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 (Anabella 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 Meyer). 

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.

An Inspector Calls (review)

 Spoilers ahoy! 

An Inspector Calls should almost be dated.  Written in the wake of the second world war, it seems to address issues specific to its era.

Yet here we are.  Topical as ever. Maybe moreso, frankly.

J.B.Priestley's play might almost count as an inspiration for The Twilight Zone.   Exactly why I'll leave for you to find out.  But the set up involves an engagement party in the home a wealthy businessman named Birling (David Hunt Stafford) whose daughter Sheila (Katyana Rocker-Cook) plans to wed Gerald (Isaac W. Jay), while Mrs. Birling (Diana Angelina) beams in pleasure and the son of the family, Eric (Monty Renfrow).  Everyone--or almost everyone--feels extremely pleased with themselves, amid drinks and talk of jewelry and of course business affairs.  

Indeed Birling himself gives a speech to his son all about how, no matter what anyone says, responsibility counts for nothing compared to taking care of one's own.  With superb timing, mere seconds after such declarations, the title come true.  Edna the Housekeeper (Quinn de Vries) comes in with news an Inspector has arrived and wishes to speak with them.  When said Inspector (Mouchette van Helsdingen) enters with dreadful news--news which upsets everyone who hears it.  Some.  Not a lot.  Not at first.  A young woman named Eva Smith (Isabella DiBernadino on the night I saw it) has killed herself in a quite dreadful way, leaving behind a sort of diary.  The Inspector intends to find out what led to this tragedy, and what awaits the Birling family are a series of revelations from which they may never recover--although they will do their absolute most to refuse to allow that.  

Director Cate Caplin made some interesting tiny changes in this production--staged for only a handful of performances at the utterly grand Graystone Manor--not least making the Inspector a woman (given this is 1932, absolutely impossible but honestly I for one don't care much).  Most interestingly, though, is how the memory--maybe the ghost--of Eve Smith wanders on stage now and then.  It creates a sense someone is watching the characters, remembering their actions, judging them.  Very appropriate as events transpire.  It brings into sharper relief themes explored in speech, but only slightly in action.  Methinks this choice proved wise.  

More, it echoes what this play clearly intends to do.  The characters end up haunted, and hopefully so to members of the audience.  As far as performances go, much of the action in the play is carried by the Inspector, by Sheila, then eventually Gerald and Eric.  Perhaps intended as a hint of how the young must shoulder most of the burden of change?  Priestley's play harkens to such ideas quite vividly, one reason it remains consistently produced seven decades after opening.  

A blend of mystery and drama, with more than a few hints of the uncanny, performed and staged for emotional impact are what this play needs to work.  Beyond doubt in this production has achieved precisely that.

An Inspector Calls plays Wednesday through Saturday (Jan. 14 thru 17) at 7:30pm, and Sunday (Jan 18) at 2pm.  Tickets can only be purchased online at the link in the title.  Performances are at Graystone Mansion (905 Loma Vista Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210) which nicely has plenty of parking.  

Our Town (review)

 Spoilers ahoy!  

Thornton Wilder's classic play Our Town shouldn't work.  Or so common theatrical wisdom goes.  It has no real "plot" so to speak.  No murder mystery, no drawn out romance against great odds, nobody feels the looming threat of bankruptcy nor is any marriage in danger.  

It remains a classic, one well worth the watch, for everything else about its very real story.  Wilder wrote myths out of the mundane.  He wove a tapestry of life that we recognize.  Because we recognize it, we see ourselves there, on stage, walking around and doing homework, gossiping or putting up with gossip, looking around and trying to figure out what to do.  Falling in love with all the simple happiness and terror that entails.

We are literally introduced to the small, very ordinary town of Grover's Mill via the Stage Manager (Neil Thompson), a kind of folksy Greek Chorus, a friendly Rod Serling, a nice guy who's telling the story.  Most productions make a big deal about who plays this part, given it is the largest role and the one who communicates most directly with the audience.  Or seems to.

In this show, the attention is much more centered on the George (Casey Alcoser) and Emily (Faye Reynolds), whom we meet as children, when they are friends as well as next-door-neighbors.  Later we see they have fallen in love by the time they get ready to graduate high school.  Their wedding day, brief as it may seem, is a Big Deal, even if nothing particularly notable happens.  Just a nice ceremony between two young people who want to share their lives together, will soon be taking over a farm.  In fact they even have two children.

We care about them, very much.  If we do not, the play will not work.  To be sure plenty of other characters wander around stage--George's parents as well as Emily's (Cynthia Payo, Fox Carney, Larry Toffler, Kathi Chaplar) for example, the town's constable (Rob Schaumann) and a busybody named Mrs. Soames (Dianne Travis), plus Mr. Stimson (Tom Allen) who is the most tragic character I suppose.

Director Mareli Mitchel-Shields does a fine job of making the ensemble seem to be a bunch of pretty unremarkable people in the same unremarkable town--yet by their basis humanity worthy of remarks.  Here lies the key to the play, and also to this production--belief in these people and this place.  More than belief, we also feel kinship.  Especially George and Emily.  It seems in this world--and in many ways I mean the one wherein we ourselves dwell--the fact these two people found each other is the sweetest, most wonderful thing.  And most tragic.  For we are not immortal.  

This cut deep.

At the end of the play, we shift our focus away from the living to the dead, and we follow Emily as she goes into her grave and starts to learn what it is like to be dead.  She finds it frightening and sad, but not in the way she expected.  Nor do we--and keep in mind I've seen and read this play before.  Yet in the moment of it happening, it is all made fresh once more.  Which is as much as any production can hope to achieve--on Broadway, on the West End in London, at the Globe Theatre all those centuries ago, much less the great theatre festivals of Athens.  

Bravo to the Group Rep for this production, and the cast members including Jeff Dinnell, Christina Conte, Noah Dittmer, Steve Rozic, Lew Snow, Daisy Staedler, Cathy Diane Tomlin, and John C. Woodley.

Our Town completes its run Sunday December 21 as I write this (have cut it far too close, alas) at The Group Rep 10900 Burbank Blvd N. Hollywood, CA 91601.