Death of a Salesman (review)

Spoilers ahoy! 

As it happens, this year has been one full of excellent productions of classics. Latest is Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, by A Noise Within.  My own theory, for whatever it might be worth, focuses on the times in which we are living.  Art comments, questions, examines LIFE.  When we do the same we find art speaks more to us, so we pay more attention. 

Especially the classics, and most especially the ones who address issues of our own times.

Arthur Miller's most famous play is slightly autobiographical (a lot of them are), but what really makes it resonate remains the fact it feels autobiographical for someone we know.  To some extent, also, for ourselves.  

Willy Loman (Geoff Elliott) walks on stage looking exhausted beyond words.  Not just physically, but down into the soul.  His wife Linda (Deborah Strang) does her best to listen, to comfort, to basically help as much as she can.  Along the way we soon learn this couple's two sons are staying with them for a bit.  Happy (Ian Littleworth) is the son who has his own apartment but decided to visit for a day or so.  Biff (David Kepner), the older son and clearly the favorite, arrived from Texas after years of farming, wandering, trying to find...something.  

Clearly, this family has problems.  Problems with a capital P that rhymes with C that stands for Capitalism.  Willy in particular loses himself in memories, focusing on past and present hopes, ideas, fears and frustrations, his prejudices and strange blind spots.  Almost immediately we get a sense of him as a man lost, a man who increasingly seems never ever to have found himself, never learned the things he desperately believes he needed.  Now in his sixties, tired and confused, his career as a salesman dwindling by any metric, the man visibly is coming apart at the seams--not least his demands from others while proving himself all but incapable of listening to others.

That we don't hate this man is one of Miller's major achievements.  Instead, we ache for him.

As well we should.  Willy Loman is us, after all.  Trapped in a world he did not choose, bereft of good options (at least any he can perceive and/or accept), without the personal resources to be more than desperate.  Far too close for all our lives for comfort--and hence fascinating in way like a slow motion train wreck.  Except we weep instead of gawk.

Miller wanted a play without scene breaks, and the action of the play--including memories and dreams--pretty much flow without interruption, at least in the first act.  The scale feels intimate and somehow vastly deep.  Unlike in classical tragedy, Willy did not make anyone personal mistake--his errors, while real, seem all very understandable,  entirely human.  Devastating, though.  Because for all his preening about his friends and how esteemed he says he is, all the support others offer remains meager.  Not individually, but cumulatively.  He walks a lonely road, even when holding a wife in his arms, gazing at sons he adores who likewise adore him.  Because they aren't enough.  Life is bigger than any one family, no matter how close--even were they flawless and these folks show off just how human every single one of them are.

We watch a play which poses several questions, which sooner or later mostly do get answers.  Exactly why is Willy in this situation?  How did Biff's life fall apart so totally, and what did Willy have to do with that?  Is there a way out for Willy, for Biff, for Happ or for Linda?  Out of a stifling, shallow present of short-term hopes and concerns which threaten to overwhelm?  

Director Julia Rodriquez-Elliott gives us an astounding theatrical experience, not least because with Scenic Designer Frederica Nascimento the "look" and "feel" of this production comes across as slightly less naturalistic, leaning more towards the dreamlike or mythic.  Frankly, I will always applaud this, not least because it leans into live theatre's strengths rather than attempting to copy film or television.  Likewise I want to herald the uniformly fine cast, including Kasey Mahaffy, Cassandra Marie Murphy, Bert Emmett, David Nevell, Michael Uribes, Jacob Cherry, Dominique Razon, and Rachel K. Han.  From literally the very first moment when the play begins until the very final moment, I felt totally sucked in, soul and mind.

Death of a Salesman plays Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays @ 7:30 p.m., Saturdays & Sundays @ 2 p.m. until April 29, 2026 (no matiness on March 28) at A Noise Within,  3352 E Foothill Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91107 (Free parking available directly behind the theater at the Sierra Madre Villa Metro parking structure, 149 N. Halstead St.

Sweet Charity (review)

Spoilers ahoy! 

Not often performed anymore, Sweet Charity was maybe the first musical I recall listening to via eight-track (yep I am that old).  Watching the current production at the Jaxx Theatre on Santa Monica Blvd. felt...bittersweet.  Then joyous.  And I'll even say that by the end I felt glorious. 

Essentially the show, based on an Italian film, follows our title character Charity (Kasey Henz) in New York City, a charming and deeply naive--or maybe just eternally hopeful--dance hall hostess who keeps finding herself screwed over by life.  One of the first things we see happen is a boyfriend who mugs her, then tosses into a lake, with passers-by ultimately unsure about what to do.  Charity cannot swim, but finds ultimate rescue.  Barely.  Honestly any bare description makes her seem like a really severe door mat, yet--she isn't.  She is kind.  She remains hopeful.  She takes her life seriously, which includes the fact she tries to help others.  When she accidentally meets a big movie star (Brian Whisenant) who finds her utterly charming beyond words, Charity helps him re-unite with another woman she recognizes has this man's heart (Jill Marie Burke).  Later, stuck in an elevator with a handsome young man who promptly has a hilariously over-the-top panic attack when the elevator gets stuck, Charity successfully talks him down.  This is Oscar (Tom Sys), who falls in love with Charity within a cloud of total misunderstanding about who she is and what she does.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Ren Shelburne

Now, each and every person in the cast does a very fine job, not only in terms of acting, singing, and dancing but the more subtle trick of maintaining the world of the show, a subtler and more vital skill than many might presume.  I really want to emphasize that.  In a marvelous ensemble, Sys is a standout, because in many ways he has the most difficult role.  The motion picture, which began Bob Fosse's career as a film director, frankly got the wrong note with this character, so he stuck out like a sore thumb, not at all fitting into the rest of the story.  Not in this production!  He was hilarious, human, different from absolutely everyone else yet fit into a world where characters burst into these songs and dances!

Thankfully I pretty much forgot about the movie while watching this version of Sweet Charity.  Not that the movie was at all bad!  Rather this was so totally itself!  Even when trying to capture the Fosse general style of choreography, it remained anything but a copy.  Performers like Amor Christiansen as Daddy, Aryiel Hartman as Madame Herman, and especially Ai Yamato and Natalie Reff as Charity's best pals at the dance hall, they made these roles their own and helped knock it out of the park.  Numbers like "Hey Big Spender!" "Rhymth of Life" "If They Could See Me Now" and "I Love To Cry at Weddings" all united in making a splendid show, full of passion and joy and fear and cynicism and pretty much an entire rainbow of human experience!

Which, it seems to be, is the whole point of the show.  So kudos not only to cast members Ellis Meng, Andrew Sear, J.D. Morabito, Charlotte Nevins, KiSea Katikka, Anna Gagliardo, Talor Bailey, Juliana DeSilva, Sofia Gutierrez and Genvieve Gray but also director/choreographer Jeremy Lucas and Music Director James Lent.  Frankly, I am now very eager to see each and every new show by this theatre group, so impressive was this show.

I will note that in over two hours of energy, showmanship, humor as well as genuine human feeling, the last thirty seconds of this script IMHO do not quite land.  And for all practical purposes that is the only criticism I have of the entire show.  Which is there, but I want to emphasize that is thirty seconds.  More important is the journey, not the destination.  Or at least so it seems to me.

Last time I had a chance to see a show by the Jaxx Theatre, my schedule did not allow it.  I am kicking myself for that now.  Hard! 

As of this writing, Sweet Charity has performances March 28 and 29, 2026 at The Jaxx Theatre is located at 5432 Santa Monica Blvd. in East Hollywood, 90029. Parking is available at 1110 N. Western Ave.

Uncle Vanya (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

On a personal note, Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov is my favorite play by this author.  One might expect some negative reaction upon viewing an "adaptation" (by Neil LaBute) of this masterpiece.  However, to my own mind art is open to interpretation, must remain so.  Each time one produces a play, one ends up adapting it, not least in the choices each production brings forth--decisions by actors, directors, designers, and many more.  The real issue focuses upon the result.

City Garage's current production of Uncle Vanya offers what I most desire in such a thing--a reimagining that feel utterly true yet re-sets how I perceive the play.  What a gift, and I thank everyone involved from the depths of my heart!  

I know many regard Chekhov as a difficult playwright (true), full of subtleties (true), given to traps of falling into the presumed "mood" (also true).  Frankly I've seen plenty of productions fall over themselves, tripping into seeming traps of expectation.   Like the belief these are terribly serious dramas.  Chekhov himself called them comedies, which to our minds means a series of jokes.  But with Chekhov humor is simply part of the flavor, an equal blend of tragedy, pathos, hope, fear, melancholy, comfort, and yes at the same time comedy.  "No we are not ever going to be happy" in this context becomes funny.  Because what else is laughter for, save to cope with and ward away despair?

The title character (Troy Dunn) is a middle-aged man falling into old age and feels that fact in every cell of every bone.  He and his niece Sonya (Anabela Nguyen) run an estate in rural Russia sometime towards the end the 1800s.  We can call them the leads, not least because of the title--and of course no one else calls Vanya "uncle."  For decades they have been working, drawing out every single kopek they can to send to Sonya's father the Professor (Andy Kallok) who has been famous and esteemed.  Until now.  Forced into retirement by time and age, the Professor has come to the estate to try and live there.  Once a dazzling lecturer and author, now a frail old man full of complaints and demands.  With him has come his new, young, very beautiful wife Yelena (Angela Beyer). 

Together they proceed to disrupt this household in almost every way, without trying to do anything of the kind.  Vanya falls head over heels in love with Yelena, a fact she enjoys but does not like that she enjoys it.  She wants to be friends with Sonya, who cannot help but bewail her own lack of beauty, yet finds comfort as she learns her stepmother is unhappy.  Doctor Astrov (Taylor Lee Marr) , the well-learned but alcoholic local physician starts to visit more often.  He is Vanya's friend.  More, he is the unrequited target of romantic adoration by the lonely Sonya--who btw should be considered quite a catch, since she is kind and helpful, hardworking and technically owns this big estate.  But she is not beautiful.  Her surface does not attract.  Worse, Yelena's own beauty fiercely attracts Astrov!  Worse still--at least for Vanya and Sonya--she herself feels strong attraction to Astrov.  Too bad for him she absolutely will not violate her marriage vows.   

What an emotional patch of hard ground and entrenched weeds!

Hence we continue to see these plays, and especially I think Uncle Vanya.  It makes for a horror story, really, a catharsis for what we all fear life truly might be.  Full of despair and mistakes, missed chances, yet not that much cruelty when you think on it, just lots of foolishness.  One gets the impression these folks could get their lives together if they tried.  No one is evil.  In fact I found myself liking all the major characters, even the Professor for all of his curmudgeon ways.  All fools of course.  But aren't we all?  None are fools about everything, but they fail to support one another, almost as if they don't know how.  Alone, none of them really feels like enough, and together they never do more than enough to keep things functioning.  

I suspect the visit by the Professor and his wife might genuinely be the last chance for any of them.  They do not rise to that possibility, which proves equal parts heart-breaking and also understandable.  

All this works because the cast, directed by Frederique Michel (honestly this is one of the best things I've seen from her) without exception bring all these characters to surprising, bittersweet life.  Including Telegrin (Ralph Radebaugh) who hangs around the estate his family once owned, the elderly un-imaginative but competent maid Marina (Geraldine Fuentes), and finally Maria (Strawn Bovee) who is Vanya's mother yet dismisses all his pain and Sonya's amidst her worship of the Professor. She is the only character I did not like, incidentally.  

Uncle Vanya plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm, Sundays at 4:00pm through March 29, 2026 at the City Garage 2525 Michigan Ave. Building T1, Santa Monica, Ca. 90404.

  

Richard III (review)

 Spoilers ahoy!

Fessing up--Richard III is my favorite play by William Shakespeare.  So I have seen many, many, many productions including the famous film versions starring Lawrence Olivia and Ian McKlellan respectively as hunchbacked king.  A Noise Within's production of this play, directed by Guillermo Cienfuegos and starring Ann Noble in the title role, frankly is the best live action version of it I myself have ever seen.

A big factor amid all this is the cast, which encompasses over thirty characters (this is an early play and is technically a bit rough around the edges).  Most versions I've seen have proven hard pressed to get enough uniform quality in the cast.  Not this time!  Particular standouts include Lynn Robert Berg as the Duke of Buckingham, Veralyn Jones as the Duchess of York, Samuel Garnett as Lord Hastings, Randolph Thompson  as Catesby, and Erika Soto as Lady Anne (a criminally under used character, but like I said, this was an early play).

With the kind of wild sets and costumes and lights (as well as music) to really go to town, this Richard is set in some version of the 1970s, and with that in mind some wonderfully weird details emerge.  Like the startling fashion range, up to and including the strangely groovy look and body language of our central character.  Likewise the women become over time more and more frumpy, not because they are but it seems natural in such an England dominated by a Duke then King who kept remind me of the Kray Brothers in some odd way, or the character Scorpio in Dirty Harry.  Men as malevolent peacocks seemed part of the "look" here.  Likewise one could see a deliberate attempt to make our hero Richmond (Wesley Guimarães) as least posh, least upper class and least preening as feasible.  It helps make him an individual, rather than a cookie cutter Prince Charming as he is often portrayed.   

That to me highlights was is best about this specific Richard III, how every character comes across as an individual, with individual senses of humor, sources of confusion, rhythms and world views.  Nothing generic here.  I offer much credit to the entire cast in that regard--Lesley Fera, Trisha Miller, Alex Neher, Tony Pasqualini, Sean Umeda, Brendan Burgos, Vic Crusaos, Dominick Jaramillo, and Micah Lanfer.

Here we have one of Bill's most famous and most challenging plays, a popular show with a great villain--the Hannibal Lecter of Tudor Theatre, although we only do Shakespeare's version.  The reasons are many, but the big one is that Richard in this play is a human being, not a cardboard cutout of some storybook bad guy.  

And the result makes this probably my second favorite I've ever seen at A Noise Within!

Richard III plays Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays @ 7:30 p.m. / Saturdays & Sundays @ 2 p.m. through March 8, 2026 at A Noise Within, 3352 E Foothill Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91107.