May 30, 2010

"Irish Bones: A Poem for the Stage," by Mark Langton.




























EXCERPT: Here's a monologue from my new play, "Irish Bones," spoken in verse by the ghost of Tommy O'Neill. From Marin Actors' Workshop, Jan. 2010, written and performed by Mark Langton.



May 20, 2010

Outgoing COM instructor Zilbersmith exits laughing with a triumphant 'War and Peacemeal'
















'WAR and Peacemeal' director and playwright
Carla Zilbersmith in a spiritual moment
from her one-woman show,'Wedding Singer Blues'
(Provided by College of Marin)

A call for whirled peas


By Mark Langton

Article Launched: 04/29/2008 08:37:38 PM, Marin Independent Journal

“Yup, this'll be my last show in the department, I figure," said director Carla Zilbersmith in the lobby of College of Marin's Studio Theater, minutes before the opening of "War and Peacemeal, the Musical."

" ... and then I'm outta here -- literally."

She looked at the stricken face of her listener and grinned, faking a quick elbow to the ribs. "Just a little death humor there," she said. "Relax. It won't kill you."

Despite the fact that Zilbersmith, 45, has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a fatal neurodegenerative disorder commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease), no jokes were off limits, on or offstage, for the opening of her final COM offering, which opened to a packed house April 25.

She has resolved to live the rest of her life in joyful celebration of same, and she couldn't have found a better expression of it than with this delightful - at times riveting - evening of set pieces, song and dance numbers, wild improvisation and fearless guerrilla theater.

The core of the show was co-written by Zilbersmith, who has performed extensively throughout the Bay Area and became drama department coordinator at COM 14 years ago. She wrote it with her 16-year old son, Maclen Zilber, whose performance as narrator brought to mind the sweet ingenuousness of the young Matthew Broderick. It evolved later into a more fluid collaboration with a remarkable company of players, and the rest was fleshed out with music by her versatile accompanist David Norfleet.

A loose adaptation of one of the earliest anti-war plays known to man, Aristophanes' "Peace," the intent was to write a musical comedy that would draw comparisons between today's Iraq war and the long war between Greece and Sparta that inspired Aristophanes' political farce in 422 B.C.

In the original play, a young man named Trygaeus resolves to ascend to heaven to implore the gods to help rescue Peace, in this case a statue that has been hurled into a pit and buried by War. Eventually he reaches Olympus, only to find that the gods are gone fishing.

In Zilbersmith's version, the quest is undertaken by an American girl named Tracy (played by a scrappy Jennifer Boynton), who meets up with four modern gods - Jesus (Dennis Crumley), Buddha (Patcharee Boyd), the Hindu monkey god Hanuman (Matt Boucher) and Mohammed (Chris Tognotti), who plays Him with a paper bag over his head like the "Unknown Comic" - because, as he points out, "I can't be depicted."



EVAN CROCKETT keeps his fingers crossed as the personification of War, in 'War and Peacemeal' (Photo provided by COM)

The result is a rough-and-tumble collection of vignettes, loosely tied by Aristophanes' original plot and framed by a something as simple as a kiss. The show is a barrage of newsy quips and pop culture references, including a hastily added line about rice rationing in the United States.

The evening is peppered with "SNL"-type skits and occasional deeply dramatic moments, followed by (somewhat clunky) ensemble song and dance numbers. Mixed in are Gilbert & Sullivan patter songs (with lines such as "I am the very model of a modern major PFC"), an Abu Ghraib waterboarding number (to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA"), gays in the military, fetishism, the theme song from "The Patty Duke Show" (featuring Jesus and Osama Bin Laden as "cousins/identical cousins"). You get the idea. The 14-member cast was terrific, fumbling only during large ensemble numbers - something that can easily be forgiven factoring in the scant five weeks they had to pull it together. Any time a voice went flat, it only endeared you all the more to this company. Nothing was sacred, not everything funny, and the audience was left with plenty to talk about on the way to the car.


It would seem the voice of dissent is alive and well after all - something that's been woefully absent from local theater in recent years. And it was at those, more dramatic moments -- as well as at moments of high comedy -- that individual performances inevitably stood out: Evan Crockett, as the vulgar personification of War (sporting a pith helmet, a Hawaiian shirt and a tank) is a huge presence with a startling vocal range. The immensely talented David Abrams is hilarious as Hermes and Neo from "The Matrix," and delivers a surprisingly sophisticated performance as an amorous soldier in the show's tip of the hat to a scene from "Bent," called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Matt Boucher, no longer a stranger to North Bay audiences, looked like a professional dancer Friday night, demonstrating his gift for physical comedy as well as his gift for dialects -- screamingly funny as Tony Blair, monkey god Hanuman and an indignant French diplomat. Playing Tracy as a child is newcomer Bella Alexander -- with talent beyond her height -- melting every heart in the room. Somebody call Hollywood ... immediately.



MATT BOUCHER shows off a gift for physical comedy in 'War and Peacemeal, the Musical,' proving, once again, that there are no small roles, only small Spartans (Photo by COM)

In a jaw-dropping scene, Boyd may have stolen the show as a relentlessly cheerful Vietnamese manicurist in a Western nail salon, who, in a private moment, becomes an enraged and grieving mother lamenting, in broken English, the loss of her child to the fall of Saigon.

Where Aristophanes' "Peace" concludes joyfully, the ending of Zilbersmith's "War and Peacemeal" underwent a darker rewrite. The final number is based on poet Wilfred Owen's take on 'honor's' Big Lie: "Dolce et decorum est pro patria."

"I suppose that's where my illness wound up influencing the show, thematically, at least," Zilbersmith said afterward. "I have a more Buddhist view these days, that life is mostly suffering, that the peace we seek must be found within ourselves. Hence the irony in the final number."

The day she wrote the new ending, Zilbersmith found a typewritten note from her son that read, "Who wrote this ending, a dying woman?!" The line was kept in the show, with one addition that seemed to come as a surprise to the director Friday night. The cast members all stuck their heads out from behind different parts of the set and shouted, "Too soon!"

No one laughed louder than she.

IF YOU GO

What: "War and Peacemeal, the Musical"

When: Through May 11; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: Studio Theater, College of Marin Fine Arts Building, Kentfield

Tickets: $12 to $15

Information: 485-9555, www.marin.cc.ca.us

Rating: Four stars out of five

BENEFIT CONCERTS

- A benefit concert to help pay medical bills for Carla Zilbersmith is scheduled at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. May 6 at Yoshi's in Oakland. Thirty musicians will take part, and Zilbersmith will perform from her new CD of jazz classics, "Extraordinary Renditions."

- Another benefit is June 12 at Bay Area Theater Sports in San Francisco.

- Those who can't make it to the concerts can contribute through www.quiltmamas.com/dmc.

Mark Langton can be reached at mark.langton@comcast.net.


*************************************************

COM's 'Threepenny Opera,' featuring David A. Moss and Carla Zilbersmith

(This was a decidedly mixed review, first published in the Marin Independent Journal, of a College of Marin production of "Threepenny Opera," featuring David A. Moss and CARLA ZILBERSMITH.

It should also be noted, in all fairness, that director Jim Dunn was absent due to illness during the rehearsals of this production. I was restricted, at the time from making reference to Dunn's illness, and it was my obligation to report on the production I saw.

Please note the paragraph, in boldface, that makes reference to Zilbersmith's stunning performance. I re-post it here in Carla's memory.)


COM’s lackluster

‘Threepenny Opera’

or,
It’s hard out there
for a pimp


By Mark Langton

IJ Correspondent


Like a mixed metaphor with a delayed fuse, the College of Marin opened a rendition of “The Three-Penny Opera” Friday that starts out all fizzle and no steak – only to sneak up on you and explode in the second half.

Not even a standout performance by David Alan Moss as MacHeath (aka Mackie Messer, or “Mack the Knife”) can save the first half of this mostly lackluster production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Marxist reworking of John Gay’s 1728 “Begger’s Opera.”

None of the mischievous Brechtian wordplay or intrinsic political, social and sexual overtones of the original text appears to be on display, or celebrated, here. As the large cast spills out onto a mostly empty stage for the opening number, a monotonous rendition of “Moritat” (the song known as “Mack the Knife”), far from the grotesque rogues’ gallery of thieves, prostitutes and beggars of Victorian London’s starving class we have come to expect, we are greeted instead by a crowd of actors in period costume who look more like the affable street urchins from “Oliver!” or the chirpy flower merchants of “My Fair Lady.”

Sandra Tanner’s choreography is perhaps deliberately awkward, with many in the cast looking like the life-sized, rotating figures at Playland’s old Fun House, or on an old German clock.

Things start looking up with Moss’ elegant entrance as MacHeath. He begins with a classy, snap-brim, Sinatra-style silhouette at center stage, followed by a chilling, slow motion pimp stroll through the crowd that accurately conveyed the menace of a character who is a murderer, rapist, thief and arsonist (Brecht’s idea of an average capitalist). However, even here, Moss -- who has a reputation among local directors as a rare actor who comes to the first rehearsal with his lines already memorized – did not appear to be in complete command of the material in a few spots on opening night. He is also an actor of nuance, whose subtlety was sometimes lost in the cacophony onstage. There are things he, or the director, could have done to remedy this, but they did not.

The tale is narrated by a duo of street singers played by Eric Batz and Sandi V. Weldon. Batz, who was eerily effective as the Emcee in the COM production of “Cabaret” a couple of seasons ago, performs his narration duties this time in full drag, as does his singing partner Weldon. Unfortunately, Weldon’s mustachioed circus master is nearly engulfed by a newly self-indulgent Batz, who, this time, put more ego than talent on display. A shame, as his talent is considerable.

The tale they tell is of this dapper prince of thieves and bigamous brigand who has begun to get his “Mack on” with the questionably virginal Polly (played in strident, mall rat dialect by Dane Lynn Cherry), daughter of beggar king J.J. Peachum (played with broad strokes – perhaps too broad -- by veteran actor Ian Swift) and his wife, Mrs. Peachum (with a layered performance by Gloria Wood that grows on you, notably in the number, “Ballad of Dependency”). Despising MacHeath, Mr. Peachum plots the thief's downfall with the help of his best friend, corrupt police official Tiger Brown (stiffly played by Robert Smithton) succeeding in sending MacHeath to the gallows, thanks, in part, to the betrayal of MacHeath’s ex, Jenny Diver (Carla Zilbersmith).

What nearly saves this show in the second half is Zilbersmith’s astonishing performance as Jenny, who first smolders, then burns, then explodes onto the stage with a couple of show-stopping numbers (“Pirate Jenny” and “Solomon Song,“) An unconventional beauty with obvious gobs of talent, Zilbersmith’s performance was, in a word, hot -- so hot that several collars were visibly loosened in the first couple of rows. In fact, her performance may just be worth the price of admission.

Modeled after the plague-ridden London of Gay's 1728 “Beggar’s

Opera,” despite its 1890’s London setting, the play’s deliberately sordid veneer is clearly meant to be a metaphor for Nazi-infested Berlin of the 1930s. So much more imagination could have gone into this production to convey this. There is nothing particularly malevolent about Macheath’s gang of thieves – who were more like Bob Newhart’s TV handyman Larry and his brother Daryl and his other brother Daryl. Likewise, Jenny’s chorus of “fallen women” looked like they still had a ways to fall – looking more like the girls from “Petticoat Junction.”

As to the set, there is none to speak of, only a rummage sale collection of old coats, hung incongruously in the rafters. Perhaps this was a tip of the hat to the piece’s gallows’ humor, though it would behoove one not to reach too far for these things. Sometimes minimalism is short for a lack of imagination. Even if the stark, spartan set could be explained away as some kind of outward manifestation of Brechtian alienation, it still doesn’t work, for it still has no connection whatsoever to Brecht’s lacerating view of a bourgeois hell in which hypocrisy is the coin of the realm. What happed to the voyage of the damned director James Dunn took audiences on in his 2004 production of “Cabaret?”

The passion required in the acting and music are absent, there’s no visual focus to the staging, scenes begging for it pass by without the bite of black humor, the tango reunion of Macheath and Jenny that was no tango at all … so many missed opportunities.

Anyone accustomed to the decadent, jarring sound of Singspiel in the ''Threepenny'' songs may be disappointed by the lassitude of the small orchestra under Boyd Jarrell’s musical direction. Weill's score is as seductive as ever, dream-like with its deliberately discordant passages and disturbing dissonance. This orchestra is no doubt just as deliberate in its attempt to sound like a drunk with the whirlies. Still, one longed to see what Tom Waits might have done with this score – come to think of it, with any one of these roads not taken -- and a few old, rebuilt swordfish trombones.



IF YOU GO: “The Threepenny Opera,” College of Marin. Performances are at 8 pm on March 3, 4, 10, 11, 17 and 18 and at 2 pm on March 11, 12 and 19.Admission i $18 general and $15 for students and seniors and will be on sale at the College of Marin Box Office after February 21. Seating is open and on the main stage. VISA and MasterCard are accepted and group rates are available.



(Click to enlarge)






May 19, 2010

COM's 'Threepenny Opera,' featuring Carla Zilbersmith and David A. Moss


(This was a decidedly mixed review, first published in the Marin Independent Journal, of a College of Marin production of "Threepenny Opera," featuring David A. Moss and CARLA ZILBERSMITH.

It should also be noted, in all fairness, that director Jim Dunn was absent due to illness during the rehearsals of this production. I was restricted, at the time, from making reference to Dunn's illness, and it was my obligation to report on the production I saw.

Please note the paragraph, in boldface, that makes reference to Zilbersmith's stunning performance. I re-post it here in Carla's memory.)

COM’s lackluster

‘Threepenny Opera’

or,
It’s hard out there
for a pimp


By Mark Langton

IJ Correspondent


Like a mixed metaphor with a delayed fuse, the College of Marin opened a rendition of “The Three-Penny Opera” Friday that starts out all fizzle and no steak – only to sneak up on you and explode in the second half.

Not even a standout performance by David Alan Moss as MacHeath (aka Mackie Messer, or “Mack the Knife”) can save the first half of this mostly lackluster production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Marxist reworking of John Gay’s 1728 “Begger’s Opera.”

None of the mischievous Brechtian wordplay or intrinsic political, social and sexual overtones of the original text appears to be on display, or celebrated, here. As the large cast spills out onto a mostly empty stage for the opening number, a monotonous rendition of “Moritat” (the song known as “Mack the Knife”), far from the grotesque rogues’ gallery of thieves, prostitutes and beggars of Victorian London’s starving class we have come to expect, we are greeted instead by a crowd of actors in period costume who look more like the affable street urchins from “Oliver!” or the chirpy flower merchants of “My Fair Lady.”

Sandra Tanner’s choreography is perhaps deliberately awkward, with many in the cast looking like the life-sized, rotating figures at Playland’s old Fun House, or on an old German clock.

Things start looking up with Moss’ elegant entrance as MacHeath. He begins with a classy, snap-brim, Sinatra-style silhouette at center stage, followed by a chilling, slow motion pimp stroll through the crowd that accurately conveyed the menace of a character who is a murderer, rapist, thief and arsonist (Brecht’s idea of an average capitalist). However, even here, Moss -- who has a reputation among local directors as a rare actor who comes to the first rehearsal with his lines already memorized – did not appear to be in complete command of the material in a few spots on opening night. He is also an actor of nuance, whose subtlety was sometimes lost in the cacophony onstage. There are things he, or the director, could have done to remedy this, but they did not.

The tale is narrated by a duo of street singers played by Eric Batz and Sandi V. Weldon. Batz, who was eerily effective as the Emcee in the COM production of “Cabaret” a couple of seasons ago, performs his narration duties this time in full drag, as does his singing partner Weldon. Unfortunately, Weldon’s mustachioed circus master is nearly engulfed by a newly self-indulgent Batz, who, this time, put more ego than talent on display. A shame, as his talent is considerable.

The tale they tell is of this dapper prince of thieves and bigamous brigand who has begun to get his “Mack on” with the questionably virginal Polly (played in strident, mall rat dialect by Dane Lynn Cherry), daughter of beggar king J.J. Peachum (played with broad strokes – perhaps too broad -- by veteran actor Ian Swift) and his wife, Mrs. Peachum (with a layered performance by Gloria Wood that grows on you, notably in the number, “Ballad of Dependency”). Despising MacHeath, Mr. Peachum plots the thief's downfall with the help of his best friend, corrupt police official Tiger Brown (stiffly played by Robert Smithton) succeeding in sending MacHeath to the gallows, thanks, in part, to the betrayal of MacHeath’s ex, Jenny Diver (Carla Zilbersmith).


What nearly saves this show in the second half is Zilbersmith’s astonishing performance as Jenny, who first smolders, then burns, then explodes onto the stage with a couple of show-stopping numbers (“Pirate Jenny” and “Solomon Song“). An unconventional beauty with obvious gobs of talent, Zilbersmith’s performance was, in a word, hot -- so hot that several collars were visibly loosened in the first couple of rows. In fact, her performance may just be worth the price of admission.

Modeled after the plague-ridden London of Gay's 1728 “Beggar’s

Opera,” despite its 1890’s London setting, the play’s deliberately sordid veneer is clearly meant to be a metaphor for Nazi-infested Berlin of the 1930s. So much more imagination could have gone into this production to convey this. There is nothing particularly malevolent about Macheath’s gang of thieves – who were more like Bob Newhart’s TV handyman Larry and his brother Daryl and his other brother Daryl. Likewise, Jenny’s chorus of “fallen women” looked like they still had a ways to fall – looking more like the girls from “Petticoat Junction.”

As to the set, there is none to speak of, only a rummage sale collection of old coats, hung incongruously in the rafters. Perhaps this was a tip of the hat to the piece’s gallows’ humor, though it would behoove one not to reach too far for these things. Sometimes minimalism is short for a lack of imagination. Even if the stark, spartan set could be explained away as some kind of outward manifestation of Brechtian alienation, it still doesn’t work, for it still has no connection whatsoever to Brecht’s lacerating view of a bourgeois hell in which hypocrisy is the coin of the realm. What happed to the voyage of the damned director James Dunn took audiences on in his 2004 production of “Cabaret?”

The passion required in the acting and music are absent, there’s no visual focus to the staging, scenes begging for it pass by without the bite of black humor, the tango reunion of Macheath and Jenny that was no tango at all … so many missed opportunities.

Anyone accustomed to the decadent, jarring sound of Singspiel in the ''Threepenny'' songs may be disappointed by the lassitude of the small orchestra under Boyd Jarrell’s musical direction. Weill's score is as seductive as ever, dream-like with its deliberately discordant passages and disturbing dissonance. This orchestra is no doubt just as deliberate in its attempt to sound like a drunk with the whirlies. Still, one longed to see what Tom Waits might have done with this score – come to think of it, with any one of these roads not taken -- and a few old, rebuilt swordfish trombones.



IF YOU GO: “The Threepenny Opera,” College of Marin. Performances are at 8 pm on March 3, 4, 10, 11, 17 and 18 and at 2 pm on March 11, 12 and 19.Admission i $18 general and $15 for students and seniors and will be on sale at the College of Marin Box Office after February 21. Seating is open and on the main stage. VISA and MasterCard are accepted and group rates are available.



(Click to enlarge)