EXTRA EXTRA – Weir in it for the stories!

Pub Fare – San Jose Rep spends an evening with Irish tale tellers in ‘The Weir’
by Jessica Fromm – Metro

ON A BITTER, windswept night in the Irish countryside, there is nothing more welcoming than the glow of a busy Irish pub, the communal place where locals of all occupations and creeds come together to enjoy a frothy pint of Guinness by the crackling fire. With characters warming their cold bones with drink and telling tall folktales to pass the time and loneliness, rural Irish pub culture sets the stage for acclaimed Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s award-winning drama The Weir. Playing through Feb. 21 at the San Jose Repertory Theatre, The Weir is an utterly haunting dramatic piece that bubbles with emotion while bringing together the real world and the supernatural.

Set in a village by the sea in northwest Ireland, the play focuses on a group of isolated souls who happen to come together at the local watering hole, the Weir, only to discover new aspects of each other through the telling of eerie ghost and fairy stories. The first person to wander into the cozy, realistically worn bar set is Jack (Robert Sicular), a cantankerous longtime bachelor who loves being contrary and starting arguments. Jack has already poured himself a bottle of Guinness when bar owner and straight man Brendan (Alex Moggridge) shows up to serve the whiskey and beer that is the lifeblood of this downtrodden group of country folk. Finally, Jim (a convincingly twitchy Mark Anderson Phillips), the last regular, arrives to take his well-worn perch at the bar as the town’s lovable alky handyman.

The three get to talking, and discover that Finbar (Andy Murray), the slimy local rich-boy-turned-big-city-real-estate-agent, has been showing around the town’s newest resident, and he’s made a promise to bring her to the Weir that evening. The woman’s name is Valerie (played by Zillah Glory—what a name), and she has moved from Dublin to rural Ireland to escape some traumatic past events. As pint after pint gets poured, and the drinking buddies vie for the young woman’s attention, it comes to light that Valerie has recently moved into an old house considered by local folk to be “haunted.” Sinister mysteries and old wounds are revealed as spine-chilling stories start making the rounds.

As the play’s tension and action rush to a climax, the most shocking tale of woe comes from Valerie herself in a superbly delivered, tear-jerking soliloquy that had members of the opening-night audience dabbing their eyes long before her speech was finished. Under the eye of San Jose Rep artistic director Rick Lombardo, this production certainly has no weak performances from its five main actors. Sicular’s clever, petulant Jack and Phillips’ jittery but warmhearted Jim were entirely convincing. Glory, for all her first-class acting, needs to work on her accent.

Kudos for the subtle but effectively dramatic lighting by Dawn Chiang and the down-to-earth scenery and costume designs by Annie Smart. In the end, not much negative can be said about the San Jose Rep’s production of The Weir: it’s a strongly written, enjoyable, haunting tale that stays true to the Irish tradition of hospitality, not to mention it’s an excellent way to spend a dark, rainy midwinter night.

THE WEIR, a San Jose Repertory Theatre production, plays Tuesday at 7:30pm, Wednesday at 8pm (plus 11am on Feb. 3), Thursday–Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 3 and 8pm and Sunday at 2pm through Feb. 21 at the Rep. 101 Paseo de San Antonio. Tickets are $35–$57. (408.367.7255)

EXTRA EXTRA OVO gets OVATION!

The Egg And UsCirque du Soleil’s new show, ‘Ovo,’ breaks open to reveal balletic marvels and mysterious insects

by Richard von Busack – Metro

AFTER SOME 25 years, no one needs to explain that Cirque du Soleil is the one without the Guatemalan tiger taunters. But the popularity comes at a price: Cirque’s large shows are dazzling, but they sometimes sacrifice intimacy and narrative. I saw Ka in Las Vegas, and after 45 minutes, all I could tell was that it seemed to be about pirates.

The new show, Ovo, by contrast, is exactly the kind of show that made Cirque famous when it began: a tent and a straightforward cavalcade of acts and characters linked by clowns. Americans hate clowns because we never get any good ones, as filmmaker Whit Stillman once quipped about Europeans and hamburgers. Cirque solves the problem with the graceful female Columbine-clown tumblers and the concentration and subtlety of their miming.

The opening set is a 15-foot-high egg, dappled, the color of the planet Mars, sitting on what looks like the black polished lid of a colossal grand piano. Ovo’s décor is like a cross between belle époque France and Mattel Thingmaker Fun Flowers: there are reminders of Lalique enameled scarabs or early Ballets Russes costumes in the wiry plumes on an acrobat’s forehead. An acrobat performs on a trapeze modeled on Hector Guimard’s viny ironwork for the Paris Métro.

Ovo’s bug theme begins with mysterious beekeepers stalking the audience. It continues with episodes about a romantic triangle: a bald pantaloon of a ringmaster and a dizzy stick insect contend for a plus-size ladybug. When necessary, the old bug doses the younger with a tank of insecticide to calm him down. This induces hallucinations. Most bizarre of these visions is a modified lion dance performed by “Creatura” (Lee Brearley), a headless furry nudibranch, doing the shimmy, the bump and the Humpty Dance all by itself at the same time.

Red ant–costumed performers foot-juggle oversize slices of kiwi and corncobs, which they turn on their sides and use as congas—in between the so-called “Icarian games” during which they juggle each other. The incredible diabolo performer hurls his spool-like yo-yo nearly to the top of the tent. And the slack-wire walker Li Wei takes an upside-down ride on a tiny unicycle, which he operates like an eggbeater.

The second half of the show opens with a trio of contortionist black widows. Since there are legions of screenwriters who can’t figure out how to come up with Spider-Man IV, why don’t they go see Ovo? It might shake something loose, creatively speaking.

Maxim Kozlov and Inna Mayorova appear as a matched pair of Spanish web/corde lisse performers. Costumed in tights with cocoa veins on them, like the traced frosting on petits fours, they tie themselves in Kama Sutra–like love knots 15 feet off the ground.

The live band holds the mystifying show together from the overture to the finale. It features an ace accordionist and a sultry female vocalist who contributes to a never-clashing roster of sounds from techno to tango nuevo. At one point, the band has a dispute with the ringmaster, causing a mashup of Beethoven’s Fifth into “La Cucaracha.”

The finale is one of Cirque’s greatest showpieces: simple yet astonishing. A trampoline at stage level stands at the base of a rock-climbing wall. Human grasshoppers leap and carom up and against the wall. They stick, release their holds and bounce back into place. It looks more like an illusion than a circus act.

What it really looks like is the kind of silent-movie stunt where an actor is made to leap in the air, through the effect of running the film backward after he’s taken a fall. One stares and sees how it’s done, but no amount of staring can get you used to the idea. Ovo gets its title from its egg imagery; it could also get its title because it deserves an ovation.

EXTRA EXTRA – Taking Flight Soars!

‘Taking Flight’ soars at Teatro Vision
By Karen D’Souza -Mercury News

Before Sept. 11, Rhonda was a Long Island princess with nothing to worry about but planning her neo-Tuscan, Bon Jovi-fueled dream wedding. A die-hard fashionista with a Wall Street day job, she spent her days thinking about vibrators, Brazilians (waxes) and other assorted fabulousness a la “Sex in the City.”

After the attacks, she’s a broken soul with a mangled body, screaming out in pain when she’s not drugged out on morphine.

Standing up, eating solid food, going outside. Suddenly these are impossible dreams.

This ground zero survivor is one of the most memorable characters in Adriana Sevahn Nichols’ semi-autobiographical solo show, “Taking Flight.” Nichols is a fiercely charismatic performer who bounces through myriad roles in this moving tale of friendship, tragedy and loss.

While the 80-minute one-woman show has its rough spots and the ending feels a little forced, “Taking Flight” engrosses because it channels the undeniable power of truth.

Nichols put pen to paper to channel her pain. Vibrantly directed by Giovanna Sardelli, the 2006 piece is her way of healing the wounds she suffered on that day. In its local debut, it runs through Feb. 14 at Teatro Vision.

Nichols fearlessly leaps from the harrowing to the hysterical as she charts the story of two friends caught in the tide of events, Rhonda and herself, a sassy aspiring actress stuck playing stereotyped ethnic roles.

The playwright/actress has an eagle eye for people and their quirks, the comedy of idiosyncrasy. She shuttles seamlessly from samba-dancing healer Esperanza Middleschmerz, a bizarre cross between Carmen Miranda and Dr. Phil, to a gentle-hearted Haitian cabdriver and an unsinkable 90-year-old grandmother.

Not only does Nichols slide between accents and dialects with ease (she really nails the nasal Long Island twang), her writing also captures the clash of cultures in New York society. Sometimes a few blocks can be a whole world away.

Certainly Rhonda and Adriana couldn’t have been closer before the day the towers fell. They went to goddess worship parties, wore each other’s clothes and traded sexual tips like baseball cards.

After that fateful day, when Rhonda is caught in the maelstrom of the World Trade Center, there’s nothing Adriana can do for her friend but be there. Every day. All the time.

Maybe she feels a little guilty about emerging unscathed.

Maybe she can’t get the story of what happened to Rhonda (she was ripped apart by hot glass, sheet metal and shards of concrete) out of her head. Maybe it’s just because she loves her.

When all of Rhonda’s fair weather friends abandon her to the cold sterility of the hospital, Adriana commits herself to being the ultimate caregiver. Months slip into years as she makes herself at home in the ICU. On Thanksgiving, she brings Rhonda pizza and “Gladiator” (she’s got a thing for Russell Crowe).

But she’s so busy being there for Rhonda that she forgets to be there for herself. Her career languishes. Her relationship implodes. Suddenly she finds herself resenting the needs of the friend she vowed to nurture.

Nichols flashes back and forth in time so that we see who the gal pals used to be as well as who they become. While the technique loses power through repetition, “Taking Flight” is a haunting reminder of how many lives were shattered that day nine years ago.

Nichols’ descriptions are also undeniably lovely. Her grandmother had a laugh “like a sunset after a day at the beach.” When Rhonda lies on her hospital beds, she looks like “a mermaid taking a rest on a floating island.”

Perhaps the most intense vignette spins around the sight of the World Trade Center. One tear-filled day, Adriana goes there to make peace with her demons and instead finds herself crowded out by hordes of smiling tourists greedily snapping up ground zero T-shirts. Her rage at the mindless commercialization of an American tragedy cuts close to the bone even all of these years later.

But, fret not, Nichols is not the sort to give into darkness. Once more, she bounces back. As she puts it, the strongest muscle in the body is the heart.

Contact Karen D’Souza at 408-271-3772. Check out her stories at www.mercurynews.com/karen-dsouza.

“Taking Flight”
Written by and starring
Adriana Sevahn Nichols
The upshot: A moving tale of friendship and redemption in the chaotic days after Sept. 11
Where: Teatro Vision, Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater, 1700 Alum Rock Ave., San Jose
Through: Feb. 14
Running time: 80 minutes
(no intermission)
Tickets: $12-$45; 408-272-9926, http://teatrovision.org

Princess’ Pick – The Art of Rebuilding

Many of us certainly feel for the victims of the Haiti quake, but sometimes even a tragedy of that magnitude is so far away, we don’t relate on an intimate level. Out of the rubble of disasters though come inspiring stories of determination, miraculous circumstance, and strength. The story of Romel Joseph is one that connects the Bay Area and those of us involved with the Arts intimately with the devastation. I can not possibly repeat this story better than when I first read it and happened to share it on facebook.

Read this Article and the moving transcript HERE.

As it turns out by posting it there, by the miracle that is “the small world” I discovered that this blind violinist is a dear dear friend of SJSU’s keyboard professor Gwendolyn Mok. And the effort began to help a man who had lost so much before, and just lost so much more in the Earthquake. Amazingly, he has not lost his spirit, and the part that music played in his survival is a testament to how we NEED the arts, especially in dark and painful times of loss.

And so, this weeks Princess Pick is a concert spearheaded locally by friends who know the power of the arts and that is can heal, comfort and in this case literally rebuild lives and futures.

Haiti Quake Relief Concert presented by SJSU Music and Dance is one small way you can help this, one of so many worthy causes this Sunday. Music by David Maslanka, Benjamin Britten, Johannes Brahms, Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky, Brian Belet, Eliza Gilkyson, Xavier Montsalvatg, and a dance number choreographed by Donald McKayle will be featured to raise funds to help rebuild the New Victorian School of Music in Haiti. 

EXTRA EXTRA – Daddy Long Legs a Mother of a Musical

Dream team
With sharp writers and an enchanting pair of actors, ‘Daddy Long Legs’ has legs indeed

by Jeanie K. Smith – Palo Alto Weekly

TheatreWorks’ emphasis on new stage work is a real boon for our community, putting us on the map nationally as a destination for artists looking to create the next great American play or musical, and bringing together theater artists in a supportive, creative environment.

Occasionally the combination is just right. Writers, composers and production team unite to show what’s really possible with the magic of theater. Such is the stuff that “Daddy Long Legs” is made of. This new musical weaves its magic right into our hearts and minds, and is definitely one of the best surprises of the theater season so far.

The lineage here has all the right stuff. Composer Paul Gordon did the music and lyrics; he’s best known to TheatreWorks audiences for the recent hit “Emma.” John Caird, who co-directed and adapted “Les Miserables,” among many noteworthy award-winning shows, wrote the adaptation, and also directed this world-premiere production. It was Caird’s wife who recommended Jean Webster’s 1912 novel “Daddy Long Legs” as the next project for the duo.

Webster’s novel and the musical chronicle the coming of age of orphan Jerusha Abbott (Megan McGinnis), who is mysteriously financed for a full ride to college, after showing some early promise with her writing. Her benefactor chooses to remain anonymous and silent, but Jerusha can never be silent, writing lengthy, colorful letters each month to her “Daddy Long Legs,” as she nicknames him. As she blossoms from a girl into an educated and accomplished young woman, she writes and writes, and her relationship with “Daddy” grows, even though it’s a one-sided conversation.

Or is it? The conceit of the novel, in which we hear only from Jerusha through her letters, is altered in the musical to allow us to see and hear her benefactor and would-be suitor, Jervis Pendleton (Robert Adelman Hancock). Jerusha of course doesn’t know that the attractive young man and her “Daddy” are one and the same, but we do, and that’s part of the fun and the intrigue, seeing the relationship unfold by fits and starts, and wondering how it will turn out. If you’ve read the book, of course, you know.

The novel itself is witty, bright, philosophical by turns, and filled with sharp observations on life and society, especially on matters of disparate wealth and its effect on people. Caird has done a great job of keeping these delightful details alive, as well as illuminating the warm heart at the story’s core. Gordon’s lyrics also capture the bouncy and erudite language of budding author Jerusha in humorous rhyme. The two have shaped the engaging monologue of the novel into a wonderful dialogue between two appealing characters.

What brings the project to life, however, are the remarkable performances given by McGinnis and Hancock, as the only performers on stage. The entire show rests on their shoulders, and they are both stunning in their roles, delivering the goods with ease and aplomb and enchanting modesty.

McGinnis has the voice of an angel, perfectly suited for this role, one that issues from her with apparent effortlessness. She’s winsome, cute, feisty, intelligent and proud, as needed, as if she were born Jerusha. Her expressiveness, both in visage and in song, speaks volumes. She transitions from young girl to young woman quite naturally. And she amazed me with her ability to do absolutely anything while continuing to sing.

Hancock has the task of creating a character almost from whole cloth, since there is little in the book on which to base Pendleton. But, Caird’s and Gordon’s work gives him an ample platform, and he takes it the rest of the way, making Pendleton a character utterly believable and equal in strength to Jerusha. His voice pleases in his solos, and rouses the house in “Charity,” but also blends flawlessly in duets with McGinnis.

While the entire production team deserves kudos for the show as a whole, the set and costumes by David Farley earn special notice. The set provides an almost infinite variety of choices for configurations, allowing for visualizing of different spaces on a single set, while the costumes capture the period and occasion without distracting and without taking actors off the set.

In short, TheatreWorks hits it out of the park with this production — it’s sweet, funny, touching, entrancing and superbly done.

What: “Daddy Long Legs,” a new musical by John Caird and Paul Gordon, presented by TheatreWorks
Where: Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, 500 Castro St.
When: Through Feb. 14, with 7:30 p.m. shows Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and 7 p.m. Sundays
Cost: Tickets are $34-$67.
Info: Go to www.theatreworks.org or call 650-463-1960.

EXTRA EXTRA – Rabbit Hole turns loss into a winner

Catharsis and beauty on stage
Brave performances, astute direction make Players’ tale of grief a work of art
by Chad Jones – Palo Alto Weekly

A young woman standing in a well-appointed suburban home observes, “There’s this weirdness in the air.” She’s so right, and the weirdness that fogs the house rises from a potent mix of anger, confusion, helplessness and, most of all, grief.

The Palo Alto Players’ production of “Rabbit Hole” by David Lindsay-Abaire is overflowing with grief but, perhaps surprisingly, this is not a depressing play. There’s tremendous emotion, and tears are most definitely earned. But the play is so well written and the production so strong that the sadness of the story is tempered by the triumph of the show itself.

These days, when the simple act of turning on the news reveals devastation on an unimaginable scale, why would potential audience members want to go see a play — even a Pulitzer Prize-winner like “Rabbit Hole” — about a sad family attempting to deal with the loss of a young child?

The answer is simple: A piece of art, which this show unquestionably is, leads us into group catharsis through beauty, insight and, in this case, some well-earned pathos.

Under the astutely sympathetic direction of Marilyn Langbehn, the Palo Alto Players cast delivers performances of the highest caliber, but there’s really no other choice with this material. In other hands, the story of a couple whose 4-year-old son was accidentally struck and killed by a high-school driver could be mawkish and sentimental.

We’ve all seen the made-for-TV grief-a-paloozas that fill Lifetime and other such channels. “Rabbit Hole” avoids those usual tear-jerking traps through sharp writing, incredible depth of feeling and unvarnished honesty.

Langbehn and her cast rise to the challenge of Lindsay-Abaire’s play, and the result is an immersive theatrical experience that is as pleasurable as it is painful. The actors are sure-footed and remarkably restrained, so it’s almost impossible not to get caught up in the aching complexity of the story.

This is a story that is, primarily, an exploration of grief and no one really grieves in the same way. Becca (Shannon Warrick) and her husband, Howie (Earle Carlson), have both lost their only child, but their paths from that loss are startlingly different.

Their marriage appears to be functioning, just as their lovely home (beautiful, understated set by Patrick Klein) appears to be completely normal. But as Becca’s sister, Izzy (Kate McGrath), notes, there’s that “weirdness” hanging in the air.

Of course there’s weirdness. That’s the function of grief: It takes everything normal and completely subverts it. Awkward silences, unexpected rages, disrupted friendships and a near-constant sense of unreality become the norm. People’s lives become so consumed with navigating the foreign, constantly shifting landscape of grief that there’s barely room for anything — or anyone — else.

That’s where we find Becca and Howie: together but completely alone, even when they’re with family like Izzy and Becca’s mom, Nat (Jackie O’Keefe).

“You’re not in a better place than I am, Howie,” Becca charges. “You’re just in a different place.”

There are occasional moments of normalcy, like a small celebration for Izzy’s birthday, but then Nat rambles on about the Kennedy family curse and moves quickly on to how Aristotle Onassis likely died from grief after his son’s death in an airplane accident. Suddenly the conversation turns personal and painful because it’s all about what is unspoken most of the time: the beautiful child who is no longer running around the house.

Another major theme of “Rabbit Hole” is comfort. While her family members seem to take comfort — from a support group, from a new boyfriend, from home videos — Becca can find no relief from her loss. In Warrick’s stirring performance, the void in Becca’s life echoes through everything she does and says.

Her most intriguing connection — and her closest thing to comfort — doesn’t come from her husband, who fears that as she attempts to move on, she’ll simply erase their son’s memory. No, it comes from a surprising source: the high-school student who accidentally killed her son.

Jason (Zachary Freier-Harrison) wants — needs — desperately to talk to Becca and Howie. He’s caught up in their drama whether they like it or not, and things are not going especially well for him, either.

Freier-Harrison is in only a few scenes, but this Palo Alto High School sophomore gives a performance far beyond his years. He and Warrick are astonishing together and take an already extraordinary play to a surprisingly real, undeniably moving, emotional level.

Each of the actors has a moment or two that surges with emotion. Carlson explodes when his tangible connections to his son begin to disappear. O’Keefe offers counsel based on a lifetime experience with loss, and McGrath offers some acerbic humor to lighten a heavy load.

On Broadway, Cynthia Nixon of “Sex and the City” fame played Becca to great acclaim (and a Tony Award), and we can look forward to a movie version starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart.

Celebrity flash aside, it’s hard to imagine actors making a more personal connection than those on stage at the Lucie Stern Theatre. They give brave performances in a brutal but empathetic play. If you want to know what happens when art jolts you into a fresh sense of appreciation of perspective, take a trip down this “Rabbit Hole” and find out.

What: “Rabbit Hole” by David Lindsay-Abaire, presented by Palo Alto Players
Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto
When: Through Feb. 1 with 8 p.m. shows Thursday through Saturday and 2:30 p.m. matinees on Sundays
Cost: Tickets are $30 general and $26 for seniors and students on Thursdays and Sundays.
Info: Go to www.paplayers.org or call 650-329-0891.

EXTRA EXTRA – Silverstein wins GOLD at Dragon

After the sidewalk ends
Beyond the kids’ books of Shel Silverstein are his very funny — and very adult — one-act plays

by Kevin Kirby – Palo Alto Weekly

Is there an American citizen between the ages of 5 and 75 who’s not familiar with Shel Silverstein? The children’s author and illustrator whose startling bald and bearded visage has grinned at us for decades from the back covers of such classics as “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” “The Giving Tree” and “A Light in the Attic” died in 1999, but his books — still alive with Silverstein’s scribbly line drawings and skewed, iconoclastic humor — are likely to be beloved Kid Lit standards for decades to come.

Some readers may know that Silverstein was also a songwriter; his songs have been recorded by the likes of Johnny Cash, Belinda Carlisle, Judy Collins, the Irish Rovers, Kris Kristofferson, and Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. Others may recall that he was an occasional contributor to Playboy, having worked as a cartoonist and travel writer for the magazine in its early years.

What fewer people know is that Silverstein was also a playwright, with more than 100 one-act plays to his credit. Fans of Uncle Shelby’s work may want to hurry down to Dragon Theatre, where several of these short plays are currently being staged under the umbrella title “An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein.”

Do, however, note the word “Adult” in the title. Those who know the playwright only from his three volumes of children’s verse may be in for a bit of a surprise, for this is where “Where the Sidewalk Ends” ends. The quirky worldview that has made Silverstein such a hit with kids — a sort of macabre joie de vivre — is very much in evidence here, but the subject matter in several of the plays is decidedly un-kid-friendly.

The most obvious example is “Buy One, Get One Free,” in which a pair of cut-rate hookers haggle (in verse, yet) with a potential customer. The evening also features a game of Russian roulette, a woman who forces her husband to throw his own mother out of a sinking (albeit hypothetical) lifeboat, and a discussion of the crusty residue — “It could be rubber cement” — on a woman’s unwashed sheets.

The folks at Dragon do their best to prepare the audience for this saltier side of Silverstein, piping in Dr. Hook’s recording of “Freaking at the Freaker’s Ball” as pre-show music. (If lyrics like “Come on babies, grease your lips / Grab your hats and swing your hips / Don’t forget to bring your whips” don’t get the point across, nothing will.)

Ron Gasparinetti’s black-and-white set, on the other hand, does all it can to recall the Silverstein of our collective childhood. Iconic images from Silverstein’s books are painted and projected on the walls, and a chunk of rickety wooden scaffolding — like part of a crumbling roller coaster — invokes the cantilevered end of that famous sidewalk. Other simple set elements come and go: a mattress, a counter, a stool … a dead pony wrapped in a tarp.

Also coming and going are six very young, very energetic actors (three men and three women), all of whom seem to be having the time of their lives. Each actor appears in multiple roles, and each has moments of comic brilliance.

Norman Luce is memorable as the tortured husband in “The Lifeboat Is Sinking” but does his best work in the quieter “One Tennis Shoe,” in which he must save his rubbish-scavenging wife from turning into an actual bag lady. Claire Slattery has a nice character arc in the latter piece: You can see the inner struggle as her packrat instincts fight back against the dawning realization that collecting “perfectly good” picture frames and hubcaps from dumpsters may not be a suitable lifestyle for a middle-class housewife.

William J. Brown III is wonderful in “The Best Daddy” (playing a father who gives his little girl a dead pony for her birthday) and in other roles, though perhaps a bit lackadaisical as the potential suicide in “Click.” His 9-year-old daughter in “The Best Daddy” is played with subtle genius by Caitlin Dissinger, who also puts Luce through the ringer in “Lifeboat.”

In “Smile,” Drew Jones plays a slogan writer taken captive by hostile culture-war commandos who’ve identified him as the creative mind behind the “Have a nice day” and the ubiquitous yellow smiley face. In “No Skronking,” he faces off against Joey Sandin as a waitress intent on enforcing a policy that she refuses to explain.

Director Kathleen Normington has shaped the scenes nicely, helping the actors to discover the natural ebb and flow of the action as their characters grapple with frequently absurd circumstances.

If there is a systemic flaw in the evening’s entertainment, it is that most of the actors, at one time or another, fall into the trap of playing the Big Comic Moment for its own sake, rather than rooting themselves in the twisted reality of their characters’ dilemmas. They rely on the audience to understand that the time has come to “put on” a tantrum, instead of letting the tantrum bubble up organically from within. But this is a largely academic complaint: With such imaginative writing and such charismatic actors, the tantrums turn out to be pretty funny anyway.

If you grew up reading Shel Silverstein, or if you read his poems and stories to your own kids, you’ll enjoy Dragon Productions’ high-spirited romp through some of the less familiar corners of his copious mind. Just don’t bring the children.

What: “An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein,” a collection of plays presented by Dragon Productions
Where: Dragon Theatre, 535 Alma St., Palo Alto
When: Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., through Feb. 14
Cost: $20 general admission, $16 for students and seniors
Info: For information, or for ticketing online, go to www.dragonproductions.net . For 24/7 box office help, call 800-838-3006.

EXTRA EXTRA – Ghosts and Storys Rule THE WEIR

‘The Weir’ is San Jose Repertory’s intoxicating, entertaining Irish fairy tale
By Karen D’Souza – Mercury News

The supernatural reigns supreme in the realm of Conor McPherson.

From “The Seafarer” to “Shining City,” he has spun yarns of ghouls and goblins. Some of his lost souls are tormented by loss and grief. Others raise their glasses to ward off such demons. In “The Weir,” now at San Jose Repertory Theatre, the characters find themselves bedeviled by more than one kind of spirit.

Steeped in the atmosphere of the Irish pub, “The Weir” casts a Gothic spell on the audience from the first toast to the last call.

If the Rep production takes a few beats before it finds it cadence, there’s no denying the play’s eerie intensity.

A celebration of the art of the storyteller, ably directed by Rick Lombardo, “The Weir” retains its power to mesmerize.

Shudders of fear rub elbows with frissons of comedy in this spellbinder.

One of the most gifted playwrights to come out of Ireland in recent years, McPherson entices us with the magic of the village pub.

He distills the peculiar camaraderie of the lonely and the soused in his tart banter.

Pub amid the gloom

In this damp patch of bog far out in the country, winter means darkness, stillness and grim, ungodly quiet.

The only way to pierce the gloom is to nip into the pub for a quick pint (or 12).

As the wind howls outside, a couple of barflies are hoisting back the hooch. Garrulous old Jack (Robert Sicular), who lives alone and runs a garage, and hapless Jimmy (Mark Anderson Phillips), who tends to his ailing mum, trade gossip with taciturn bartender Brendan (Alex Moggridge).

This is a temple to Guinness where Harp is exotic and white wine unheard of, and it’s usually all blokes.

Until one day, the local bigwig Finbar (Andy Murray) waltzes into the bar with a pretty young woman on his arm.

Her name is Valerie (Zillah Glory). She’s new to town, strangely quiet and all too willing to lend an ear as the lads engage in their favorite pastime.

This is storytelling as a competitive sport.

One after the other, the boys joust for Valerie’s ears. Once they learn she has moved into an old house with a spooky past, they bombard her with tales of the ghosts and fairies of local lore.

The stories are subtle and understated, but McPherson makes every bump in the night bewitching.

Each tale is an aria of fear and foreboding that not only raises the hairs on the back of the neck, it also urges us to reflect on the transience of all things, including us.

Intimations of mortality echo throughout this haunting play as McPherson uses the ghost stories to frame his musings about the nature of life.

Potent silences

Phillips (last seen here in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”) beautifully evokes that existential subtext with his monologue about the night he dug a grave in the pelting rain only to encounter a strange figure looming amid the headstones.

He depicts the ne’er-do-well Jimmy with such a richly idiosyncratic set of tics and habits (he sits in a crouch and blinks when he’s nervous) that the actor seems to disappear entirely into the character.

Sicular also rivets as his grizzled character confesses that the most horrifying thing he has ever grappled with was not a ghost but the specter of regret.

Not all of the performances feels quite as lived-in, which undercuts the mounting suspense.

McPherson glories in the art of the pause, the quiet that pricks up our ears for what comes next.

His silences are as potent as his language is richly musical.

But the emotional stakes need to be higher for those silences to have their full impact.

Finally, after all the chaps have had their say, Valerie tells a story of her own — and it’s a doozy. Glory misses Valerie’s sense of mystery, the hint that she may be keeping a secret all along.

She also rushes her climactic monologue.

But she movingly taps into the abyss of heartache and confusion that drive this character to that bar stool on that winter’s night. There she finds a way to beat back the darkness.

“The Weir”
By Conor McPherson

Upshot: In this intoxicating Irish fairy tale, a circle of barflies is haunted by more than one kind of spirit.
Where: San Jose Repertory Theatre, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose
Through: Feb. 21
Running time:
1 hour, 50 minutes
(no intermission)
Tickets: $17.50-$74; 408-367-7255,
www.sjrep.com

EXTRA EXTRA – Long Awaited Daddy Long Legs

Review: ‘Daddy Long Legs’ at Theatreworks
By Karen D’Souza – San Jose Mercury

Based on Jean Webster’s 1912 epistolary novel, this is a new musical adaptation of an old-fashioned Cinderella story. John Caird and Paul Gordon, creators of the Tony-nominated “Jane Eyre,” spin a nostalgic web about a bygone era filled with love letters, sighs and petticoats.

In its world premiere at TheatreWorks — in a coproduction with Southern California’s Rubicon Theatre Company and the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park — this is an unabashedly sentimental musical valentine that’s sweeter than a candy heart. Indeed, the score is nothing special, and there are times when the show is downright cloying.

However, Megan McGinnis sparkles so brightly as the spunky turn-of-the-century heroine Jerusha Abbott that this period romance almost sweeps you off your feet through sheer charisma alone. The actress, who played Eponine in the Broadway revival of “Les Misérables,” has a dulcet voice and a disarming personality. Her magnetism gives the first act its effervescence.

Caird, the director famed for the megahit “Les Misérables,” places the action in a cozy, book-filled study lined with trunks containing costumes and props that help the actors switch from one period to another in the education of the impoverished Jerusha.

Despite the static quality of the action (the story is told largely through letters), and the thinness of the rags-to-riches plot, McGinnis steals our hearts from the first blushing ballad to the last tearful anthem. Her plucky sense of impertinence buoys such tunes as “Like Other Girls” and “The Secret of Happiness.”

McGinnis so dominates the production that it’s almost a one-woman show. To be fair, Robert Adelman Hancock does an admirable job of finding nuance in an underwritten character, the dashing philanthropist Jervis Pendleton. He rescues Jerusha from a hideous orphanage and supports her through college but forbids any contact with her, save monthly letters.

This fervent correspondence is the spine of the show, and through it we learn of Jervis’s generosity of spirit (he bankrolls many young orphans) but not much else. While Jerusha blooms with nuance, from her strong will to her gift for literature, Jervis remains merely a debonair romantic foil.

The creators very wisely make it clear than Jervis is merely a decade or so older than Jerusha to avoid the creepy May-December overtones from the 1955 Leslie Caron/Fred Astaire movie version of the story. But they haven’t quite figured out a way to give the romance enough drive to power the story forward, especially in the saggy second act.

Jervis’ motivations for remaining anonymous for so very long are opaque. Is he shy? Or jaded about women? Or does it have something to do with his ambivalence about charity? Perhaps it’s supposed to be a delicious secret, but the lack of specificity undercuts the drama.

It’s Jerusha who captures our imagination. She’s an independent spirit in a world ruled by money and breeding (and men). She longs to bake lemon pies but also win the Nobel Prize. Caird and Gordon crystallize a feeling of burgeoning feminism in the face of a rigidly patriarchal society.

Jerusha, for one, has little tolerance for those who counsel ignorance for women based on the assumption that education makes women unfit for marriage. Her tart little asides about not being a real citizen (as she has no right to vote) and her need to stand on her own two feet are deeply endearing.

Still, there are no real obstacles in this love affair, and so the story feels stretched out to make room for the songs by Gordon, who wrote the score for TheatreWorks’ successful “Emma.” Sadly, these velvety melodies, while uniformly pleasant, are largely forgettable. The book (Caird) is also a tad predictable.

Certainly the opening-night audience seemed quite smitten with the musical despite its lack of depth. If you’re longing for the long-gone world of men in tuxedos and women in ball gowns, this musical may hit the sweet spot. Indeed, despite its flaws, “Daddy Longs Legs” may be destined to waltz straight into the hearts of many theatergoers with enough élan to give old Astaire a run for his money.

Contact Karen D’Souza at 408-271-3772. Check out her stories at www.mercurynews.com/karen-dsouza.

“Daddy Long Legs”
Music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, book by John Caird, based on the novel by Jean Webster
The upshot: A very old-fashioned sentimental romance that”s sweeter than spun sugar. In fact, it”s so precious it might make your teeth hurt.
Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St.
Through: Feb. 14
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes (one intermission)
Tickets: $29-$67; 650-463-1960; www.theatreworks.org

EXTRA EXTRA – Run don’t Walk to Dead Man Walking!

Review: ‘Dead Man Walking’ at City Lights in San Jose

By Karen D’Souza- Mercury

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

Gandhi’s insight into the dark side of vengeance is just one of the bits of wisdom woven into “Dead Man Walking.” Adapted by Tim Robbins from the autobiographical book by Sister Helen Prejean, this provocative piece of political theater examines the morality of the death penalty from all sides.

This hard-hitting production runs through Feb. 21 at City Lights Theater Company in a coproduction with Notre Dame High School as part of the “Dead Man Walking” School Theatre Project.

Keenly directed by Amanda Folena, this probing death penalty drama unfolds in a bleak universe of iron bars, chain-link fence and concrete (design by Ron Gasparinetti). This deathrow, where time and mercy are in equally short supply, is etched with a stark Brechtian flair.

Robbins, who wrote and directed the Oscar-winning film version of the tale starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, is a stalwart figure in political theater circles. He takes pains to give the wider context of the issues behind the economics of justice in America. Ninety-nine percent of the people on death row are poor. Sadly, the bottom line seems to be you get the justice you pay for.

But the genius of this parable is that there are no absolutes. The death row inmate in question — Matthew Poncelet (City Lights regular Thomas Gorrebeeck) — is no saint. He’s a swastika-bearing thug and a bigot who may well have committed the grotesque crimes of which he is accused, the rape and murder of two teenagers.

And yet Sister Helen (City Lights artistic director Lisa Mallette) finds herself moved to protest his death. She can’t sit idly by as the state takes a human life in the name of peace.

Mallette, in a rare stint on the boards, mines the guts and sass that make Sister Helen an irresistible force in a world of immovable objects. The actress nails the passion and drive that make someone willing to renounce personal comfort and dedicate their life to others.

Gorrebeeck gives Matthew a vulnerability that softens the character’s grimness, but he misses the rage that drives a man to such acts of self-destruction. The character’s racist screeds seem to come out of nowhere.

There are also times when the pacing feels spotty, and the emotional weight of the play doesn’t build as vividly as it should as the day of reckoning approaches. But these are quibbles in the face of an ambitious production.

Perhaps the most moving moments focus on the families of the victims. In one scene, a chorus of voices speak at once, their words coalescing in a fugue of anguish. Each of them has lost a loved one to an act of violence. It’s as if no one knows their pain, as if each of them is trapped in their little silo of grief. Their calls for vengeance cut to the bone.

Robbins’ script cleverly weaves the factual with the supernatural in a compelling narrative arc. Watching the ghosts of the slain teenagers (Ligia Law and David Madwin) stalk the stage, peering into the face of the man who put them in the grave, is an eerie experience.

Still, there’s nothing quite as powerful as the penultimate moments where we watch Matthew strapped down and executed. The words “lethal injection” seem so clinical and humane, but the act of ending someone’s life is never that detached. Prejean’s account of being in the chamber of death makes us confront what the costs are, not in dollars, but in dignity, to all involved.

The upshot: A hard-hitting political drama about the economics of justice in America
Where: City Lights Theater Company, 529 S. Second St., San Jose
Through: Feb. 21
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes (one intermission)
Tickets: $25-$40; 408-295-4200, www.cltc.org