As we pause after the traditional end of last season and before the start of the next, here’s a retrospective question: Where do the plays we see on the North Coast come from? For many decades the answer would have been easy: New York. But that’s no longer true. Back in the mid-1980s I interviewed […]
theater
Posted inArts + Scene
Hesse Fit
Suppose you’re an edgy but also starving New York performer, concocting scripts allowing you to impersonate various movie divas but in genre B-movie stories with vibrant titles like Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Psycho Beach Party (which then actually becomes a B-movie). But after writing the book for a failed musical, you are told by […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Gender Blender
The stage has long been a place for disguise, and the truths that disguise may reveal. Within the permeable categories of art and entertainment, performers pretend to be who they are not. Gender has often been an element of that disguise, sometimes forced by the sanctions of a given time. Since women weren’t permitted on […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Heir Dresser
The Heir Apparent, now onstage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka, is based on a French farce written by Jean-Francois Regnard in 1708. This version is a free adaptation in English rhyme by contemporary American playwright David Ives, who previously adapted comedies by Corneille and Moliere. He adapted this play for the Shakespeare Theatre Company in […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Mad River Preview
Even the high priestess Mary Jane of the past two summers might think this is pretty far out: Dell’Arte opens this year’s Mad River Festival on June 20 with its production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. “It’s a little daunting,” director Michael Fields admitted. “But it’s good for us to push into new territory.” […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Not Normal
In the musical Next to Normal, now onstage at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka, Diana is a wife and mother who is being treated for mental illness. The story follows her treatment and how it affects her husband Dan and her teenage daughter Natalie, as well as Natalie’s relationship with her boyfriend Henry. Then […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Excuse Me, Can You Put that Out?
Editor: I enjoyed William Kowinski’s critique of Dell’Arte International’s graduating students’ three-part performance (“Creepy Characters and Clowns,” May 16). I attended, too, and although it was entertaining I would like to add my least favorite part of the evening’s shows: the constant smoking of one of the characters in the third piece. I didn’t attend […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Drama Trauma
Editor: Kjeld Lyth, the axing of whose drama program was featured in a recent NCJ (“Re-imagining CR,” April 11), sent a message of farewell to the CR community, which I summarize here: “… I have been teaching here with unyielding passion, since many of you were children. … There has not been a single word […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Late Date
How could I write a play for my fellow third graders to perform when it would be nearly a decade before I actually saw a play, live onstage? The short answer is television, specifically situation comedies. It is even now the format that any American audience is most likely to know, including audiences for the […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Loon
The Arcata Playhouse presents LOON, a peculiar, whimsical tale of love, loneliness and the moon performed by Wonderheads, a Portland-based mask/puppetry troupe formed by Dell’Arte graduates. The show runs Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m.
Posted inArts + Scene
All’s Not Well
With great playwrights and great plays comes great responsibility. All’s Well That Ends Well may not be Shakespeare’s greatest comedy, but it is at least as great as some of his plays that are performed more often. It’s full of ideas and ironies (which may well include the title). The story is rooted in ancient […]
Posted inArts + Scene
‘The Golden State’ Heads South: Dell’Arte returns to L.A.
"It was a performance in Los Angeles in 1981 that kind of put Dell’Arte on the map," Michael Fields, the Dell’Arte Company’s producing artistic director, recalled last week. "We were doing Intrigue at Ah-Pah at the Odyssey Theatre." After the first weekend, when Fields was sleeping on a borrowed floor, someone handed him a copy […]