The 19th Sonoma International Film Festival, March 30-April 3, 2016, will honor Meg Ryan who will screen her new film “Ithaca”
Meg Ryan, Golden Globe nominated actor and director, will receive the Sonoma Salute Award at the 19th Sonoma International Film Festival (March 30-April 30, 2016). The tribute will be presented on March 31 with a program that includes an on-stage conversation with Ryan and the screening of her new family drama, “Ithaca,” her directorial debut. Image: SIFF
The Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF 19), March 30-April 3, 2016, a Wine Country favorite among film and wine lovers, hasn’t released its full schedule yet but it has just announced that Meg Ryan, the beloved Golden Globe nominated actor and director will be honored with the festival’s Sonoma Salute Award on Thursday, March 31 at the historic Sebastiani Theatre on the plaza. The presentation will follow a special screening of Ryan’s new film Ithaca and an on stage conversation moderated by filmmaker Elliot Koteck who also publishes the Association of Film Commissioners’ twice annual Beyond Cinema magazine.
Ithaca is Ryan’s directorial film debut and the drama is an adaptation of William Saroyan’s 1943 novel, The Human Comedy. After taking a break from acting for the past six years, the film reunites Ryan with Tom Hanks for the fourth time, after cherished performances in You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, and Joe Versus the Volcano co-star. In this drama, Ryan plays a widowed mother, while Hanks plays a very small role. First filmed in 1943 under the name of The Human Comedy, Ryan’s Ithaca is a “World War II coming-of-age drama about Homer, a young telegram messenger in a small town and looks after his widowed mother while his brother is away at war . The film was shot along historical back road sites in Virginia and, along with Ryan and Hanks, it features Alex Neustaedter, Sam Shepard, Hamish Linklater, and Ryan’s son, Jack Quaid, who plays Marcus the older brother serving in the war. The music is by John Mellencamp.
Joachim Tier’s drama, “Louder Than Bombs” (2015), opens the 19th Sonoma International Film Festival on Wednesday, March 30, at the Sebastiani Theatre.
Norwegian director Joachim Tier’s family drama, Louder Than Bombs (2015), opens the festival on Wednesday, March 30 at the Sebastiani. A smash at last year’s Cannes Film Festival will, the drama stars Isabelle Hupert, Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne and David Strathairn and explores how a widower and his two adult sons cope with the recent death of the wife and mother (Hupert), a war photographer. The opening night festivities will also feature a live “vertical dance performance” with members of the dynamic Bandaloop dance group gracefully performing choreographed moves from ropes on the Sebastiani’s roof.
Details: The 19th Sonoma International Film Festival starts March 30 and runs through April 2, 2016. Buy passes online now at sonomafilmfest.org.
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/.
San Francisco’s Boxcar Theatre opens Sam Shepard’s “Buried Child” this Wednesday, February 8, 2012, part of a winter season of Shepard that is off to a roaring start
Family secrets are dragged out into the light of day in a remote farmhouse. Dodge has lost control as the patriarch of the family and the mother, Halie, is in a not so secret affair with their pastor. A heinous act, years ago, tore the family apart and killed all of the crops in the field. It all bubbles to the surface in a heartbreaking conclusion. San Francisco’s Boxcar Theatre opens Sam Shepard’s “Buried Child” this Wednesday as part of what might their most ambitious season yet─staging four of Pulitzer Prize-winner Sam Shepard’s best-known plays in repertory.
True West, Buried Child, A Lie of the Mind and Fool for Love will run continuously through April 26, 2012 in two Boxcar locales─the Boxcar Playhouse on Natoma Street and the new Boxcar Studios on Hyde Street, each of which offer intimate staging experiences. What makes Boxcar’s Sam Shepard project so innovative is that the Boxcar’s Artistic Director Nick A. Olivero, whose personality and passion for theatre are legendary, has turned his creative ratchet up even further than usual. Boxcar really grabbed ARThound’s attention last January when they ingeniously staged their play “Clue,” like the classic board game. The audience was seated six feet above, peering down at a life-size reproduction of the game’s exact playing board, replete with 9 rooms─the Ballroom, Conservatory, Billiard Room, Library, Study, Hall, Lounge, Dining Room and Kitchen─in which the characters moved about. And once people caught wind of the whole concept— a play based on a movie based on a board game─and the hilarious acting itself, the extended run sold out. (Read ARThound’s Clue coverage here.) The Sam Shephard series started off with some highly creative casting.
In Boxcar Theatre’s production of Sam Shepard’s “True West,” actors Brian Trybom (left) and Boxcar’s Artistic Director, Nick Olivero (right), play brothers Austin and Lee but rotate roles frequently, giving them the chance to fully immerse themselves in Shepard’s drama. Boxcar is staging four Sam Shepard plays and several readings through April, 26, 2012. Photo: Peter Liu
In True West, which opened January 17, Olivero and actor Brian Trybom have been performing the roles of the two brothers Austin and Lee and rotating between the two roles nightly. And once or twice a week, after briefly outlining the characters to the audience, they let the audience decide on the spot who will play what role that evening. They change into the required clothing and are off and running. I’ve seen the play both ways and live theatre just doesn’t get any better. When you’re watching this unfold, it’s hard to process how they each keep their lines straight under these conditions and pull it off, night after night, with such seamless and spontaneous flow. And the intimate Boxcar Studios, which can hold about 30, is configured perfectly for this tight drama─the audience lines the three walls, forming the border of a kitchen, some just inches from the actors. That’s close enough to feel the toast, toasters and typewriters that are hurled whooosh by.
True West is focused around two brothers who unexpectedly come together in their mother’s suburban home while she is away on a trip. Austin, a disciplined screenwriter pecking away at his typewriter (far too uptight and lacking the confidence to proclaim his work as pure art) has come to watch his mom’s place and finish his screenplay in solitude. Lee, a drifter, thief and born storyteller (an artist to his core but without the discipline to harness and craft his ideas), shows up out of the blue.
In Boxcar Theatre’s production of Sam Shepard’s “True West,” actors Brian Trybom (left) and Boxcar’s Artistic Director, Nick Olivero (right), play brothers Austin and Lee but rotate roles frequently, giving them the chance to fully immerse themselves in Shepard’s drama. Photo: Peter Liu
Initially disdaining and mistrustful, the brothers warm to the point where they are curious to taste the life the other leads. As they embark on a project that forces them to collaborate, a cesspool of raw emotion erupts and they confront what it takes to survive in each other’s world of illusions. Like real Western cowboys, the two are pulled into a deadly battle. The drama taps the mythic dreams and dysfunction at the heart of most American families. The father never appears but is referenced several times. His alcoholic legacy is one of destruction and family abandonment, but both his sons are still enamored with him. Mom (Adrienne Krug and Katja Rivera alternating) plays her part too─traditional, meek, passive. When she returns from her trip early, she is astounded that her plants have died, her home is trashed and her boys are at each other throats. When she hears that both her sons are talking about leaving for the mythic West, that same West that her husband ran off too, she turns tail and exits. This is rough and tumble drama, and, as chaos descends, Olivero and Trybom play it to the hilt, honoring Shepard’s enduring classic.
“I started reading Shepard in high school with Lie of the Mind, and it just resonated with me,” said Nick Olivero. “I had two older brothers and one of them was really mean to me, beat the crap out of me, and that’s the way it is in a lot of families and that’s what happens in a lot of Shepard plays. A lot of us connect with that. In college, I directed True West and I worked on Fool for Love and, without even looking to do it, I just kept working on Shepard. I had always wanted to work at the Magic Theatre because of Sam Shepard. I moved up here in 2003, and within six months, I was hired at the Magic. It was such a big thing for me to be at that company who had supported him, premiered and produced his work that I liked so much. After Boxcar did Tennessee Williams in repertory for our 4th season, I started thinking about Shepard. I’ve directed his work twice and always wanted to be in it and I thought…all right, here’s my chance to do it before I get too old.”
Stay tuned to ARThound for an interview with Nick Olivero about Sam Shepard at Boxcar.
Buried Child is an epic odyssey about finding one’s way back home and finding one place’s in that home. Neither can be achieved until all the buried secrets are unearthed. Like in True West, Shepard uses the premise of a son’s return home for a brief visit while on his way West, to California, to explore the raw pain within the American family. The three act play, Buried Child had its world premiere at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre in 1978 and, in 1979, Shepard won the Pulitzer prize for Best drama for Buried Child. The play ran for more than one year Off-Broadway and has received more than 400 productions around the world.
Sam Shepard readings: Boxcar Studios will also present several additional Shepard plays throughout March in the form of readings and enactments of selected scenes. On the docket so far: Cowboy Mouth, Curse of the Starving Class, 4-H Club, Action, Suicide in B Flat, and Kicking A Dead Horse.
Sam All Day Sunday: On consecutive Sundays, March 25 and April 1, Boxcar runs all four plays on the same day starting at noon. The ticket price of $120 includes lunch, a shot of whiskey and private transportation from theater to theater by the rep series cast and crew, giving playgoers the opportunity between shows to speak with the actors and directors who make it all happen.
Details: Sam Shepard in Repertory runs through April 26, 2012. Full schedule, including casting for each performance at http://www.boxcartheatre.org. Individual plays are priced as follows: Previews $15; Opening night, including reception $35; General Admission $25.
“Sam Shep Rep Pass” includes one ticket to each show in the series $85.
Admission is $5 – $10 for each reading or free with the $85 “Sam Shep Rep Pass.”
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