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Regional Reviews: San Francisco Nine, Macbeth and
City Lights Theatre Company of San Jose is presenting a high-spirited musical production of Maury Yeston's Nine, based on Federico Fellini's surreal 1963 semi-autobiographical 8 ½. When I first saw Nine at the 46th Street Theatre in New York with Raul Julia as Guido Contini it was not one of my favorite musicals. I found it an uneven production with some excellent songs such as "Be Italian" and "My Husband Makes Movies." However, when I saw the concert version at Royal Festival Hall in London in 1992 with Jonathan Pryce in the lead role, I was hooked. In the late '90s I was able to see Maury Yeston's eclectic musical performed in French at the real Folies Bergeres (by then the Folies Bergeres had been turned into a legitimate musical theatre). The revival at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre with Antonio Banderas in 2003 made me a strong convert to the musical. For City Lights Theatre, director Jeffrey Bracco features the best and brightest of the San Jose area's song and dance ladies. For a semiprofessional production, this is a charming and rousing production. Many of the numbers stand out, thanks to top-notch performances. These girls are gorgeous actresses, from the elegant Aoife Stone as Luisa, the long suffering wife of Guido, to the sensuous Kereli Dawn Sengstack as Sarraghina, the dangerous whore with the best song in the show ("Be Italian"), to the sensational Elizabeth Santana as Claudia, the spitfire mistress of Guido. Shannon Stowe's stimulating choreography ramps up the sexual energy. Nine's superb cast also includes the iridescent Patty Reinhart as the explosive critic Stephanie and Molly Thornton as the demanding Liliane. Karyn Rondeau is wonderful as Mama Maddelena. All have great voices and show wonderful dance moves. Molly Thornton beautifully sings "Folies Bergeres" and Kereli Dawn Sengstack sensuously belts out "Be Italian" while Aoife Stone is sublime singing "My Husband Makes Movies" The choral work of the ladies is pitch perfect. Fifteen-year-old Nicholas Sancen is very charismatic playing the young Guido. Tim Reynolds puts a different spin on Guido Contini. He permeates the role with great passion, and there is a real sense of warmness and tenderness with Guido's wife Luisa. He has excellent vocal cords when he ably summarizes Guido's massive ego in "Guido's Song." Costumes by Amy Conners and Jill Schwinn are stunning and lighting by Brendan Bartholomew is a great asset to the production. The set by Ron Gasparinetti is sparse to allow the large cast to move around gracefully on the stage. Nine plays through August 28th at City Lights Theatre, 529 South Second Street, San Jose. For ticket please call 408-295-4200 or visit www.cltc.org. Coming up next will be August: Osage County opening on September 22nd and running through October 23.
Over the years I have seen many productions of Macbeth, both in this country and in England. My very first introduction to the "Scottish play" was when I was 16 years old and my parents took me to see Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson as Lord and Lady Macbeth in New York. The most recent visit was a modern version of the tragedy at Shotgun Players. The production at Marin Shakespeare is a bold and slightly different Macbeth. Director Leslie Currier has inserted eight young ghostly looking girls into the famous banquet scene with the blood-bolstered ghost Banquo in the center pointing an accusing finger at Macbeth. The witches are not as frightening as in other productions, and they look like small ghosts. There is a frightening scene of the murder of Lady Macduff and her child that is straight out of a slasher film. William Elsman is excellent as Macbeth. He plays the role as a pure evil man with no humanity whatsoever. He is not a gloomy, tortured poet of the night but an edgy, nervy lunatic who is easily stirred to brutality but equally easily controlled by the voluptuous Lady Macbeth, played by Alexandra Matthew. However, he slips her leash completely in the second act as he descends almost into madness. His famous speech starting with "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player" is quietly told to the audience toward the end of the play. Alexandra Matthew is a surprising Lady Macbeth and she supplies most of the poetry of Shakespeare's words. Her incantations sound less like a diabolical maneuver than a manifestation of a despondent hope that an empty throne might compensate for a barren womb (the director has inserted a small scene showing that her baby has died of an unknown illness in the first act). Both give first rate performances. Scott Coopwood's Macduff is sharp and honest while Darren Bridgett gives a motivating performance as Banquo. He gives the shattering appearance of a bloody Jack Nicholson from The Shinning in the famous banquet scene of the second act. Robert Currier is hilarious in his one scene as The Porter. His address to the audience is side splitting as he sometimes adlibs the Bard's words. Keith Stevenson is compelling as King Duncan while Daniel Petzold gives a strong performance as his son Donalbain. The rest of the large cast is excellent in their assigned parts. Nina Ball's set design is simple but effective with large birch trees surrounding the stage. Costumes by Abra Berman are classic outfits that one might have seen when the play first appeared in the 1600s. Lighting by Ellen Brooks is dramatically effective. All in all, this notoriously unlucky play works its maligned magic. Macbeth will be playing through August 14th. Marin Shakespeare Festival is located at Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, Grand Avenue, Dominican University of Californian, San Rafael, California. For tickets call 415-499-4488 or online at www.marinShakespeare.org.
The unparalleled Queen of Cabaret Andrea Marcovicci returned to the Rrazz Room in July with a brand new show called Blue Champagne: The History of the Torch Song. Backed by Musical Director Shelly Markham on piano and Daniel Fabricant on bass this was a great night of wonderful entertainment. She interpreted song lyrics in a quirky, speech song that was a pleasure to hear, and her lower register was cool. She radiated charisma as she broke the fourth wall to communicate with the audience. Andrea Marcovicci is a consummate artist who believes and understands every lyric of a song. Stephen Holden of the New York Times said it best: "She has an incandescent enthusiasm and a masterly balance between poignancy and wit." Ms. Marcovicci came onto the stage and immediately recited a poem by Dorothy Parker called "The Red Dress," a tribute to those torch song singers. She went into a medley of torch songs starting with George and Ira Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me," segueing into "The Man I Love," and ending with Alan Jay Lerner and Kurt Weill's "Mr. Right" from Love Life. Following these great opening numbers the chanteuse said the program was a tribute to her mother, Helen Stuart, who was a torch singer before marrying Eugene Marcovicci, a physician. Andrea talked about Bette Davis and then sang the rarely heard song that Ms. Davis introduced called "Just Like a Man" by Vernon Duke and Ogden Nash. She even quoted one of her favorite lines from a Bette Davis film: "With all my heart, I still love the man I killed." The artist was sublime singing "Hymne a L'amour" and "La Vie en Rose" in French, and she gave a beautiful rendition of Otto Harbach and Jerome Kern's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." There was a jazzed up version of "Bill," with the stunning musicianship of Shelly Markham on piano and Daniel Fabricant on bass coming in on solos. The chanteuse talked about Helen Morgan and how she loved to sit on a piano singing torch songs. She related that Ms. Morgan usually had five shots of brandy before going out on each gig. She sang Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern's "Don't Ever Leave Me" and "Why Was I Born" in tribute to this great torch singer. Andrea talked about Libby Holman, who gained notoriety at the time of the death of her husband in the 1930s. She was referred to as "a dark purple menace" by the New York Times. The artist then sang Ms. Holman's signature song, "Body and Soul." The next tribute was to the legendary Ruth Etting, with Irving Berlin's "Shaking the Blues Away" and Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn's "Love Me or Leave Me." She ended her program with Roy Turk and Fred E. Ahlert's "Mean to Me," and she asked the audience to join in on the chorus. Of course, the fans would not let her go, so for a bonus she did a swinging arrangement of B.G. DeSylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson's "Button Up Your Overcoat." Andrea Marcovicci played the Rrrazz Room from July 19 through July 30th. For more information on the room go to www.therrazzroom.com.
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