatre’s playwright-in-residence, a time when he also unveiled such classics as True West (1980) Fool for Love (1982)−productions which I, then an undergrad at UC Berkeley, attended and which deeply and viscerally impacted me. Despite winning the Pulitzer, Shepard reworked Buried Child for its 1995 Broadway revival and it’s this version that Magic currently has on stage and has extended through Sunday, October 13, 2013.
Buried Child remains a dark detective story of sorts, devised in such a manner as to enmesh the audience in the festering wound of the endlessly complex and broken American family. The 35 year-old play is as relevant as it ever was and the acting is exceptional in Magic’s revival. Special touches like the sight and sound of torrential rain and the startling crack of breaking beer bottles by sound designer Jake Rodriguez and scenic designer Andrew Boyce are elevating.
Rod Gnapp as Dodge, the aging, alcoholic, emasculated family patriarch. Sam Shepard’s Buried Child is at Magic Theatre through October 13. Photo: Jennifer Reiley
The plays opens in a ramshackle living room, with Dodge, the father and family patriarch, glued to the couch, covered with an Afghan, sneaking drinks from the bottle of booze he keeps hidden in the cushions. Rodd Gnapp, last seen in Magic’s Se Llama Cristina, again outdoes himself in this principal role, delivering a broken man with a serious case of emotional dry-rot. Unable to face the consequences of his past, Dodge lies unshaven and passive on the couch, rasping and hacking.
Upstairs, his wife Halie (Denise Balthrop Cassidy), talks at him non-stop, in a blistering unrelenting monotone, as she readies herself for church and a visit with Father Dewis (Lawrence Radecker), a priest she’s having an open affair with. This is not the first time she’s stepped outside her marriage; the dark consequences of her past infidelity have devastated the family. Instead of facing her pain, she revels in the past glories of her sons who are enshrined in old family pictures lining the walls of her bedroom. Her investment in the dream, has caused her to erect a kind of mental fortress around her memories (real and imagined) and it will take two outsiders to obliterate lay waste of them. Balthrop Cassidy is great with the unseen banter but when she appears in person, she seems to be working too hard at playing a parody of Halie rather than just being the complex piece of psychic work that is Halie. This is a noticeable contrast from the ease with which the other actors embody their characters wounds.
As two adult sons make their entrance, it becomes apparent that the dysfunction extends beyond the marriage. Tilden, the eldest, (James Wagner) who lives with his parents, seems confused and easily shaken. He lumbers around and dumps down a huge pile of fresh corn which he says he’s just picked from the field in the backyard, a field which has been fallow for years. One-legged amputee Bradley (Patrick Kelly Jones), a victim of a chainsaw accident, is combative and scary. He lives close by, close enough to come over and harass his family whenever he pleases. The whole lot of them exhibit symptoms that solidly put them in DSM-IV territory for trauma, an area that has long captivated Shepard.
With the unexpected appearance of Tilden’s twenty-something year old son, Vince (Patrick Alparone), and his girlfriend Shelley (Elaina Garrity), the past rears its head. While Vince has only been gone for six years, no one will acknowledge or recognize him. He is desperate for affirmation and yet has been stripped of his identity. His solution–to run away. Patrick Alparone does a masterful job of navigating the minefield of emotions and expectations associated with coming home to what he remembers of his family and meeting up with this abominable clan. His third act transformation, his return home–to ownership of himself and the farm–is palpable. Elaina Garrity nearly steals the show with her very believable Shelley, an outsider, immune to the family dysfunction, who functions as a mirror to the audience. Shallow, disengaged and skeptical at first, the willowy young woman, ultimately proves relentless in her quest to get to the truth and unearth the secret.
Vince (Patrick Alparone) brings his girlfriend Shelly (Elaina Garrity) to his family homestead after a long absence in Sam Shepard’s Buried Child playing at Magic Theatre. Photo: Jennifer Reiley
Buried Child functions brilliantly on many levels while casting out psychic hooks that reel in the wounded amongst us, bringing us to confrontation with our own demons. At it heart, it is about the ways that family members withhold from each other and perpetuate more hurt as they attempt to shield themselves from the unbearable pain of having broken a moral code. There is no hero, there is no forgiveness but there are many villains and many victims. When the truth emerges, the characters, nursing their wounds, grudges and regrets, can’t bring themselves to move beyond their entrenched patterns despite the fact that reality has shifted.
Loretta Greco has revitalized the Magic Theatre since she was appointed Artistic Director in 2008. She is able to mine emotion and insight from every remark, every nagging resentment that is expressed in Shepard’s masterpiece. “For almost two decades I’ve longed to work on Buried,” said Greco. “I believe that in 1,000 years philosophers and civilians alike who are searching for meaning will still be mining the depths and Sophocles’ Oedipus, Chekov’s Three Sisters and Shepard’s Buried Child.”
Details: Magic Child has been extended through October 13, 2013. The Magic Theatre is located in Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina Blvd. Building D. 3rd floor, San Francisco, CA. Parking is readily available at Fort Mason Center. Performances: daily performances Tues-Sunday. Tickets: Tues, Wed, Thurs: $45 to $55; Fri, Sat, Sun: $50-60. Purchase tickets online here or by phone (415) 441-8822. For more information about this play and Magic Theatre’s 2013-14 Season, visit http://magictheatre.org/.
review: Aurora Theatre Company opens its 21st season with the Bay Area Premiere of “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” inviting the Berkeley audience to get primal over wrestling
“The Mace” (back, Tony Sancho) watches the elaborate entrance of fellow THE wrestling association wrestler “Chad Deity” (center, Beethovan Oden) in the Bay Area Premiere of Kristoffer Diaz’s “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” at Aurora Theatre Company through September 30, 2012. Photo: David Allen
Professional wrestling, of course, is a sham—scripted right down to the last pulsating peck. Still, there’s something primordial and bizarrely addictive about watching muscle-bound superheroes in spandex groan, grunt and holler as they pummel each other with drop kicks, flying body presses, and other daredevil maneuvers. The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, by Obie Award winner Kristoffer Diaz, had its Bay Area premiere at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company last week. The play is a fun, clever and engrossing satire bringing us right into the colorful the world of professional wrestling and its stock-in-trade characters. Friday night’s performance was electric, offering the audience, a few of whom came dressed in costume, a chance to amp up and cut loose as they entered an epic battle of good versus evil in the ring. And what a ring it was! Set designer Nina Ball outdid herself transforming Aurora’s intimate three-quarter round house into a convincing professional wrestling ring surrounded by colorful lights and elevated platforms where the wrestlers posed. A pre-show warm-up round with wrestler Billy Heartland (Dave Maier) gave the audience a tutorial on how to re-act to each of the characters— with cheering, heckling or chanting. Heartland even pulled a woman from the audience up into the ring to assist him. She did so well that I wondered if she was a plant. Two mammoth video screens provided riveting close-ups of the wrestling, sexy go-go girls (the only females in this play) and projected introductory videos of each character—a very skillful collaboration of light, sound and video from Aurora’s talented team. It was just like being in Vegas and taking in the real deal—skin and a lot of adrenaline flowing.
The story’s narrator is Macedonio Guerra aka “the Mace” (Tony Sancho), a young Puerto Rican professional wrestler who is the fall-guy for the star, “Chad Deity.” Sancho gives an impassioned and edgy performance as a man who’s smarting from a career that didn’t pan out as anticipated who is struggling to find meaning in his life and to see his own value. Sancho’s Macedonio speaks like a cultural anthropologist, explaining not only what’s going on in his head but the whole culture of wrestling invoking a series of fascinating connections and intersections. As he describes how he was drawn to wresting in his childhood and walks us through his moves that enable the hero, we begin to understand that wrestling requires stamina, physical skill and the ability to let oneself be used and demeaned, as a pawn in a ratings game. The burning question: how could someone this astute settle for being someone’s fall guy?
The reigning All-American hero, Chad Deity (Beethovan Oden) is served up as beefcake— a flashy black man sporting gold hair and tight spandex who preens, struts, grunts, and wins. He’s reached the pinnacle of success in wresting. He sports a prodigiously large belt buckle, gets the big salary and he spends lavishly but he doesn’t really do the work. That is left to little noticed and less appreciated Macedonio, who jumps to make it look like the burly Chad is lifting him in the air. Chad is Olson’s satirical nod to the successful, or not, assimilation of blacks in our society. Oddly, the most memorable line Chad Deity delivers comes during his riff on the money he has and what it’s bought—giant refrigerators with multiple crispers that he doesn’t even use. His young son has refrigerator in his playroom and he uses that crisper to keep his action heroes cold. There’s a lot about Chad Deity that we just don’t know and will never know. And the playwright doesn’t provide us with a lot of backstory or insight to humanize these characters beyond the silly roles they play.
Their promoter and employer, the greasy Everett K. “EKO” Olson (Rod Gnapp), founder of the circuit called THE Wrestling, milks the cash-cow for all its worth and is constantly seeking to stir the pot, raise the stakes and hook the crowd.
Mace (left, Tony Sancho) and VP (right, Nasser Khan), dressed as their wrestling alter egos “Che Chavez Castro” and “The Fundamentalist,” defeat Billy Heartland (center, Dave Maier) in the Bay Area Premiere of “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.” Photo: David Allen
The fight physicality is impressive and authentic. The wrestlers’ moves—attacks and throws—are all choreographed by Dave Maier and went off without a hitch, creating the impression that pain was inflicted with each resounding thud, kick or twist of the limb. (A video below includes segments of the actors talking about their intense preparation for this demanding production.)
When Macedonio recruits Vigneshwar Paduar (Nasser Khan), the wrestling script changes. VK is a young man of Indian descent from Brooklyn, who has dark skin, and could easily pass as having any number of racial backgrounds. EKO first trots him out as a Latino and then embellishes him with a long beard, a white robe and recasts him as “The Fundamentalist,” a villain Muslim, who along with his sidekick, Mace, is out to destroy the American hero Chad Deity. Khan’s character was the least well-developed in the show, even though the actor made the most of the lines he was given and got some good laughs with his polyglot high-jinks. Is he a visionary or just a cynical kid who wants to make some quick money? I couldn’t tell.
The ah-hah moment comes as Mace gets fed up with EKO and hooks up with VK in a rebellion that ultimately fizzles. At the abrupt end of play, we are left high from the cheering and jeering that we’ve engaged in for 2 hours and with great compassion for Macedonio in particular. His intellect and insight seemed key to his escaping his demeaning role. I had the unsettling feeling of not being altogether clear about what it was all supposed to mean.
As part of the theatre audience who is also the wrestling audience, we are essentially watching ourselves watching the spectacle and co-creating the spectacle and that’s fascinating. From that vantage point, there’s no escaping the powerful scripted stereotypes that limit and entrap those in wrestling, and all realms of our society, that we perpetuate.
Production team: written by Kristoffer Diaz; directed by Jon Tracy; set design Nina Ball; costumes Magie Whitaker, sound design by Cliff Caruthers, lighting design by Kurt Landisman, video design by Jim Gross
Cast: Rod Gnapp as promoter EKO (or E.K. Olson), Tony Sancho as wrestler “The Mace” or Macedonio Guerra, Beethovan Oden as wrestler Chad Diety, Dave Maier as wrestler Billy Heartland, and Nasser Khan as wrestler VP or Vigneshwar Paduar
Behind the Scenes of THE ELABORATE ENTRANCE OF CHAD DEITY at Aurora Theatre Company
Details: The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity runs through September 30, 2012. Performances: Tuesdays at 7pm; Wednesday through Saturday at 8pm; Sundays at 2pm and 7pm. The Aurora Theatre is located at 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA.
TICKETS: Tickets are $32-50, with half-off tickets for Under 30, student, and group discounts; phone (510) 843-4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org. Parking: paid parking is readily available at over 5 parking garages as close as one block from the theatre. The Allston Way Garage, 2061 Allston Way, between Milvia and Shattuck, offers $3 parking Tuesday–Friday after 6 PM, or, all day on Saturday or Sunday when your garage-issued parking ticket is validated in the theatre lobby.
Performances with talks/groups:
Friday Forum: Friday, September 14, 2012 – Political Correctness for Life
Script Club: Monday,September 24, 2012 7:30pm – The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe by Jane Wagner
Wicked Wisdom: Friday, September 28, 2012 – Seeing the Truth in the Ring
review–Magic Theatre’s “What We’re Up Against” a female architect’s first job has her navigating male jerks, air ducts and the profession itself–through March 6, 2011
Is sexism still alive in corporate America, or do most people believe that women have made it and if they aren’t experiencing success, it’s more about them and their lack of abilities? Acclaimed playwright Theresa Rebeck, tackles sexism and the rough and tumble world of office politics in What We’re Up Against, her clever new play in its world premiere at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre through March 6, 2011.
When a team of old-school architects is under the gun to design a mall expansion but can’t figure out the design for the air ducts, all hell breaks out when Eliza (Sarah Nealis), a brash new associate they can’t stand, has the answer. Instead of calling Eliza in to discuss her ideas, they bad-mouth her and plot to sabotage her. After six months of slaving away and getting no notice at all for her considerable effort, Eliza concludes that she does not walk the same halls of power as the others do and gets angry. When she asserts herself over her plan for the mall expansion, she rocks the firm to its core. What’s going on? Is Eliza being discriminated against because she’s female and her talent is threatening or it is more her brash style and refusal to adapt to the firm’s corporate culture and pace that is causing the problem?
Rebeck’s “Mauritious” endeared Magic audiences in 2009 and “What We’re Up Against” is based on a eight minute scene that Rebeck wrote a few years ago that unfolds quickly through a series of charged conversations amongst colleagues that can be stacked up in numerous ways. For Rebeck, context is key. Because the audience enters the drama at its apex, there is no real basis for evaluating the truth of the claims that are made but that won’t stop us from speculating about what’s really going on in this office. The play is wonderfully staged by Artistic Director Loretta Greco, who has managed to re-create a sleek office environment with a few rotating props.
Sara Nealis plays Eliza in the Magic Theatre’s world premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s “What We’re Up Against.” Eliza talks to her superior Ben about her frustrations about being systematically ignored by Stu and everyone else. Why is Weber given work when he has only been at the firm for six months--while she is given nothing. Photo: Magic Theatre.
The first act begins with deceit and builds on male disregard for Eliza. Stu (Warren David Keith), the project’s lead architect, is angry that he’s been duped by Eliza into thinking that her design for the ducts, the logjam in the mall design project, was done by a man instead of “this cunt.” Ben (Rod Gnapp), also a senior architect, doesn’t seem to like women either but recognizes that if Eliza has solved the problem, the project can move forward. Be forwarned, the play opens with obscenities and doesn’t let up.
Eliza will be familiar to most of us— she’s young, blond, ambitious, outspoken, hardworking, and extremely talented—she’s likable but can be despicable too. We’ve all met her, actually most of these characters, at some point in our professional lives.
Eliza’s interaction with her associate colleagues, Janice (Pamela Gaye Walker) and Weber (James Wagner), is what makes this play worth the price of admission. In this firm, ideas are translated and added to by coworkers, especially the slaving associates, while the principals, Stu and Ben, take on the alternating roles of creator and critic. Being a good designer is everything but the criteria for “good design” is highly subjective.
Everyone works to support the star, the designer at the top of the pyramid, who Stu and Ben are directly responsible to. The system itself is authoritarian and outdated. Sexism may define Eliza as a scribe to the males in this office but the system itself defines everyone but the star as second banana. It works like a caste system with obtuse rewards and harsh punishments. Everyone wants attribution and recognition but it’s hard to determine who is contributing what. A few minutes into the play, you ntoice that no one seems fulfillfed.
Pamela Gay Walker (left) plays Janice , and Sara Nealis (right) plays Eliza in the Magic Theatre’s world premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s “What We’re Up Against.” Eliza talks to Janice about being given an office the size of a broom closet at the end of a hallway. Photo: Magic Theatre.
Janice, a more senior associate, has thrown in the towel long ago, accepts her lesser position in the firm, and goes along with the boys. In this dog-eat-dog setting, she has lost her fight, her confidence and resents Eliza’s drive and her bluntness. Weber is the young male pup in the group. Since the firm is ruled by a male-pack mentality, he’s protected and given chances to excel despite his lack of talent. Stu and Ben are themselves under the thumb of the firm’s jet-setting guru, who they slave away for.
Rebeck takes the topic of sexism and complicates it with strong personalities and an ambiguous context for evaluating professional success. “What We’re Up Against” stands as a fascinating portrait of the human condition and a very unappealing firm.
Run-time: One hour and 45 minutes with a 15-minute intermission.
Median Income for men in architecture: $70,330
Median Income for women in architecture: $55,805
In architecture, women earn 70% of what men earn.
Up Next at Magic Theatre: Playwright and burlesque performer Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge, winner of a 2010 Obie Award, opens April 21, 2011 at the Magic Theatre and runs through May 22, 2011. When a flower falls in love with a blushing bride, can he complete a quest to become a man and win her love? Taylor Mac and dozens of Bay Area artists tackle love, marriage and Prop 8, using vaudeville, haiku, drag queens, ukuleles, dream ballets and everything else in Mac’s theatrical arsenal. The Lily’s Revenge is a rolling world premiere with Magic Theatre, HERE Arts Center (New York), Southern Rep Theatre (New Orleans) and The National Theatre of Scotland.
Details: Magic Theatre is located on the third floor of Building D, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, at the intersection of Marina Blvd. and Buchanan Street. Parking: Low cost parking is located just inside the gates of Fort Mason Center (entrance at the intersection of Buchanan Street and Marina Boulevard) and free parking is located just outside the entrance to Fort Mason Center, a short walk from the theatre. Tickets: $20 to $60. Box office (415) 441-8822 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting or http://magictheatre.org/buy-tickets Seating: Audience members sit in three sections—2 side sections and a center section, and production are designed so that each vantage point provides a different experience.
ARThound 