Theater News

San Francisco Spotlight: October 2006

Strange Brew

Solange Sandy, Huey Lewis,
and Donna Marie Asbury
in Chicago
(© Richard Fahey)
Solange Sandy, Huey Lewis,
and Donna Marie Asbury
in Chicago
(© Richard Fahey)

News flash! The blockbuster musical Chicago (October 24-November 5), the story of two high-profile murderesses hungry for headlines, makes its way to San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre. The national touring production stars Bay Area hometown hero Huey Lewis as Billy Flynn, the same role the recording star previously played on Broadway, and to which he returns following this run.

A melodic soup of soul and history heats up the Berkeley Repertory Theatre which presents the world premiere of Passing Strange (October 19-December 3). The eclectic rock musical is based loosely on the life of the play’s creator, the playwright, filmmaker, musician known only as Stew. Told from the black Bohemian perspective, the cabaret-style comedy is the story of a young man’s struggle when the world he once knew radically changes, and his subsequent journey home. The ensemble cast features Stew as narrator, and the choreography will be by modern dance great Karole Armitage.

The San Jose Repertory Theatre opens its 2006-2007 season with Moonlight and Magnolias (October 15-November 12), the zany comedy written by Ron Hutchison that takes an all too real look at what really goes into the crafting of a Hollywood ending. Moonlight and Magnolias takes place inside the office of film producer David O. Selznick, who has decided three weeks into filming Gone with the Wind, that everything about it is wrong and hires “script doctor” Ben Hecht and Wizard of Oz director Victor Fleming to get it right. Broadway vet Tom Beckett plays the formidable Selznick while Fleming is played by local favorite John Procaccino.

A pregnant runaway slave condemned to hang named Dessa Rose seeks refuge in the home of an abandoned plantation mistress named Ruth, and the two grow to become the closest of friends. That’s the premise of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s musical Dessa Rose which enjoys its West Coast premiere through the TheatreWorks company this month (October 4-29). TheatreWorks’ artistic director Robert Kelly directs this production set in the antebellum South, featuring actress Carly Hughes in the title role, and Linda Muggleston, whose Broadway credits include Wonderful Town and Nine, playing Ruth.

Family values are for suckers. At least that’s the attitude of one infamous and unforgettable family where the thickness of blood means nothing when compared to the thickness of a bankroll. Diving into its second production of the season, the American Conservatory Theater stages a revival of blacklisted screenwriter Lillian Hellman’s dark melodrama The Little Foxes (October 27-November 26), the story of Regina Giddens, her two brothers Ben and Oscar Hubbard, and a cunning scheme to obtain wealth and power.

The Greeks travel to Argentina in Hipolito: Ready, Aim, Fire! (September 16-November 12) in the new play written by Hector Schujman that enjoys its English premiere at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. A collaboration between MCCL and the Teatro Didáctico, the play takes its cues from the story of Hippolytus, the character from Greek mythology who was an impressive hunter who rejected all women, especially his stepmother Phaedra. The modern retelling transports Hipolito to Argentina during one of the country’s military dictatorships and delivers a surprise ending.

Reality gets tweaked as well in Far Away (Just Theater, October 13-November 4) the apocalyptic psychological play penned by contemporary playwright Caryl Churchill, who wrote this grim and chilling production pre-9/11, and yet the thematic underpinnings between the two are uncanny. Far Away takes place in the future, where public executions are televised, elephants have sided with the Dutch, and hat-making is as revered as a Monet painting.

The Oakland Opera Theater presents composer Philip Glass’ dance-opera, Les Enfants Terrible (October 6-22), based on the 1929 Jean Cocteau film. The production, which showcases the talents of the Vietnamese performing arts group, the Nguyen Dance Company, stars noted soprano Joohee Choi as Elise, who cares for her ailing brother in the absence of their mother. Their only salvation is a place they call the “Room” where reality leaves and imagination reigns supreme (but so far away from the child-like whimsy one would hope).

Town Hall Theatre Company of Lafayette undertakes playwright Michael Frayn’s Tony Award-winning Copenhagen (October 12-November 5). In this thoughtful work, based on an actual meeting between world-renowned physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, the audience takes on the role of unseen observer of a thick and heady discussion on the harnessing of atomic energy.