Coming Home, Oedipus el Rey and A Number
Coming Home is a continuation of the playwright's Valley Song, in which we saw a 17-year-old Veronica Jonkers full of enthusiasm leave her hard working grandfather's tenant home. Her singing career did not pan out and she resorted to cleaning rooms at a Holiday Inn in Cape Town. She also had a child out of wedlock. Veronica (Roslyn Ruff) now returns to the desolate shack in the Karoo region with a son and a secret. She is determined to make a life for her 5-year-old boy. Veronica reconnects with her simpleminded childhood friend Alfred (Thomas Silcott) who makes her welcome in a deserted shack. They make the home livable for her and her son Mannetjie (Kohle T. Bolton). The play advances several years to a point where 10-year-old Mannetjie (Jaden Malik Wiggins) is now an A student. We slowly learn that Veronica's secret is that she has AIDS. The government is doing nothing to help this poor woman. (The South African government until recently denied the AIDS epidemic and said the illness could be cured with herbs and bananas. One in five were stricken with the virus.) Veronica is dying and she needs the foolish friend Alfred to marry her so her son won't be taken away after her death. The playwright does not resort to a soap opera type of drama; his work is filled with poetic verse that is glaringly beautiful and at times quite humorous. We see the young Mannetjie grow in the last scene when the ghost of grandfather Oupa (Lou Ferguson) plants the seeds of the future in the young man with big ambitions. Gordon Edelstein does a brilliant job of capturing the right tone for telling this dramatic story. He has also assembled a remarkable cast. To denote the passage of time, two actors play Mannetjie: Kohle T. Bolton plays the 5-year-old boy and Jaden Malik Wiggins plays the serious intelligent ten-year-old. Both give fine performances. Roslyn Ruff is utterly phenomenal as Veronica, who slowly slides down into depression and eventually, death. It is a heartfelt performance. Thomas Silcott is terrific as mindless but enthusiastic Alfred. Lou Ferguson gives a poignant performance as the ghost of Oupa. Eugene Lee's set is something to see, with a large windmill on the left side of the stage, a background of hills on the right side, and a simple set of the rundown house in the center. Sound design by Corrine K. Livingston, and lighting and projection by John Gromada is excellent. Jessica Ford's rugged, authentic costumes add to the look of the drama. Coming Home plays through February 28th at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, Berkeley. For tickets please call 510-647-2949 or one line at www.berkeleyrep.org. Photo: kevinberne.com
Magic Theatre is currently presenting Luis Alfaro's different spin on the Oedipus tragedy with a Chicano guerilla version of the play with a brilliant cast under the direction Loretta Greco. Luis Alfaro has adapted Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos from plague-ridden Thebes to modern-day California in this fast-paced 90-minute intermissionless presentation. Over the years I have seen several Oedipus plays, including a classical one with masks in England in the 1950s and the wild Steven Berkoff's London underworld play in 1971. Recently, New York saw a different version that took place in contemporary South Africa. This marks the first full-scale production of Luis Alfaro's challenging drama. (There was a staged reading at the Getty Villa, Pacific Palisades in Califas last year.) Oedipus el Rey opens in the California State Prison in Delano with the male cast in bright orange jumpsuits doing a "coro" about the Oedipus. They repeatedly ask, "Who is the Man?," while another member answers. There is a mixture of Spanish in the answers. Oedipus never realizes that at birth his real father gave him to an assassin to be killed. Not realizing that he has a real father, Tiresias raised him as his son. ("My father says the day I learned to walk I ran into an alley./ When they found me, the bottoms of my feet were tore up from walking on broken glass.") Tiresias called him Oedipus, which means "swollen foot." After being released from jail Oedipus has an auto accident and does not realize the man he killed on Highway 99 was his birth father. Later, he gets to work in an auto shop run by his best friend and a woman named Jocasta. This woman harbors a deep secret. Love enters the picture with Oedipus and Jocasta. There follows a torrid mating scene when Oedipus and Jocasta undress one another and spend three weeks cavorting in bed. Oedipus becomes king of the burro, then Tiresias tells him that Jocasta is his real mother. Oedipus goes insane and has Jocasta tear out his eyes. The scene ends back in prison where blind Tiresias will be leading blind Oedipus for the rest of their lives. Production values are high in this production, with the cast using various props to help the action along. There is a wonderful wedding scene with lights everywhere and lively Spanish music. The cast even invites the audience members in the front row to get up and dance. Joshua Torrez is charismatic as Oedipus. Recently graduated from The Theatre School at DePaul University, he is brilliant in the role and an actor to be reckoned with in the future. Romi Dias (New York actress, plus Sunsets and Margaritas in Denver) gives an absorbing performance as Jocasta. The love scene between them is beautiful. Marc David Pinate (member of Campo Santo Company) is powerful as the blind seer Tiresias who is also Oedipus' presumed father. Carlos Aguirre (actor and hip hop artist in the Bay Area) gives a combative performance as the real father of Oedipus and several other roles. Eric Aviles (Chicago actor Jesus Hopped the A Train) and Armando Rodriquez (New York actor) are tremendous in several roles. Sarah Sidman's lighting is harsh while Erik Flatmo has designed a near-naked set with only props to help the action along. Jacquelyn Scott's abundant tattoos on all of the bodies create a prison environment. Alex Jaeger's orange uniforms and other apparel add to the excitement of this production. Oedipus el Rey has been extended through March 14 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco. For tickets call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org.
Center Repertory Company recently presented an engrossing production of Caryl Churchill's A Number at Knights 3 Theatre in the Dean Lesher Performing Arts Center in Walnut Creek. For 55 minutes I was spellbound by the brilliant acting of James Carpenter and Gabriel Marin in the in-the-round presentation. This marked the second time I had seen this enthralling play, the first being the A.C.T. production starring Josh Charles and Bill Smitrovich. Caryl Churchill's drama deals with the fundamentals and fringes of human experience. It lasts only 55 minutes but it contains more drama and more ideas than other full-lengths play. James Carpenter plays the father of a young man who is cloned into 21 supposedly exact copies. He meets with the original and two clones to help us understand the advantages and dangers of genetic engineering to society and the individuals involved. Gabriel Marin plays all three "sons." He creates three penetratingly defined characters. He can be unprotected and angst-ridden in one scene and a laid-back son empowered with meanness in the next, and then a very happy son who is married with two children. It is a brilliant tour de force of acting. James Carpenter's performance is powerful and moving. He is convincingly understated. He successfully conveys all this ambivalence and gives us insight into some of the characteristics his sons may have inherited from him. Director Michael Butler achieves a high level of suspense throughout this enigmatic and elliptical play. Michael Butler, along with Scott Denison, has a simple set design for the theatre-in-the-round stage. Lighting by Scott Denison is also an asset to the play. A Number closed on February 7th. For more information visit www.centerrep.org.
|
[ © 1997 - 2012 www.TalkinBroadway.com, Inc. ]