September 19, 2016
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| Charlene Baldridge Photo by Ken Howard |
A busy week, indeed, ranging from the sublime (Piotr Beczala) to the absurd (The Addams Family Musical):
La Jolla Playhouse opens Tiger
Style!
(through October 2 in the Potiker Theatre,
lajollaplayhouse.org or 858-550-1010)
Raymond J. Lee and Jackie Chung in La Jolla
Playhouse’s production of TIGER STYLE!, by Mike Lew, directed by Jaime
Castañeda; running Sept 6 – Oct 2 in the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre;
photo by Jim Carmody.
Written by Mike Lew, an alumnus of La Jolla High School, Tiger Style! pays homage of sorts to
tiger-style parenting, the kind in which parents hover over their kids,
exhorting them to excel academically and become virtuoso players in the important
fields of human endeavor like education and the arts.
The comedy was engendered by Amy Chua’s controversial 2011 memoir,
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in which strict Chinese
mothering is explored.
Tiger Style! is Lew’s
comedic exploration of the lives of siblings (Jennifer Chen, played by Jackie
Chung and Albert Chen, played by Raymond J. Lee) raised as “tiger cubs” in
Irvine. The sibs, who are both Harvard grads, compare notes (he’s a computer
whiz; she’s a clinical oncologist) and assign blame for perceived failure in their
personal and professional lives. When confronted by their adult children, the parents,
played by MaryAnn Hu and David Shih (who play most all the other characters as
well), don’t exactly admit their guilt. Their rationale: Every parent,
regardless of cultural heritage, wants their children to excel.
In Act II, Jennifer and Albert decide on what turns out to
be a catastrophic “China Roots Tour” of their own devising to help them
self-identify and perhaps even relocate. Once arrived in China, they discover
that their skills are very much appreciated, but there are strings attached
if they are to be gainfully employed.
Nate Miller plays Jennifer’s Caucasian live-in lover, who
breaks up with her early in the play. He also portrays Albert’s immediate
superior at work and the U.S. Customs officer who readmits them to the U.S. at the 11th hour. The play’s huge asset is seeing Hu, Miller
and Shih adeptly playing roles so numerous and well drawn. The other unusual and
joyous aspect is a DJ named Shammy Dee, who, from a perch above the
proceedings, connects the short, cinematic scenes.
To be admired greatly is Lauren Helpern’s scenic design,
which spreads from sea to shining sea, across the width of the Poticker
Theatre, dividing the two worlds into three playing areas (left to right), the
living rooms, a park with dining facilities on a platform in the rear, and the
offices. This works wonderfully well visually; however, because of its width it presents acoustical challenges, because both Albert and Jennifer in particular rush through the
play seemingly without requisite tongues, lips, and teeth to articulate the
words. Associate Artistic Director Jaime Castañeda directs.
The play sags in Act II, desperately seeking a way out of an ever-increasingly sinister China. Then it simply ends, boom, with our
protagonists back in the states, perhaps enlightened and perhaps not. Let’s
hope that further work will be done. Meanwhile, what was understood is
extremely funny.
Addams Family delightfully
morose at Moonlight
Photos by Ken Jacques
Thursday we went to see Moonlight Stage Productions’ The Addams Family, which was new to my
experience. It debuted on Broadway in 2010 and is replete with cartoonist
Charles Addams’ set of grotesquely funny Addamses. They are, at Moonlight, Gomez (David Engel) and
Morticia (Terra C. MacLeod); Uncle Fester (Randall Hickman); Grandma (Samantha
Wynn Greenstone); daughter Wednesday (Lindsay Joan); son Pugsley (Ryan Singer);
and major domo Lurch (Dustin Ceithamer).
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| The Entire Addams Family |
The Adams Family live in a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t mansion in
Central Park (sets and costumes gloriously provided by 3-D Theatricals; book by
Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice; music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa).
Wednesday has fallen in love with Lucas Beineke (Nick Eiter), whom she
met late one night in the park while toting a crossbow, and, since marriage
seems imminent, she has invited him and his parents over for dinner to see if
the families are compatible. They are, and in extraordinary ways, with mamma Alice
Beineke (the incomparable Eileen Bowman) and Pugsley providing the means to set
free papa Mal Beineke (Corky Loupe) from decades of staidness. It’s gloriously
off-the-wall goofy, with a cadre of singing, dancing Addams Ancestors (ten of
them!) wandering about, unable to return to their crypt until true love
prevails.
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| Gomez (David Engel) and Morticia (Terra C. MacLeod) |
Prevail it does in this purposefully dark tale that
celebrates the odd in all of us, wondrously cast and directed by James Vasquez
in his way-overdue Moonlight debut. Highlights of the show: Uncle Fester’s ode
to his love, “The Moon and Me,” the fabulous “Full Disclosure” dinner party
at the end of Act I, and Gomez and Morticia’s tango, “Live Before We Die.”
Continues Wednesdays-Sundays through October 1. Everything
from reserved lawn seating (chair provided at entry) to theatre seats is
available $10-$55 with food and alcoholic beverages for purchase on site. Picnic
in your seats or on the lawn. Moonlightstage.com or 760-724-2110.
Friday is Dance
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| Ron Davis (aloft) and JP Lawson Photo by Sue Brenner |
Friday I had a rare evening off from musicals and theatre,
and spent it on dance, which I once wrote about for a long-ago publication: Fahrenheit, I think it was. The
objective was to see one of my favorites, Peter G. Kalivas (the PGK Project)
in order to see if they are still as fine as remembered. They are even finer.
Friday through Sunday, Sept.16-18, at Tango del Rey in
Pacific Beach, Kalivas and his company of five, plus apprentice dancers,
presented Break It Down, a program
featuring two Kalivas premieres – “Break It Down” and “Sound Body” -- and two “re-premieres,” one Boroka Nagy’s
“I’m Ready to Go” and the other, dancer John Paul Lawson’s “Dusk to Dawn.” During its 23-year existence (in San Diego
since 2002) PGK has always featured the work of other choreographers and now has 20
such works in its repertoire.
The company has a modern, classical feel, with emphasis on the
visceral, masculine and feminine, delivered by a personality filled troupe
whose artistry, physicality and concentration extends to their fingertips. They
are the triple-threat John Paul Lawson (he taps, too); Desiree Cuizon Fejeran,
whose attitude-filled “I’m Ready to Go” is a stitch; stately, authoritative
Jennifer Puls; the versatile and dynamic Alyssa Junious; and the truly mesmerizing
Ron Davis, who captivates one’s senses. Apprentice company (Project TOO) dancers
are Assistant Director Kymmi Kallems, Jessica Kelley, Caroline Courtney, Martin
Anthony Dorado, Kevin Truitt, Caitlyn Silvas and Cassandra Snyder.
An engrossing evening, Break
It Down was PGK’s final San Diego program of the season. They soon depart
for a tour of Washington State, among other locales. Kalivas
promises “a stunning 2017 season” with the company he founded after training
and dancing with the Joffrey and Alvin Ailey companies.
Tango del Rey has a marvelous dance floor, just the right
size for PGK; however, in my humble opinion production values would have been enhanced with some
additional lighting instruments. Oops, a note from Kalivas calls the lighting (intentionally) “moody.” The recorded sound was good and music amplification
was smooth.
Piotr Beczala in Recital
Photo Jean-Baptiste Millot
Polish Tenor Lives Up to Hype in Perfect Outing at Balboa
Theatre
It’s rare that an opera singer so completely and tirelessly
fulfills the promises made on his behalf by those eager to sell tickets to his
recital. Polish tenor Piotr Beczala, 49, did that and more Saturday night at the
Balboa Theatre, which proved the perfect recital hall, with him in it.
Beczala’s singing is impeccable, he is movie star handsome,
and so relaxed in the ease of his delivery that the recital was akin to
listening to a perfectly engineered recording – only we were here, live and
alive, listening to the voice, seeing the amazing jaw and cheekbones, and
reveling in the very model of manhood.
Purists may complain that the recital was not a formal,
usual recital – groups of related art songs followed by an operatic aria or two
– and they’d be correct. So it was an entire evening of operatic arias and
encores. Who cares? Why quibble when face to face with such an outpouring of
delight, such a surfeit of perfection?
The voice never shifts registers perceptibly: it’s just one lavish
sound from low to mid to high – all in the same pipe with no apparent “placing,”
replete (in other singers) with facial contortions and change in quality. It’s
one solid, beautiful sound, an example of what voice teachers call singing
consistently in one’s authentic voice. No fuss, no muss, no strain. And most of
all no worry about will he make the high note or not. The high voice is
glorious and reliable.
The program began with Ruggero Leoncavallo’s “Mattinata,”
which lies so high and flashy that it is usually sung near the end of a
program, when the tenor is fully warmed up. Then Beczala launched into the
arias – “De’ miei bolenti spiriti” from La
traviata, and “Di’ tu se fedele”
from Un ballo in maschera – followed by four Gypsy songs by Antonin Dvorak,
which allowed more cantabile and pianissimo singing, including a purely and
affectingly sung “Když mne stará matka zpívat, zpívat” (“Songs my mother taught
me”). Completing the recital’s first half were two more arias – “Vidino divná…”
from Rusalka and “Dein ist mein
ganzes Herz” from Das Land des Lächelns,
and “Cäcilie,” an art song by Richard Strauss.
Arias from Werther,
Romeo et Juliette, Carmen (“Flower Song,” with a ravishing pianissimo ascent at the end), and Luisa Miller began
the second section of the recital, which concluded with two arias from Tosca, “Recondita armonia” and “E
lucevan le stele,” in which Beczala poured out all the vocal beauty in the
world. Talk about sated!
As if that were not enough, Beczala sang three encores,
the first, Salvatore Cardillo’s Neopolitan song, “Core ‘ngrato,” dedicated to
his wife, who was in the audience, and the others, a Polish song by Miczylslaw
Karlowicz, and Robert Stolz’s “Ob blond, ob braun, ich liebe alle Frau’n.”
Such a generous and relaxed recital was truly a blessing (at
the piano was the incomparable Martin Katz), and I look forward to Beczala’s
return in a production, which is likely to be some years hence because he is so
much in demand. The tenor previously sang here in La bohème (2010), A Masked
Ball and Verdi Requiem (2014).
I'll be back next week with more reviews. Meanwhile, enjoy yourselves. I may be reached at charb81@gmail.com or you may comment on the blog
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